Book Description

Color is a catalyst for feelings––about how we look, decorate our home or office, plant in our garden, and relate to each other. The right colors stimulate or relax our senses, release happy memories, reflect how we feel about ourselves and our personal space. For the past twenty-five years, color authority and best-selling author, Lee Eiseman, has spoken to thousands of consumers and professionals about the influence of color.Now she provides expert answers for all of us who want more color in our lives. For The Color Answer Book, she has selected the questions people ask her most and broken them into the areas that most affect your life––emotional responses; wardrobe planning, makeup, hair color, and accessories; decorating your home and office for yourself and for those you live and work with; your health; and especially your garden or outdoor space. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Good reference book for designers
Laetrice Eiseman certainly hit on some common questions and answered them very well. This book should be read in conjunction with her other books, especially "Colors For Your Every Mood". These books are complementary.

I can't seem to get into her Color Word Association Quiz, which she has also used in another book. I like all the colors depending on context. Maybe it just isn't relevant to me yet or I'm too left-brained. It's a great concept if it works for you.

I use the Pantone Textile System for interior design. Homeowners should buy the vastly cheaper consumer version at http://www.therightcolor.com. Latrice's books are grounded in the Pantone systems and you will find her book more relevant if you make a small investment in the full color guide.

- jim

Over one hundred common questions are directly addressed
Written in question-and-answer format by worldwide leading color expert Leatrice Eiseman, and packed from cover to cover with full-color photography, The Color Answer Book: 100+ Frequently Asked Color Questions For Home, Healh And Happiness presents sound and insightful advice for color usage to decorate and enhance one's home and surroundings. More than one hundred common questions are directly addressed, concerning everything from the best colors to wear; to issues of color and health; to color in the workplace, garden and elsewhere. An informed and informative account, The Color Answer Book is simply filled with fascinating and useful trivia, -- and very highly recommended for do-it-yourself amateur as well as professional interior designers.

Beautiful job!
Ms. Eiseman delivers just what she promises here: lots of interesting and informative material about color, written in a nice conversational style. The book is lovely to look at, just as one would hope for a book of its type.
It's interesting that Eiseman addresses "theory" as much as she does, yet still manages to write a book that is so personally oriented - it's all about color's place in your OWN life. I especially like the historical information included on many points. Highly useful and enjoyable.

A Surprise and Delight-- A stunning book
This book deserves a whole universe of stars, not just 5 Stars. Most experts get "tired and repetitive" when they hit their 3rd or 4th books. But Leatrice's new book,the Color Answer Book, breaks new ground for her, yet she never diminishes her message. She informs and teaches with delightful wit and an elegant style. Most importantly, she asks the questions we ought to ask ourselves about color, but are too uninformed to know how to, even better; she gives us smart, intelligent, useful answers. What a package! Where else do you get the Questions and the Answers in Life, or in this case, in color?
Brava, Leatrice. Thank you again for giving us all a wonderful tool. This ought to be gift wrapped and packaged with "Communicating with Color" and given to anyone who has color in their life or their business.

This is going to be another book I advise my clients to run out and buy. .......... ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Innovative
This author challenges the status quo about learning and creativity. His ideas challenge you think and re-visit your preconceptions.

On the other hand, his writing style is difficult and repetitive. Although interested I found it difficult to finish this book.

if your child is a puzzle whiz, buy this book now
I read this book slowly. Word by word. Not because I am dyslexic, but because I didn't want to miss anything that the author had to say. This book let me understand that my family isn't alone in struggling with the paradox of not hearing but seeing too well. A must have book and I am a confirmed library user.

A review from a dyslexic
I read this book after seeing what other people were reading after reading Dr. Sally Shaywitz's book. The title leads me to believe I wouldn't get much from it, but I was very mistaken. I found myself underlining passages and writing notes in the margins. West details a very compelling argument. His theory is since it appears the people with literary disabilities have superior visual/spatial skills, these skills may often be mutually exclusive. Hence, people with superior literary skills often have poor visual/spatial skills. He postulates that since human society has only been post-literate for hundreds of years compared to pre-literate for thousand of years, people with better visual/spatial skills would have a survival advantage as better hunter/gatherers and avoid other dangers. People with superior literary skills in a pre-literate society would have poor survival skills although they would be needed as say shamans, storytellers or record-keepers. The theory makes sense evolutionarily as it seems to confirm Shaywitz's observation that 1 in 5 people have some reading disability. Which at the time seemed high to me. West goes on to argue that society has been selecting against people with poor literary skills and details the danger this can pose. He argues it appears that society is turning back to needing people with high visual/spatial skills with the advent of cheap highly graphic computers and other visual modes of information communication. West details several famous (Einstein, Churchill, and Edison) and not-so-famous people (Faraday, Tesla and Maxwell) with literary disabilities but superior visual/spatial skills and how their skills were important for their success. I feel that dyslexics, educators, and policy makers should read this book. West makes a very persuasive argument that society should not select for only one skill set because you never know what skills a future society may need. In an aside, the film Gattaca uses West's theory as a basis of the plot even mentioning how Einstein was dyslexic. If you find this book compelling, you will enjoy the film.

My Center Begins at a Different Place: Eccentric-Gifted
If you have your own voice, know it is precious. If your child has the same, cherish, accept and nuture it. It is hope, we all live life threaded by hope. Please read this gentleman's book, his words eclipse my own with more passion and presience.

Thank you Mr. Thomas G. West.

Dr. Mario T. Scaduto Ph.D.

language is not synonymous with intelligence
I am a spatial thinker who still struggles with language (I am autistic), and this book was amazing to me. It points out that the very same areas that cause difficulty for so many people and cause them to be looked down upon, are somehow tied into the areas of great strength that they may grow up to show. (In other words, having difficulty with language can actually be simply a symptom of having extreme ability in visual or spatial thinking).

This book has strong implications for anyone who has ever considered autism, dyslexia, or learning difficulties to be horrible things that must be stamped out. It shows that the apparent "weakness" and "lack of ability" in some areas can really be an aspect of a major (but often unrecognized) area of strength.

It speculates that the very skills that cause people to have difficulty in language and arithmetic (and hence in school) are vital and useful skills which have only recently been characterized as deficiencies. It shows that intelligence and creativity are not in fact synonymous with language ability.

People who are autistic, dyslexic, or have other "learning difficulties" may be amazed to find themselves somewhere in this book; and people who seek to eradicate autism, dyslexia, and other "learning difficulties" may open their eyes and think twice about what exactly it is that they would be eradicating. ... Read more

Book Description

Today, our environment is dominated by the visual. This book explores "visual intelligence" as a basic and indispensable tool of cultural survival. The author offers a practical manual on a non-superficial level for those who seriously want to know how images are processed, how they function in relation to our innermost beings, and how they form the psychological fabric of our political, social, and economic environment. Barry defines how we derive meaning from images and examines perceptual process, how it has evolved, and the role it plays in our thinking. She critically examines the concept of rationality and explores how visual logic works to create meaning. The book goes behind the obvious and beyond the superficial as it critically examines the visual power and logic of images, cutting across a variety of areas: perceptual psychology, art, television, film, literature, advertising, and politics.

The second section of Visual Intelligence examines the role which various media play in creating the images which impact our lives: how visual images create a language with profound psychological meaning, and how print, television, and film media manipulate images to create desired emotional effects. Close-ups explore visual subtleties in such areas as digital manipulation, camera attitudes, and contextual framing, as well as the social consequences of "image" as an abstract concept expressed in concrete visual terms. Part III looks critically at the most controversial areas of image persuasiveness today--advertising, politics, and entertainment. ... Read more

Book Description

This book uses practical applications and an accessible writing style to present a summary of psychological research on students' learning of academic subject areas. The book is organized into two main sections: the general principles of learning, memory, higher-order thinking, and motivation that apply to any school-related skill and specific developmental trends in the acquisition of skills in the areas of reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies. Unlike typical books on cognitive development, these general principles are explicitly translated to classroom practice. The reader will learn what children can understand and do at various ages in these domains. ... Read more

Amazon.com

If Barbie thinks math class is tough, what could she possibly think about math as a class of metaphorical thought? Cognitive scientists George Lakoff and Rafael Nuñez explore that theme in great depth in Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being.This book is not for the faint of heart or those with an aversion to heavy abstraction--Lakoff and Nuñez pull no punches in their analysis of mathematical thinking. Their basic premise, that all of mathematics is derived from the metaphors we use to maneuver in the world around us, is easy enough to grasp, but following the reasoning requires a willingness to approach complex mathematical and linguistic concepts--a combination that is sure to alienate a fair number of readers.

Those willing to brave its rigors will find Where Mathematics Comes From rewarding and profoundly thought-provoking. The heart of the book wrestles with the important concept of infinity and tries to explain how our limited experience in a seemingly finite world can lead to such a crazy idea. The authors know their math and their cognitive theory. While those who want their abstractions to reflect the real world rather than merely the insides of their skulls will have trouble reading while rolling their eyes, most readers will take to the new conception of mathematical thinking as a satisfying, if challenging, solution. --Rob Lightner ... Read more

Reviews (18)

Mathematics as a product of the human mind
While I agree with the previous reviewer that the authors may at times suggest a little too much credit for a work that does have its predecessors, I still consider this a great book.

By attacking the transcendental nature of mathematics, and elaborating the grounding of mathematical thought in the metaphorical mapping of the mind, many important implications arise ranging from the meaning of mathematics, the way mathematics is practiced and proofs are formulated, to the way mathematics should be taught. The authors formulate their intention to link the fields of mathematical thought and cognitive sciences to generate the field of mathematical idea analysis. They stress the point that their work should be considered as an initial step and in no way as the final word. In the analysis of the thought process a number important aspects of mathematical thought get visited. Having recently read Aczel's book about Cantor and Infinity- I now feel I over-rated it at 2 stars- Lakoff and Nunez give a treatment of the concept of infinity based on the basic metaphor of infinity (BMI) that simply ridicules Aczel's. Masterful.

Is this book perfect? It's excellent, but could (and will) be improved.

Little attention is paid to the idea of linearization that is such a central concept in much of mathematics. In attempt to save the best for last, the authors conclude with a detailed analysis of the ideas behind Euler's famous formula: e^ip = -1. They claim that such a treatment would be very helpful to develop a better understanding of the formula, than a more standard approach. It may be that my former Dutch high school education, blessed with a great math teacher, deviates from the current US standard. Yet, I must say that the analysis of Lakoff and Nunez is simply not as clear and thorough as the one I received in my teens. Not only did my high school analysis include all the metaphors but a much clearer link between the e^ip and the sin(t) + i sin(t) functions based on the Taylor expansions. It is especially in this last section that the authors undermine their cause, by making statements that an expression e^p would be devoid of implicit meaning.

While I agree with the author's central dogma of mathematics as one of the human mind's most beautiful and enduring products they sometimes take their argument just a little too far. By a careful analysis and conceptualization of simple ideas mathematics has generated formalized concepts that allowed extrapolation into conclusions that initially appeared non- or even counter-intuitive. I think, that this process has been so crucial in establishing the magic or romance of mathematics.

No matter what the authors may say, wherever in the Universe any group of beings draw the line connecting the series of points that share the same distance, r, to this center, the resulting circle will always have a 2pr circumference. They may conceptualize it completely differently, but will come to the same conclusion.

Refreshing approach to the ideas of mathematics
As a physicist and recreational mathematician, I found this book stimulating and reassuring. The connection of mathematics to human realities in our embodied world gives a new way to understand the conceptual and practical power of mathematics, as well as approach its limitations. I also found it helps to explain my preference for "seat of the pants" approach to some subjects, as contrasted to the proof-driven esthetic of many professional mathematicians. I think this book may encourage new ideas in mathematics education as well. If you're a Platonist, you'll find a lot to scream about, but its a great read for any math nut.

classic lakoff
this book is a linguist's assessment of the origin of our cognitive mathematical faculties. it is a good read, and is more satisfying than most pop-sci type books. I highly recommend reading George Gamow's 1,2,3...Infinity! along with this book.

An interesting view of the nature of mathematics
For as long as Western mathematics has been around, it has generally been viewed as having an existence independent of human experience, as belonging to a Platonic realm of forms and ideas. To make it embodied in the human psyche, as the authors attempt to do in this book, would be a sacrilege to many mathematicians. Such a move would deny the 'eternal truth' of mathematics some would argue.

But the last few decades have seen the rise of cognitive science, and this field has led to many interesting insights into the operation of mind and has demystified its status in the world. The authors though see cognitive science as being deficient in one respect: it has omitted the study of mathematical ideas from a cognitive perspective. There is no cognitive science of mathematics, they say, and hence they endeavor in the book to correct this deficiency. Such a project is definitely worth the effort, for mathematics has to be interpreted in the light of what is known about the mind, or as the authors put it, "it should study precise nature of clear mathematical intuitions".

The book is very interesting to read, and the justifications for the assertions put forward by the authors are certainly the most optimal if viewed in the context of what is currently known in cognitive science. Further work must be done however, particularly in tying their ideas to the very intensive research in neuroscience that is being done at the present time. The prospect of having a science of mathematical thought is an exciting one. This book is the best that is currently available.

The attitude of the authors is most refreshing, in that they not only show great enthusiasm throughout the book, but they are not nervous about discarding what they view as the "romance" of mathematics. They list several statements illustrating this "beautiful romance", such as the view that mathematics has an objective existence, which transcends the existence of human beings; or that human mathematics is merely a part of abstract, transcendent mathematics, and that reason is a form of mathematics. These romantic beliefs appear to be false, the authors say. Instead, they argue, the nature of mathematical ideas is that they are inherently metaphorical in nature. They give several examples of this in the first few pages of the book, with the rest of the book elaborating in great detail their reasons for asserting this.

This is certainly an exciting time to be involved in mathematics, and assuming more evidence is accumulated that supports the authors opinions on the embodied nature of mathematics, it will be even more interesting to be engaged in mathematical research and in the teaching of mathematics. Mathematical thinking will then viewed as part of us, not some abstract collection of statements existing in some vaguely defined realm. Viewing mathematics as purely embodied may also give much more insight into teaching non-human machines how to do mathematics. This is the most exciting prospect of all.

you must read this book
If you hate math, you must read this book.
If you love math, you must read this book.
If you live in the deadly icy Platonic realms, you must save your life by reading this book.
If your math teacher is confusing the hell out of you, get this book for your math teacher. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Thought provoking
This is a book rich in provoking thought. While I have read it more than once through cover to cover, I still keep it handy to read sections of again. It approaches mindfulness from a Western thought perspective and avoids the comparisons with Eastern thought. This is not a detriment. It helps to focus the material. It is also the source of much of the ongoing playing with ideas that I still find with this book. By now, you may have realized that Ellen has not presented us with a silver bullet. But she does provide much insight in the relationship between the physical and the mental. The third party view or that of an outsider coming into a group, are both inherently examples of mindfulness. Without pre-set notions, anything is possible. Read and enjoy!

Extensive, yet limited.
Langer is a good writer and her research on the subjectis very volumnous. However, the book suffers from a number of irrelavant and misplaced examples that sometimes do not at all support her points. What Lange failed to do, in my opinion, is integrate the concept of mindfulness into the larger trends in Social Psychology. The most glaring ommision is the fact that mindlessness, as Langer calls it, is derived from the naturally limited human attention abilities, has many benefits that outweight the limitations. Langer's mindlessness is better known as automaticity, and while using automatic patterns of behavior and judgment has its pitfalls, it is also responsible for making our lives run smoothly. In great majority of situations, you would much rather act automatically according to preset patterns instead of having to actively consider every option every single time.
What langer succeeds in accomplishing is making her readers aware of the way our mind works (which is always intuitive) so that they can be mindfull of our natural limitations in the instances when it could help them avert negative effects on their quality of life.

REframing mindfulness
Ellen Langer's mind first reached my ears at an international conference on thinking at MIT, 1995. One year later (inspired by her talk and my reading of her breakthrough book), I created the developing mindful leaerners model: an ecological approach for the 21st century. This became a paper for the World Future Society conference in Washington D.C. For the last seven years, my work has been to connect mindfulness, vision, framework, and content into a whole for 21st century schools. Recently, the topic of Langer's mindfulness has become a centerfold for my dissertation in educational psychology. In brief, the question is to what degree are teachers mindful of their teaching? This question creates a problem: what instrument measures mindfulness? In the case of Langer's two books, she mostly infers mindfulness from her studies rather than spell out the specific instrument she used. That does not keep her book from offering timeless insights: mindful people welcome new ideas, create new categories, hold multiple perspectives, see life as a process, reframe situations to see the positive. Such qualities tell us what we want to become as human beings creating a more mindful world.

mindful?
Ellen Langer can write really well. She can also speak really well. However, if one is truely mindful they will realize that you must become nervous about applying one theory to everything.

My professor
Ellen Langer is my professor at Harvard this semester for the Social Psychology course. Not only is she a wonderful lecturer, she's also a great writer and researcher. I'm really impressed by the volume of research her lab does and the way they extrapolate the data.

Her book is a real treat! ... Read more

Book Description

Professionals today, whether scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, or managers, need to maximize their effectiveness.Real world problems are complex and must be tackled with adequate conceptual tools.Hard work and motivation are not enough.Professionals need to think strategically in order to choose the right problem to solve, to solve it in a cost-effective way, to use resources efficiently, and to be innovative and productive.Written in a concise, accessible style, Thinking Strategically goes beyond brainstorming motivational books to provide the power tools needed to dissect problems and to find innovative solutions. These tools are based on an understanding of the power of bottlenecks, paradox, scale and perspective constraints, and feedback as leverage points for getting a grip on the problem.The result is a practical book for managers and other professionals about the strategic use of effort that can lead to astonishing levels of productivity. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

What are the three pillars of professional productivity?
Knowing how to increase my productivity has benefited me in several ways: monetarily, satisfaction, competitive advantages for myself and clients, etc. Leohle explains why skill, motivation, and strategic use of time and effort results in professional success. Worthy library addition for any thinker.

Interesting ideas on how we can be our own guru
Politicians have trusted advisers and strategists who guide them in their every move. There are, however, many professions that require innovative thinking and decision making, and whose practitioners have to be their own strategists. Of course, people in such occupations could do what most people do, which is to use a trusted colleague as a sounding board for their ideas. However, many times a colleague is not available, and even if one were, there is no guarantee that he or she will have the level of discernment needed for a particular problem. It is possible to circumvent the lack of a guru, a spin doctor or a discerning friend, by verifying our own ideas before implementing them. Loehle's book Thinking Strategically: Power Tools for Personal and Professional Advancement, teaches us how to condition our intellect to think ahead so that we can plan a strategy to attain that which is important to us. Naturally, this includes choosing the best path whilst avoiding pitfalls, side-tracking and even derailment from the path. For that, we must learn how to study the particular, while keeping an eye on the whole, and to keep in perspective several logical and causal connections simultaneously. Then, when we master how to think by ourselves, we must learn how to be our own sounding board, that is, how to check our results against all possible errors that can occur during the thinking process and compare them objectively against a known standard. This aspect of strategic thinking is referred to as reality check. The author distinguishes two types: internal and external. The former is important because many of the patterns we perceive are not real but artefacts of our imagination or, may have resulted from an array of potential errors of thinking such as faulty generalization, bad use of logic, incoherence and bad risk checking. The external reality check is like scientific hypothesis testing or the test drive of a new car, and it requires us to submit our result to an array of tests to discredit it, and finally to peer review. One does not need to be a book worm to fully appreciate this book but being reasonably well-read in scientific and technological matters will help to fully appreciate the examples taken from the great innovators. Thinking Strategically is a cornucopia of rich pickings of allegories, common sense and wisdom tempered by the amusing illustrations of Richard Loehle. I recommend this book for anyone challenged to provide novel ideas or solutions to problems still untackled by routine manuals. pires.obrien@netmatters.co.uk

This book show you how to be your own guru.
Politicians have trusted advisers and strategists who guide them in their every move. There are, however, many professions that require innovative thinking and decision making, and whose practitioners have to be their own strategists. Of course, people in such occupations could do what most people do, which is to use a trusted colleague as a sounding board for their ideas. However, many times a colleague is not available, and even if one were, there is no guarantee that he or she will have the level of discernment needed for a particular problem. It is possible to circumvent the lack of a guru, a spin doctor or a discerning friend, by verifying our own ideas before implementing them. Loehle's book Thinking Strategically: Power Tools for Personal and Professional Advancement, teaches us how to condition our intellect to think ahead so that we can plan a strategy to attain that which is important to us. Naturally, this includes choosing the best path whilst avoiding pitfalls, side-tracking and even derailment from the path. For that, we must learn how to study the particular, while keeping an eye on the whole, and to keep in perspective several logical and causal connections simultaneously. Then, when we master how to think by ourselves, we must learn how to be our own sounding board, that is, how to check our results against all possible errors that can occur during the thinking process and compare them objectively against a known standard. This aspect of strategic thinking is referred to as reality check. The author distinguishes two types: internal and external. The former is important because many of the patterns we perceive are not real but artefacts of our imagination or, may have resulted from an array of potential errors of thinking such as faulty generalization, bad use of logic, incoherence and bad risk checking. The external reality check is like scientific hypothesis testing or the test drive of a new car, and it requires us to submit our result to an array of tests to discredit it, and finally to peer review. One does not need to be a book worm to fully appreciate this book but being reasonably well-read in scientific and technological matters will help to fully appreciate the examples taken from the great innovators. Thinking Strategically is a cornucopia of rich pickings of allegories, common sense and wisdom tempered by the amusing illustrations of Richard Loehle. I recommend this book for anyone challenged to provide novel ideas or solutions to problems still untackled by routine manuals. pires.obrien@netmatters.co.uk

Good content, bad writing
This book was higly recommended to me by a colleague, and after reading it I realize that the content is indeed very good. But the aridity in the author's writing style sometimes jeopardize the content. The text should be more pleasant to read, with more passion and more fun, but instead, it reads like a scientific thesis, with almost no emotion. The few times the author tries to throw a little humor into the text, it looks like it's out of context. But, again, it is worth reading for the very well structured message about strategic thinking tools and techniques, even if ater a while you become a little bored. ... Read more

Book Description

A groundbreaking work by one of the world's foremost memory experts, THE SEVEN SINS OF MEMORY offers the first framework that explains common memory vices -- and their surprising virtues. In this intriguing study, Daniel L. Schacter explores the memory miscues that occur in everyday life: absent-mindedness, transience, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. Schacter illustrates these concepts with vivid examples -- case studies, literary excerpts, experimental evidence, and accounts of highly visible news events such as the O.J. Simpson verdict, Bill Clinton's grand jury testimony, and the search for the Oklahoma City bomber. He also delves into striking new scientific research, giving us a glimpse of the fascinating neurology of memory. Together, the stories and the scientific results provide a new look at our brains and at what we more generally think of as our minds.

Winner of the William James Book Award ... Read more

Reviews (26)

"A Memory Expert Explains Our Sometimes Imperfect Memory"
"The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers", ISBN 0-6518-04019-6 (H/C), Houghton Mifflin, 2001 is a 206 page treatise by accomplished author Daniel L. Schacter.

We are given an enticing introduction that is a snapshot of the 8 chapters which follow, the first 7 dealing with the seven sins: Transience, Absent-mindedness, Blocking, Misattribution, Suggestibility, Bias, and Persistence. The final chapter "...Vices or Virtues?" is a grand climateric which reviews the intrinsic(s) of each virtue and a discourse on origin of memory sins: whether collosal blunder by Mother Nature or a by-product of otherwise adaptive features of memory and in which the best explanations might be explored utilizing "reverse-engineering" theorizing.

The book both is and is not a teaching text: it may be read for general concept but also reaches into deeper levels of cognitive processes which may invoke tedious but pleasureable ratiocination. The case of mnemonist Shereshevski whose virtual (near total) recall of everything, significant and insignificant, precluded his ability to function at an abstract level gives us pause.

Sources of these memory pecadilloes is discussed as adaptive (adaptation), exaption (SJG), and spandrel, where the faux pas are not mere nuisances, and where memory links our past with the present and is available for future reference. Again, though the book reads easily, there is an enormous wealth of data and tentative assumptions which causes us to ruminate with weighty passion; and, if we are so disposed, to ponder the wither of memory and its various modes of rigidity, plasticity, and specious nature - and shown to vary betwixt the sexes and within the sexes. The author provokes us to mull these issues and so try to grasp the delicate wonderment of memory and those old ghost glories again to rise.

An error to be pointed out to the reader lies on page 182 which states "-the beta-blocker propanolol - that prevents the release of stress-related hormone." should read "...that prevents the action of stress-related hormone."

The book has sundry good features including 21 pages of notes, 26 pages of significant bibliography, and 14 page index written by seasoned writer of 8 prior books on memory. It is highly recommended and I believe it will improve your memory also.

Finding Faults, and Praising Them
Everyone, even young people, has suffered the frustration of an imperfect memory. What does not get acknowledged is that those frustrations, as common as they are, are only frustrating because they are so uncommon. Most of the time our memories function incredibly well. But as in most of neuroscience, when the brain doesn't function well, that's when we get a picture of what it is doing. A fascinating book, _The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers_ (Houghton Mifflin) by Daniel L. Schacter, details just how memory goes wrong, and gives some answers about why. Most important, it tells how at least some of memory's mistakes are directly related to it's remarkable, almost error-free, functioning. Schacter is a neuropsychologist who has written about memory in both academic and popular publications, but his descriptions of the seven ways memory fails are novel, and everyone will recognize at least some of the failures, since they are universal.

Schacter devotes a chapter to each of the sins, like transience, absentmindedness, and so on. There is a chapter on the sin of blocking. We have a phrase for it: "It's on the tip of my tongue." This one is so universal that of fifty-one languages surveyed, forty-five have a similar phrase (the Cheyenne translates to "I have lost it on my tongue."). It is far more likely to happen when you are trying to remember someone's name; remembering Mr. Baker is much harder to remember than the word "baker" because Mr. Baker designates one individual, whereas "baker" designates a well known range of activities and products. One of the traps people fall into is while trying to retrieve a tip-of-the-tongue word, they find a sound-alike word and keep hitting on that, which delays finding the target word.

There is lots that can go wrong with memory, and Schacter presents amazing clinical cases, like the man who had no capacity to remember anyone's name while he could remember other things without difficulty, to show specific and extreme problems. But in the final chapter of the book Schacter reports that these sins are not design flaws, not products of a basically defective system. He uses (but does not over-use) evolutionary biology to show that brains have made trade-offs to produce a useful working system that will quite naturally fail in some instances. It might be handy to remember absolutely everything, but then our minds would be too crowded to do other things efficiently; there have been cases of people who formed memories of virtually everything that happened to them, and were so inundated with details they could not function in the real world. The brain is made to forget things it does not use regularly. You can read this book and become more forgiving about your own forgetfulness and others; Schacter's readable, fascinating account will make you admire just how well your faulty memory works.

Entertaining, as far as I recall.
Now, what was I going to say? Oh yes, no more corny humor! An entertaining, informative and well-written read on just how memory can fail us. Illustrated with amusing anecdotes like those of a former US National Memory Champion who's absent minded. Helps to distinguish between seemingly similar but quite distinct flaws of memory. Seeks to emphasize that these flaws are not leftovers or design flaws but a direct consequence of how memory functions. Offers some basic advice on how to minimize them.

Very reassuring
Schacter's descriptions of the seven "sins" of memory are reassuring to all of us who have experienced any (or all) of them and wondered if it's our own memories that are starting to malfunction. He includes terrific examples (personal, historical, scientific, and anecdotal) of each that help to make the complex constructs of memory understandable to all.

I wish there could have been some more effective editing of this volume, however...a few of Schacter's examples are, unfortunately, laughable:

-----Schacter seems to think that Al Capone (not Al Capp) was the creator of the Li'l Abner comic strip (funny mistake for a book on memory lapses).
-----Schacter also believes that when high school students neglect to do their homework, it is because of some memory issue; he describes a study where a mandatory parental signature system is put into place to help students "remember" to do their work. While the new system may have successfully gotten more students to do their assignments, he's pretty gullible to believe students when they say they "forgot". (Gee, do you think the students just had other things they'd rather be doing than their homework?).
-----He attributes to a "sin" of memory the fact that before important playoff games, Red Sox fans have a number of reasons why they think their team will win, while after the team loses, the same fans "forget" that they expected a victory and now have an equal number of reasons why they think the team lost. Come on now, Dr. Schacter, you know that's not a memory issue, that's simply a "hope springs eternal" issue.

Otherwise, don't forget to read this book!

Interesting for Scientific and Popular Readers Alike
As a graduate student who studies human memory (and its errors), I picked up this book as a "fun read" to suppliment my academic curiosity. While I am familar with much of the research Dr. Schacter summerizes in this book, I never found the text "too dumbed down" for my taste. In fact, I found it to be a very enjoyable read and discovered many new studies I was previously not familar with. At the same time, I do not think this book is too technical for the average educated reader that may not be familar with memory or even psychological research. Dr. Schacter's book provides an interesting framework for considering many of the everyday (and not so everyday) problems with memory. By combining research from psychology and neuroscience, with anecdotes from popular culture and history "The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers" gives a complete overview that is both stimulating and entertaining. ... Read more

Book Description

A leading MIT social scientist and consultant examines five professions--engineering, architecture, management, psychotherapy, and town planning--to show how professionals really go about solving problems. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Great Reading for Change Consultants!
Schon's work is critical for understanding organizational learning and management development. I quote his work in my book, "Strategic Organizational Change." Dr. Michael Beitler

This is an educational theory book
This book discusses the history and theory of professional learning. Schon spends a great deal of time justifying what every professional knows - that framing problems is difficult and that book learning is insufficient to deal with these problems.

If you are interested in positivism, technical rationality, and the evolution of the modern professional school, then this book is loaded with meaty material. If, however, you want to apply methods built upon other epistemologies, go straight to his 2nd book, "Educating the Reflective Practitioner".

The book is well thought out, but I found it a heavy read. Not for the faint-of-heart.

I got a lot out of it. Recommended only for epistemology or history of professional school wonks.

Tough reading - but definitly worht it !
A word of warning. This book is hard to read. Some things are reapeated over and over, while other detailes are never given proper treatment.

But - if you don't mind spending some time reading and analyzing the book, there are heaps of golden nuggets to find.

Schön illustrates why rational design processes doesn't work in reality (for computer enthusiasts this means an explanation of why the waterfall model will never work on real life problems). Instead he tries to explain how designer (architects, musicians, engineers etc.) really work, when they solve real problems. And how to teach expert knowledge to others.

I highly recommend this book for non-whimps...;-)

A must read for self-aware practitioners
In this book, Schon gives us a language for understanding professional practice. Because the sum of what a professional knows is greater than the sum of what he is aware he knows -- let alone the totality of what he can articulate -- there is a hidden world of practitioner competence. I found Schon to be a little repetitive and his examples difficult to fully conceptualize. However, his discussion of the Technical Rationality model and his vignettes of five professions provide a framework which may be applied to the practice of any profession. I believe that readers of this book can enhance their self-awareness as professionals and artists. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Great Guide to Intuition
Having read several books on intuition, I believe that Frances Vaughan's book is the all encompassing guide on intuition. The author describes intuition at all levels of human experience and is the only text that I have come across that is able to truly describe a complex subject in a manner that is relatively easy to understand. I have owned this book for several years and everytime I read it, I gain some additional insight into this important faculty of the mind. I encourage the reader to read the book several times since every additional attempt will enhance their intuitive capability. ... Read more

Amazon.com

With the many recent advances in technology, it seems, there has followed a diminution of quality. Electronic books have several advantages over their print counterparts, for instance. But for the time being, they're hard to use and unattractive to boot. Computers, which are supposed to make our lives easier, are commonly sources of frustration and wasted time. Movies are wondrously chock-a-block with special effects--but someone forgot the story. And so on.

Donald Norman, a retired professor of cognitive science, is bothered to no end by the fact that grappling with unfriendly objects now takes up so many of our hours. Over the course of several books, of which The Psychology of Everyday Things was the first, he has railed against bad design. He scrutinizes a range of artifacts that are supposed to make our daily living a little easier, and he finds most of them wanting. Why, he asks, does a door need instructions that say "push" or "pull"? A well-designed object, he argues, is self-explanatory. But well-designed objects are increasingly rare, for the present culture places a higher value on aesthetics than utility, even with such items as cordless screwdrivers, dresser drawers, and kitchen cabinets. In their concern for creating "art," many designers don't seem to consider what people actually do with things. Such disregard, Norman suggests, leads to few objects being standardized: think of all the different kinds of unsynchronized clocks that lurk in microwave ovens, VCRs, coffee makers, and the like--and of all the different kinds of batteries needed to drive them. Why, he wonders, must we reset all those clocks whenever the power goes off? Some designer somewhere, he ventures, ought to develop a master clock that communicates with all other electric clocks in a home--one that, when reset, synchronizes its slave units.

You don't need to be especially interested in technological matters to enjoy Norman's arguments. The book's underlying question is aimed at a global audience: will the design of everyday things improve? If this entertaining and, yes, well-designed book changes even a few minds, perhaps it will. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Reviews (17)

An excellent starter book for user interface design!
This was my first human factors type book, and I very much enjoyed it. As a software engineer, this book was very helpful in putting a structure to ideas that I had thought of as common sense. Ideas such as giving the user visual cues as to function, providing feedback, and presenting the user with a clear conceptual model are a few of the ideas which are outlined in this book. While any one of these might be thought of as obvious once illustrated, the book provides a framework for design by listing them and making it clear what the tradeoffs are. With many real world examples to illustrate his points, as well as to amuse the reader, I found this book very clear and easy to read. The next time that I sit down to design a user interface I'll have a much clearer and organized approach to both design and to evaluate the design that I've created.

Design for everyday Human Behavior
This is one of the seminal works in the field of User Centered Design...Norman wrote this book well before the Windows operating system was as familiar as the Golden Arches which only reinforces the idea that certain basic usability principles transcend all forms of objects-from glass doors to Windows Explorer.

Norman does a great job of describing why and how we successfully and unsuccessfully use everyday objects with relevant anecdotes. His stories are usually accompanied with lists of principles that explain good design and account for human behavior. For example, the fundamental principals of designing for people are to: Provide a good conceptual model, make controls visible and to constantly provide feedback to the user.

So how does one employ good user-centered design? Norman recapitulates his points at the end of the book by listing the seven UCD principles for transforming difficult tasks into easy ones:

1. Use both knowledge in the world and in the head
2. Simplify the structure of tasks
3. Make things visible
4. Get the mappings right
5. Exploit the powers of constraints Natural & Artificial
6. Design for Error
7. When all else fails, standardize

It's mandatory reading for any usability software engineer but also an interesting and well written book for anyone who's ever pushed a "pull door" or scalded themselves in the shower (which is all of us).

A brief introduction to human-machine interactions
This book, while dated, attracted my attention as a primer for the world of human-machine interactions. It covers well some common mistakes made by designers, and offers different ways of thinking (and procedures) crafted to help those building interfaces (physical or electronic) improve the experience of th end user.

I'd love to see this book brought back to life in an updated, modern form; even so, the content within is highly relevant to today's computer-driven world. This, and many like it, should be required reading for anyone designing something that another human will be required to use.

Interesting for everyone
This is not a book on Psychology, nor it is written just for designers. Every person who read this book will find interesting information and will recognize some own experiences trying to make some devices work, and I do not mean complex ones, but as simple as a light switch.

Actually, as the title reads, the book deals with "everyday things," though there are some parts that use examples like a nuclear plant or a cockpit.

Of course, we do not need to read this book to use such things, but you would enjoy reading it.

Changed my thinking
This is the most inspiring design book I've every read. I wish it was mandatory for all designers. Even a non-designer would appreciate the way this book can open your eyes to the design of all things around us, and realise the good and the bad, and even the how and why.

Too many designers sell out to "being different" without thinking of functionality and usability. This book helped me appreciate the beauty of the marriage of form and function, and it established the foundation of the way I approach my design. ... Read more

Book Description

Complete coverage of the extended and revised popular cognitive assessment test for children ages 2 years, 6 months to 7 years, 3 months

Essentials of WPPSI™-III Assessment offers state-of-the-art instructions for administering, scoring, and interpreting the revised and updated edition of this widely used cognitive assessment instrument for preschool children. Coverage includes insight into every revision of the WPPSI™-III. Clear interpretive guidelines help WPPSI™-III users navigate through the scores from fourteen subtests, seven of which are new. The authors highlight common clinical applications of the WPPSI™-III, such as assessment of language disorders, giftedness, and mental retardation. In addition, the authors provide expert guidance on how to perform cross-battery analysis to link WPPSI™-III results with achievement measures, such as the WIAT®-II.

Like all the volumes in the Essentials of Psychological Assessment series, this book is designed to help busy mental health professionals quickly acquire the knowledge and skills they need to make optimal use of a major psychological assessment instrument. Each concise chapter features numerous callout boxes highlighting key concepts, bulleted points, and extensive illustrative material, as well as "Test Yourself" questions that help you gauge and reinforce your understanding of the information covered.

Complete with new clinical studies and applications, Essentials of WPPSI™-III Assessment provides comprehensive coverage of test administration, scoring, and interpretation of this widely used test battery. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (2)

My son conquered his OCD with help from this book
After searching the internet and reading many books for information in an effort to understand the condition my son suddenly developed, many references were made to this treatment manual. Although I am only a parent, and this book is meant for therapists, I decided to purchase it anyway. Along with my son's therapist and a low dose of medication, we used the methods and suggestions in this book to overcome his OCD. The real therapy happens at home with strong family involvement and support, so parents need to fully understand what they need to do. This book clearly guides you through the exposure and response prevention therapy steps, which is the only therapy that will help someone overcome OCD. Although I found some parts to be technical, rereading them helped me understand them better. I recommend this book for motivated parents, children & adolescents who want to overcome their OCD. The therapy is hard work, but after several weeks, you will be much better!

A must have treatment manual
John March is author of one of the best treatment manuals I have ever laid my eyes on. He and Mulle have laid out in very clear fashion what steps to follow in treating OCD in a child or adolescent. They add tips on what to do when problems arise and include gems of clinical knowledge that make this a must have resource for anyone treating OCD. While the book is about treating children and adolescents I have found it helped me think more clearly about doing the same type of treatment with adults. This book is directed toward the therapists who may not have a backround in cognitive behavioral treatment and explains some concepts that may seem strange to those from other backrounds. It is not written for parents but I have recomended it to them since there is little else around that explains things any where near as clearly. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

Between Bateson and Buddha are Maturana and Varela
This book was my introduction to the concept of autopoesis, the process of self-creation.

The book is constucted in a circular path taking the reader from the beginning of the big bang, and working up from atoms to molecules, molecules to organisms, organisms to multicellular life forms and from there into the linguistic domain and language.

Each of these shift to the next level is a result of the interplay of the forces of structural integrity to keep the organism together and whole, and adaptation to the surrounding environment. Like the Escher drawing of one hand drawing the other in a chicken-and-egg creation loop, conservation of structure and adaptation to environment each give rise to the other.

The universe is self created -- no God required!

The authors present biology in the most beautiful poetic prose. If high school biology were this eloquent I may have taken a different path, i.e., my ontogenic drift would have been altered.

Reading their words, I had the same response as I do to the poetry of Wallace Stevens. The show clearly how language is something we "do" and a medium in which we exist. How language gives rise to mind, consciousness and self-awareness. It brought new meaning to Steven's line, "Man made out of words."

Part of their narrative drift is an explanation of the workings of the neurosystem. How it is neither representational or solipsistic. We are not "like" computers at all. We do not repond to "reality" out there, but to the neural electrical impulses the external reality triggers on our membrane. From these impulses to the brain, we create a model of the world and respond to that. Looking at others respond we say they exhibit certain behaviour because we interpret their movement in the context with which we see them.

Their entire approach is systems oriented. They stop and language and consciousness, but I would be interested in seeing how their ideas continue into the realm of economics and culture. But these areas are out of scope for this slim volume.

If you are interested in biology, NLP, Buddhism, neurology, linguistics, systems theory, Bateson, Stevens or the movie "The Matrix," this book will give you a lot to chew on for a good long while. Highly recommended.

Hopefully more people will read this...
It's strange why autopoiesis has taken so long to be taken seriously when there is overwhelming evidence from many fields that we need to move away from our old paradigms of thought, particularly our reliance on Aristotelian logic. Whether one looks at Prigogine, Perlovsky, Chaitin or Jantsch there is clear evidence that we (and I mean those embedded with the 'grand' tradition European thought) of desperately need to change our way of looking at the universe.

This book presents a clear overview of how Maturana and Varela arrived at their conclusions. There are many sidebars that fully explain important points; it is obvious these two are good professors and know where they need to go into more depth so the reader may grasp salient arguments. Their views on cognition and knowledge are very different from the child-like expositions put forward by the vast majority of Western philosophers and this book develops the groundwork for understanding autopoiesis.

Post-rationalist thought is just beginning to be a "field" in Western philosophy and this book should be on the shelves of anyone interested in trying to really understand the universe.

Do not forget the partner and the parent
However Amazon writes "by Humberto Maturana" we cannot forget the other writer (Francisco Varela) dead about three years.

Both come from the research started by Stafford Beer in Chile and they are not alone: People as Terry Winograd or Fernando Flores are in the same package and all of them give powerful reasons against the so-called GOFAI (Good-Old-Fashioned-Artificial-Intelligence).

Maturana and Varela are not the first but, for sure, they are among the brightest.

poor psychology....
if you want psychology paul watzlawick is really worth.

The Red Pill
The reason I like it is not because I suddenly got interest in the field of biology, but it gives me an exposition of Phenomenonlogy philosophy (Husserl, Heiddeger, Gadamer), not from very abstract first philosophical princples, but from phisical and biological roots, so renders this heavy idea far eaiser to be assimilated (although it is still enormously heavy to me:-) ).

So why I like Phenomenology and Autopoiesis? It fundamentally change the way I see the world, both in terms of the nature, humanbeing, and society. Those concepts of "Structural Coupling", "Natural Drifting", "Structure Determined Behavior", "Consensual Domain" are very powerful and proves how so much of our common sense are fundamentally wrong. Those powerful idea has implications and applications, which permeat our life everytime, everywhere.

Drawing on those conceptualizations, I can induce convicing answers to those seemingly simple, but actually very complex questions, at a underlying structural level, such as why defeating ourselves and changing our bad habit is so difficult and how to achieve that feat? How we can be in control of our own lives? Why misunderstanding with and among our relatives, friends are so common, and how to handle? Why different persons have the exactly contrary interpretations to the same situation, the root of multi-perspectives? Why constantly our contributions to others result in indifferent response or even revenge (this conceptulization is actually, sometimes wrong).... and, maybe most importantly, why love lies at the core of our being!

I also, borrows the idea of Autopoieis to elaborate and address the corporate cutural issues inherent in the ERP system implementation, which is the core idea of my dissertation that I am now working on.

Rememeber "Matrix"? the movie features Lewis, the idea behind this movie can be explained precisely by the concept Autopoiesis. The idea of Matrix, which is built to control human mind and render them to slaves of power supplier is ofcourse, radical, but if we can learn from Neo, the main figure, try to break out of our mind structure, to learn to be more open, then it is much likely that we can realize our full potential as human being, the most advanced form of Autopoiesis. The concept of Autopoiesis gives you the RED PILL!

Science is powerful not because it is true, science is true because it is powerful! I believe if I keep asking myself the question "why", remain "childish" in this sense, then I gonna make a difference from the ORIGINAL me! ... Read more

Book Description

Cutting-edge and "big-picture" in perspective, this popular introduction to cognitive development focuses on both the fascinating nature of children's thinking and the excitement and change in work in this area. Using an integrated topical approach, it explores the developmental aspects of social cognition, perception, memory, and language. Theoretically balanced, it considers the full spectrum of approaches--from Piaget's developmental stages, to information-processing (including connectionism), dynamic systems, contextual, theory-change, neo-Piagetian, evolutionary, neuroscience, and constraint approaches.Infant Perception. Infant Cognition. Representation and Concepts. Reasoning and Problem Solving. Social Cognition/Theory of Mind. Memory. Language.For anyone interested in child development, including parents, students, and those in psychology, social work, education, etc. ... Read more

Book Description

"This is a monumental work, covering a wide range of topics, both classical findings and recent approaches on the frontiers of research." -- Anne Treisman, Princeton University

This book revolutionizes how vision can be taught to undergraduate and graduate students in cognitive science, psychology, and optometry. It is the first comprehensive textbook on vision to reflect the integrated computational approach of modern research scientists. This new interdisciplinary approach, called "vision science," integrates psychological, computational, and neuroscientific perspectives.

The book covers all major topics related to vision, from early neural processing of image structure in the retina to high-level visual attention, memory, imagery, and awareness. The presentation throughout is theoretically sophisticated yet requires minimal knowledge of mathematics. There is also an extensive glossary, as well as appendices on psychophysical methods, connectionist modeling, and color technology. The book will serve not only as a comprehensive textbook on vision, but also as a valuable reference for researchers in cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, computer science, optometry, and philosophy. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Psychology & Neurophysiology of Vision Science
Stephen Palmer has written a marvelous book. Its well organized and written. It is suitable as a reference & text for those beginning and advancing to higher levels in Vision Science. The pictures, diagrams, graphs, charts, photos, and outlines are well placed and explained in the body of the text. Because Dr. Palmer is first a Neuropsychologist, the approach is more geared toward psychological mechanisms & psychophysics. The emphasis is less on Biological Approaches to Visual Function. This & Chalupa's 2 Volume Set should get novice to intermediate scientists going further in Vision Science!

I can't believe it's an one-author book
This book covers neuro, behavioral, computer science, almost everything about vision science, and very organized. at the bottom line, this book can be a good reference for vision science.

A book that's as good as its cover
As an interested academic in a completely unrelated field (chemistry) Palmer's book was only the second cognitive psychology text that I had ever read. It was an "eye opener." There should be awards given to authors who commit themselves and succeed at the task of what Palmer has done here. The book was comprehensive and didn't pull any punches, but was still very readable. The quality of the writing and organization leads me to assume that the man is a gifted teacher as well. The layout, glossary, index, and organization of the text were clearly constructed with the reader in mind. Five star reviews at Amazon.com should be reserved for books of this quality.

A unique text for students and researchers alike.
This is an excellent book! Steve Palmer is perhaps best known for his work on perceptual grouping and perceptual organization. With this text, however, Palmer proves that his interests extend beyond these boundaries into the domain of perception as a whole. Palmer also demonstrates that his interests are not confined by one methodology either. Presenting findings from a number of perspectives is one of the things that excites Palmer the most, and he does it like no other. By making use of relevant research in neuroscience, psychology, computer vision and linguistics, to name a few, Palmer develops a unified text for the emerging domain of "Vision Science", a subfield of the larger interdisciplinary enterprise of Cognitive Science.

Palmer's book differs from other books on visual perception in three major ways. First, Palmer introduces the major theoretical perspectives to visual perception--inferential, ecological and computational-- early in the text and then places empirical findings throughout the text in the context of these perspectives. Second, Palmer presents findings from a number of disciplines in an integrated fashion. As opposed to having separate sections for neuroscience, computer vision and perceptual development, for example, Palmer presents research from multiple disciplines as it relates to relevant areas of visual perception, such as perceptual organization or object recognition. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Palmer resists the temptation to dichotomize. The discussions of the literature are sophisticated, presenting both the pros and the cons of different approaches to phenomena in perception, even venturing to propose novel theoretical syntheses at various points in the book.

For anyone who is interested in visual perception, neuroscience, computer vision, or just Cognitive Science in general, this is a book that you must have on your book shelf. ... Read more

Book Description

The Alex Studies Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots Irene Maxine Pepperberg Can a parrot understand complex concepts and mean what it says? Since the early 1900s, most studies on animal-human communication have focused on great apes and a few cetacean species. Birds were rarely used in similar studies on the grounds that they were merely talented mimics--that they were, after all, "birdbrains." Experiments performed primarily on pigeons in Skinner boxes demonstrated capacities inferior to those of mammals; these results were thought to reflect the capacities of all birds, despite evidence suggesting that species such as jays, crows, and parrots might be capable of more impressive cognitive feats.Twenty years ago Irene Pepperberg set out to d