Book Description

Mastering the art of problem solving takes more than proficiency with basic calculations; it requires understanding how people use information, recognizing the importance of ideology, learning the art of storytelling, and acknowledging the important distinction between facts and values. Intended for professors, managers, entrepreneurs, and students, this guide addresses these and other essential skills. With clear prose, quotations, and exercises for solving problems in the real world, this book serves as an ideal training manual for those who are new to or intimidated by quantitative analysis and an excellent refresher for those who have more experience but want to improve the quality of their data, the clarity of their graphics, and the cogency of their arguments. ... Read more

Reviews (16)

It's Invaluable and Fun!
Turning Numbers Into Knowledge deals with the fundamentals of analysis, research, and problem solving, not with their fashionable technical adornments. It is a tremendous resource for anyone wanting to critically review anything from costly, technical studies to everyday rhetorical argument.

The adjectives that came to my mind as I read Turning Numbers Into Knowledge were, "Engaging, comprehensive, down-to-Earth, well-researched, well-written, well-planned, well-documented, creative, helpful, entertaining, filled with useful resource material, user-friendly, personal, witty, and wise."

Whereas I had anticipated a ponderous technical tract, Turning Numbers Into Knowledge entertainingly deals with problem solving and analysis in its broadest context, including the often-ignored yet critical human elements. Because of its breadth, I can scarcely think of any scientist, social scientist, student, researcher, writer, or policy analyst who could not benefit from this book. Its lessons are brought home with cleverly chosen anecdotes and lucid examples. The reader is rewarded frequently with wonderful quotations and great cartoons.

What Koomey says about use of the Internet, web sites, and information dissemination over the Internet also has valuable implications for modern administrators, project managers, and executive directors whose organizational management responsibilities increasingly include management and dissemination of information.

As with other classics, I expect Turning Numbers Into Knowledge to be in print for a long time and would not be surprised to see students a generation from now relying on a future edition. Jon Koomey is a hard worker, clear thinker, and has produced an extraordinarily useful book that will help the practitioners of science, research, policy analysis, and journalism in the pursuit of truth.

Great treatise on critical thinking and organization
"Turning Numbers Into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving" should be required reading for anyone engaged in producing, reading, or analysing information. Based on the title one might assume that I mean numerical information, but that is not the case at all. The basic principles, such as how to sift through information and the importance of documentation of sources, are important parts of any information product. In fact, except for the sections on graphs, tables, normalizing data and a few others, the rest of the book (fully at least three quarters of it) is dedicated to determining what constitutes good information, good techniques, good analysis, good documentation, etc. This is a book on problem solving techniques and analysis of the information products of others.

Filled with useful tools and tips for problem solving under real-life situations it is one of the most useful books available. "Turning Numbers Into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving" is a masterful work in the area of critical analysis and a highly recommended read for anyone involved in creating or using information of any kind.

not for the technically minded
This is an entertaining and well written book on some of the do's and don'ts of data analysis. To quote from Dr. Beers review below, "The main emphasis is on the art of data interpretation." Indeed there are useful tools here for performing sanity checks and for asking critical questions about all sorts of data collections. ... The examples are, at best, sketchy and few in number. The anectodes are amusing but not terribly informative. I would have much preferred more concrete examples and further discussion on some technical matters. ....

TNIK: For scientists & non-scientists alike
I began to enjoy the book almost from the very beginning, the writing style is easy to follow, and its explanations are straight to the point.

Non-scientists & scientists alike will find useful:
1) the methods and ideas for analyzing and testing for plausibility the everyday information encountered in the media,
pointers to finding logical flaws in arguments, and common tricks used by presenters in order to be ambiguous or downright deceptive.
2) simple methods of keeping facts at your fingertips
3) the chapters on life improvement and work-efficiency which made this book pay for itself in a matter of days.
4) helpful links to the Internet and to other books.

Scientists and Engineers in particular will find useful
· The back-of-the-envelope numerical methods. Many sci/engs do not use them enough.
· The description of the scientific process, of which they are (often unconsciously) a part.
· Suggestions on efficient, non-sloppy data analysis. The examples on data analysis are somewhat geared to the field of Energy Analysis, but easy to understand and generalize; in the process I learnt something about that field.
· suggestions for clear, concise presentation of text and figures during presentation of results.

This is also a good book to lend to a student intern or new employee to teach them back of the envelope statistical methods, how to get organized, and good habits, both organizational and data-analysis wise.

Among the most influential books I've read
I was expecting a book about quantitative methods and advanced problem solving techniques. What I got, instead, was a book that didn't even discuss numbers until page 111 of a 221 page book, and it was lite on problem solving techniques. Although it was not what I expected it turned out to be one of those rare books that deeply influences and provides fresh perspectives. The book led me on a journey that broke the process of critical thinking into manageable steps. Among the things I learned were:

* Examine key factors, such as information, attention and action within the context of a cycle of actions that begins with goals, and moves through execution, how events in the external world influence the meeting of those goals, an evaluation and refinement of goals. Then the process starts anew.

* Structured methods for getting organized. The techniques given are simple, yet powerful.How to collect and critically analyze data and information, common fallacies and how to spot them. Two of my favorite parts that reinforce these are then single-page chart titled "What Scientists Say, and What They Mean", and Chapter 20 (Uncertainty Principle and the Mass Media).

* The straightforward process of numerical analysis, using relatively simple math techniques to make sense of numbers and turn them into knowledge, is priceless. What makes this part of the book valuable is that the author integrates the preceding chapters that lead you to a critical thinking mindset with common sense and techniques that are within the grasp of high school students. It looks easy, but is testimony to the author's exceptional ability to communicate and inspire.

Overall this book is one of my personal favorites and one that I recommend to colleagues. Another book that complements this one nicely is Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity by Jamshid Gharajedaghi. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (7)

Better Than 6 Months of Therapy (at least for me)
I'm an extremely rational and intelligent person.Over the course of my life, I've spent months and months in touchy-feely therapy being told to "be IN my emotions", which I will be the first to admit is better than being "out of my emotions", but never really gave me the "ah ha" I was looking for.

Dr. Ekman's book did. It was so nice to be able to learn the science behind emotions and how they work on many different levels.It was beyond nice to have a book rooted in science, rather than what some person thinks may be true about a subject.I have a totally different relationship with my emotions now and they seem almost like brand new toys that I get to play with all day long!

OK, I admit the writing style could be better, a few more tables and a more spartan use of the word 'I', but it wasn't hard to get past that and the content more than made up for it.This book has gone onto my life list of books everybody should read.

Interesting science, but poorly organized and written.
Who isn't captivated by the unspoken language of expression.Very few in science today would dispute that non-verbal expression contributes a signficant amount of "information rate transfer" in every human to human exchange.

That's why I ordered this book.I was curious to know how the mechanics of non-verbal expression (manifested in the face) generally worked.Paul Ekman has been at the forefront of this research since the mid-sixties.Before ordering, I spent some time at his site (of same name as the book) and was impressed enough to do what the site pushes you to do: order the book...

I was mildly dissapointed.While the book has plenty of interesting factoids, from the beginning it felt way overwritten.Almost like the author had a 24 page lesson plan and decided to stretch it out to 240 pages.In my opinion, there is allot of "fluff".Granted, some may be interested in reading 20 pages about the fact that emotions are nature (vs. nurture) across all cultures...well, that was hotly debated 20 years ago, now it's generally accepted as fact...move on.

The meat of my issue with the book is that it should have been a lesson plan.My favorite part of the book is at the end when there are 14 pages of faces with barely registered emotion on them that you have to discern the meaning in.I wanted that throughout the book.

If you have a particular fascination with this subject, I'd recommend ordering the CD's and using the interactive lesson plan.Skip the book.

Hope this was helpful.

Not a lot of useful information
I got this book after reading Malcolm Gladwell's lovely New Yorker piece on Paul Ekman.I was looking for an accessable introduction to FACS, Ekman's facial coding system, but this book wasn't it.Emotions Revealed is perhaps too accessable, with copious fluff and very little real content.

After an introduction to Ekmans work, the book is divided into chapters on each emotion.Each chapter is further subdivided into: 1) anecdotes about people feeling emotions (useless), 2) at most two pages on the facial expression associated with the emotion (the meat, if you will), 3) speculation on why you might feel the emotion (useless), and 4) suggestions on how to react if you see this emotion on others (situation dependant & therefore useless).

Ekman's strength is in the clinical study of facial expression, not in writing anecdotal psychobabble.Skip this book if you already know the gist of his work.

Get the training CDs as well!
The book is outstanding but you should definitely get the 2 TRAINING CDs on microexpressions, available from the website of the same name as the book.

WOW, Great Information for all professions
This is an exceptionally well written book with ideas that would benefit all professionals.There are several concepts in this book that I personally found interesting.I highly recommend this book to all that deal with adverse environments, which of course is all of us. ... Read more

Book Description

Simplify your search for effective therapies with this comprehensive volume, filled with several different, yet often complementary approaches to treatment. Provides alternative, proven methods for treating problems such as truancy, disruptiveness, prejudice, anxiety, procrastination, substance abuse, and other common school behavior problems.

... Read more

Book Description

In this important theoretical treatise, Jean Lave, anthropologist, and Etienne Wenger,computer scientist, push forward the notion of situated learning--that learning is fundamentally a social process and not solely in the learner's head. The authors maintain that learning viewed as situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process they call legitimate peripheral participation. Learners participate in communities of practitioners, moving toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community. Legitimate peripheral participation provides a way to speak about crucial relations between newcomers and oldtimers and about their activities, identities, artifacts, knowledge and practice.The communities discussed in the book are midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, and recovering alcoholics, however, the process by which participants in those communities learn can be generalized to other social groups. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

situated learning
The book is easy to read, extremely interesting and gives a new perspective on learning. In this type of learning the learner models behavior of the teacher. Questions are not asked, behavior is not explained and all of the learning takes place as a result of observation and immitation of observed behavior.

You'll need a light-heart to bear the blacksmith's anvil.
I wonder if two people have ever had so much fun writing a book together as Jean Lave and Etiene Wenger. Lave's choice of a cover illustration supports my point: she found the artwork at a beer-fest while visiting friends and studying in Europe. Lave and Wenger are world reknowned scholars who would rather spend the afternoon in a butcher's kitchen than hobb-knobbing at the faculty lounge. With "Situated Learning," the reader is invited to follow Lave and Wenger as they ponder the consequences of doors, tables, timeclocks, work schedules, and union contracts on human development and potential.
After reading "Situated Learning," it is difficult to imagine the constellation of concepts that make up our modern thinking of what learning is without Lave and Wenger's contributions. Like the artwork on the book's cover, and the story of its origins, Lave and Wenger's analysis restoke the fires fueling the learning sciences. It is not an overstatement to say that this short, sometimes difficult to follow book, is responsible for a whole new generation of thinking and research on learning and its sociocultural consequences.
Their analytical objective was simple: dethrone the dominant conceptions of learning in the social sciences and everyday life. In their place, Lave and Wenger offer and illustrate a handful of concepts that students of learning across the social and applied sciences are now usings to inspire new insights on the origins of social ascension and strife.
I recommend that the reader, too, pick up this book with the intent of having some fun: let your inhibitions, and intellectual reservations, down for a couple of hours and enjoy the show as Lave and Wenger take off the Emporer's (modern psychology's, that is) clothes. Readers need to approach this book with a light-heart, as its simplicity and substance leave one feeling as if the dominant, 20th century schools of thought on learning have placed a blacksmith's anvil on the center of one's chest. Thank goodness Lave and Wenger have brought our attention to this matter.
Needless to say, I highly recommend the book. ... Read more

Book Description

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist implodes the myth of the dumbed-down mom, offering startling scientific evidence that motherhood gives women unexpected mental advantages

Generations of mothers have been told-and believed-that having a baby means checking their own brains at the delivery room door.

"The Mommy Brain" usually refers to a head full of feeding times, soccer schedules, and nursery rhymes, at the expense of creative or challenging ideas. But recent scientific research paints a dramatically different and far rosier picture.

Journalist Katherine Ellison draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to demonstrate that, contrary to long-established wisdom that having children dumbs you down, raising children may make moms smarter. From enhanced senses in pregnancy and early motherhood to the alertness and memory skills necessary to manage like a pro, to a greater aptitude for risk-taking and a talent for empathy and negotiation, these advantages not only help mothers in raising their children, but in their work and social lives as well.

Filled with lively (and often hilarious) stories of multitasking moms at home and on the job, The Mommy Brain encourages all of us to cast aside conventional thinking and discover the positive ways in which having children changes mothers' brains for the better. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A little thin
I was disappointed with this book.In an effort to keep the book from being too scientific, Ellison waters down the material too far for my comfort.Also, there are a lot of unanswered questions in this field of research.Time after time, Ellison poses an interesting question, and then is forced to answer her own question by saying, "We don't know yet."Then she moves on to idle speculation to fill in the blanks.

Also, my copy of the book was missing pages 17-40, and had two copies of pages 41-64. ... Read more

Book Description

An invaluable resource for any manager or professional, this book offers a collection of proven, practical methods for simplifying any problem and making faster, better decisions every time. ... Read more

Reviews (14)

A nice reference book...a cookbook for decision making
This book is a nice reference that captures the majority of problem solving techniques: a cookbook for decision making. The analytical techniques range from problem restatement to constructing an advanced utility matrix. It's useful in both daily life, business, and science.

Thinker's Toolkit also contains very useful examples and exercises. They immediately demonstrate to the reader where common decision making falls short.

On the down side, the book is a 'dry' read at times.

Good reference for problem analysis - Bush should read this
I found this book whilst searching for a framework for basic problem solving. This book provides 14 good techniques, the most important I believe are Causal Flow Diagram, Hypothesis Testing and Utility Matrix.

Actually I was triggered to buy this book is because the author was an ex-CIA. I guess when he left, he brought all his techniques with him in his head!

I wish the Bush Administration and Tony Blair should refer to this book (especially the Hypothesis Testing) when they have "irrefutable evidence" that Saddam Hussein has WMD in his cellar.

The reason I did not give him 5-stars is because it is all texts and tables which makes it a dry read.

A worthwhile read
Some of the material reminds me of operations research techniques. Gives you something hang your hat on as you think about a problem.

Mildly interesting. Horrible writing.
The books begins with a series of interesting stories on the psychology of decision-making. Once it gets into the Powerful Techniques it becomes trite, boring and difficult to read. Poorly explained ideas, and poorly worded exercise questions make the book unbearable.

For example, throughout the book the author provides different stories describing different problems (say, that a bakery's bread is coming out of the oven inexplicably burned) and then it asks you to state the problem. The problem is that the bread is burned! But what the author actually *means* to ask (which is clear only upon reading the sample answers he provides) is "What are the potential causes of the problem?" These are two very different questions, both of which are important. Problem solving is an exercise in symbolic logic. A book that has its roots firmly planted in symbolic logic cannot afford to suffer from poor editing and word choice.

Anyone that is reasonably adept in a technical field (engineering, software, et cetera) will find it interesting at first, but it quickly becomes boring and of questionable value. I give it one star - despite the fact that it may be valuable to some people - because I believe that authors who write poorly should not publish books on technical subjects.

Solid decision making made easy
Enjoyed the book immensely. Here, in amongst much 'release your genius' type stuff is something a little less salesmanship (on offer is just a toolkit and not the possibility of 'unleashing' your latent 'genius') and a good deal more of useable material.
In a business context the ability to establish a framework might not, at first, seem to be something missing - but after sitting through too many meetings where the criteria for establishing a decision is not known the ability to pick one of the tools from this book and get everyone thinking through the same process is worth more than the price alone. Less angst, better decisions. ... Read more

Reviews (30)

Easy Intro to Jung
In Man and his Symbols (1961), Jung's last book, Jung and four of his disciples (Von Franz, Henderson, Jaffé, and Jacobi) team up to introduce the world to the collective unconscious and its manifestations in mythology, art, dreams, and even science.

Jung suggests that man's greatest adventure lies in the exploration of the inner world of the psyche. By getting in touch with the unconscious (especially through dreams), one is supposedly able to activate latent guiding powers that will help him become a stronger individual. Jaffé's essay details a case where a Jungian anaylsis is successful, and it convinced me.

For a basic grasp of the collective unconscious and the archetypal symbols and how they relate to you, this book serves. It's very easy to understand, and its simple language and many illustrations make it easy to work through.

The only disappointment is that the book is too simple. Given only a taste of the basic concepts, you are left wanting more depth and a wider discussion of Jung's ideas. As Ms. Von Franz says in the closing essay, "This book sketches only an infinitesimal part of his [Jung's] vast contribution to this new field of psychological discovery."

Very Good Summation
This book provides a good summary of Jungian dream analysis. Instead of bogging down with highly detailed and esoteric references, it gives the reader easy to follow explanations. But it is not overly dumbed down. You still feel like you are learning useful and relatively advanced information.

The main body of the book is comprised of several essays, written by a select group of Jung's peers, which carefully explain his work. And Jung himself edited the essays, in order to assure that his messages were crystal clear. Jung provides an excellent introduction chapter as well.

If you are looking for an easy to digest book that covers Jung's amazing dream analysis techniques, Man and His Symbols is made for you.

A good introduction to Carl Jung
I'd suggest this book for anyone who wishes to obtain a general understanding of Carl Jung's theories.

Man and his symbols gives a general outline of predominant themes that exist in various cultures. Almost every culture shares certain common archtypes. We can trace commonalities in various fertility gods, the belief in angels, demons, etc...

His theories allude to a common origin in these beliefs as well as certain experiences that seem to be universal to the human condition. This book was helpful but I'd recommend his later work; Archtypes and The Collective Unconsious for a greater understanding...

Know Thyself!
Two names are synonomous with the field of psychology/psychoanalysis, Freud and Jung. This is reputedly Jung's last project/publication before his death in 1961 and is an excellent primer and synopsis of his work in the field. Jung edited this book and wrote the first chapter on the importance of symbols before unleashing writings from his students/protegees.
As a whole this book covers an incredible array of subjects, relating in layperson's terms the importance of symbols in the unconscious, the role of the unconscious through dreams in communicating these symbols to the analsand and analyst. I believe Jaffe, though could stand corrected examines various motifs and symbols synthesising the previous works into an observation of Jung's theories on the collective unconscious and its influence on individuals and the process of individuation.
This is as I said an excellent primer because although it is a good text for those taking psych 101(I am excluded from this group so don't know if it is text, but could/should be), it is written with a clarity that carries a universal appeal, making it recommended reading for anyone who wishes to understand psychology better and more important perhaps anyone who wishes to understand themselves better without resorting to new agey dream dictionaries.

Symbols as imprints from God?
The Swiss Carl Jung and the Austrian Sigmund Freud are the annointed fathers of Psychanalisys, with due precedence to be ascribed to Freud, some 25 years Jung's senior and who broke loose with early tradition who saw the manifestation of the unconscious as unmeaningful. Both were men of the XIX century but their achievements changed the face of earth in the XX century . The excelent book "Man and his Symbols" is in all respects emblematic of many important facets of Jung's thoughts and ideas on the unconscious, being one of the last books he wrote and/or supervised before his death in old age, which ocurred many years after Freud's passed away in 1939 in London. In fact, the deaths of the two most important figures in Psychanalisys are emblematic of their lives, Freud dying an agonizing death to throat cancer and asking for the final shot which would take him to the depths of eternity (whatever this may be in Freud's mind) whilst Jung died naturally of old age and wholy mystical, almost religious. "Man and His Symbols" is quintessential Jung, with plenty of his vigor and energy, even if he did not write himself all the six essays of the book, but only a very important one concerning the fundamental role Dreams play in our life as a whole. It is in fact the only book by Carl Jung originally targeted to the non-professional reader and devoid of almost all psychanalytic jargon, thus making the reading of the book a pleasant experience to the non-professional reader like myself; all the five essaysts are bona fide Jung followers or adherents to his ideas. The idea of having a book targeted to the layman drew a lot of personal energy from Jung, always keen on having the right word for the right psychical situation (the same could be said of Freud). But, in the end, he gave in and agreed on the project's idea which was to popularize Jung's ideas throughout the world.

The book is an important document of Jung's thought in the final days of his long and prolific life and stresses the many differences in important points of view he had vis-'a-vis Sigmund Freud, who, in the beginning of their relationship in 1906, was almost a father figure to the younger Jung and to whom Jung was supposed to be the heir apparent in the field of Psychanalisys. But Jung and Freud splitted apart their relationship on very personnal matters, due to Freud's lack of confidence in anyone but himself. The acerbic and bitter feud between the two, is documented in the many letters they exchanged for almost a decade and, in my opinion, Freud is the only one to blame, being a man of extremely bad temper and all too skitishy, with an overpowering ego with no admission of any wrinkle in the front of his followers scouts . There is a pretty much good medium sized book who documents the increasingly acerbic correspondence between the two, called "The Freud-Jung Letters" and which is also a good read, even in the available abridged version. In the same vein, see the quasi autobiographic essay by Jung and Anne Jafet, "Memories, Dreams and Reflections", where Jung (hesitatingly) talks about having reached in his last days the equilibrium between conscious and unconscious life, something he said to be one of the most important achievements of his.

In Jung's view, symbols are important archetypal manifestations of man's powerfull unconscious and occur in each and every human society, primitive or advanced, and could not be simply dismissed or ruled out, as always civilized societies do, as only belonging to ancient backward peoples. According to Jung, symbols are archetypal manifestations of our innermost unconscious mental life and have an important role in balancing our waking life as long as we let them play unscathed and don't see them as something that we must be scared of. But, exactly from where symbols come? How do they get formed? In Jung's view, nobody will never know a precise answer for that question, which is to be placed in the dominion of the perpetually Unkown, and all societies seem to think that they were formed many aeons ago in the time of their ancestors, an always wrong assumption when we know that even ancient Greeks and Egyptians thought this way. Symbols, as many other things, simply do Exist and Are and play an important function in helping men by balancing their acts and lives, having although a disruptive influence whenever not correctly interpreted and unduly repressed. As Jung remembers, Goethe said in Faust: In the beginning there was the ACT. Symbols may be a timeless representation of things to be done and not to be thought out. But what are they? Couldn't they be messages from God? Different from Freud, a very irreligious man and who bashed even Jewish religion in his magistral books "Moses and Monotheism" and "Totem and Taboo", the open-minded and mystical Jung thinks that symbols can even be messages from an upper entity. Civilized men, betting all their chips in Reason as supreme, that is, in the primacy of a conscious (rational) attitude towards life, have increasingly attached an "off-limits" tag to the unconscious, thus spliting the psyche into two entities apart, not benefiting from the positive influence the unconscious may and should have on our being as a whole.

The many black and white pictures and images profusely portrayed in the book help the reader a lot in understanding the jungian message about the significance of symbols and this paperback amazingly lightweight edition is agreeable to handle and flip and to carry along with one self. "Man and his Symbols" is a pretty much good book and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. ... Read more

Reviews (139)

Steven Pinker's 'How the Mind Works' Précis
Steven Pinker begins his explanation of "How the Mind Works" arguing that the mind is best understood in terms of a computational model and that, in part, by reverse engineering the mind one can understand many aspects of cognition. He also examines why aspects of cognition, such as consciousness, knowledge, meaning, free will, self, morality, etc. still remain beyond the purview of cognitive science. Pinker identifies natural selection as the process which shaped the mind; subsequently, history, cognitive and social psychology, and human ecology are the most important factors which for him continue to shape the mind. The significance of the book lies, in part, in Pinker's differentiation of what reverse engineering can show from what is still beyond the tools of cognitive science. Pinker suggests that the reason biologically unnecessary aspects of human behavior such as language, art, wit, music, literature, etc. are so significant to people and remain problematic may be because scientists don't yet have the cognitive equipment to solve them and suggests that consciousness and free will, for example, may ultimately remain elusive aspects of the mind.

By arguing that "the mind is a system of organs of computation, designed by natural selection to solve the kinds of problems our ancestors faced in their foraging way of life, in particular, understanding and outmaneuvering objects, animals, plants, and other people," (21) Pinker rejects most other views of the mind that have held sway in the last century. By insisting on the complexity of the mind, Pinker claims that a) thinking is a kind of computation used to work with configurations of symbols, b) that the mind is organized into specialized modules or mental organs, c) that the basic logic of the modules is contained in our genetic program, and d) that natural selection shaped these operations to facilitate replication of genes into the next generation (21, 25). Pinker thus shows that the computational model of mind is highly significant because it has solved not only philosophical problems, but also started the computer revolution, posed important neuroscience questions, and provided psychology with a very valuable research agenda (77).

By examining mental processes which are reverse-engineerable, Pinker lays the groundwork for examining which cognitive processes aren't yet understandable. For example, chapter 4, "The Mind's Eye," describes how the mind's vision process turns retinal images into mental representations, how the mind moves "splashes of light to concepts of objects, and beyond them to a kind of interaction between seeing and thinking known as mental imagery" (214). By describing a specific modular process, Pinker shows how this modular process fits together like a puzzle, as well as with other parts of the mind. Taken together the chapters thus also show what processes, such as sentience and especially consciousness, are still not readily explained.

Pinker asks not only how scientists might understand "the psychology of the arts, humor, religion, and philosophy within the theme of this book, that the mind is a naturally selected neural computer" but also why they are so resistantly inscrutable (521). He suggests that the arts "engage not only the psychology of aesthetics but the psychology of status," thus making the arts more readily understood by economics and social psychology (521).

According to Pinker, consciousness, too, resists understanding. He asks: "How could an event of neural information-processing cause the feel of a toothache or the taste of lemon or the color purple?" (558) thus highlighting the important 'Gordian-knot' question of causality in consciousness. In suggesting that such questions are difficult because Homo Sapiens' minds don't have the cognitive equipment to solve them, "because our minds are organs, not pipelines to truth" (561), he emphasizes the significance of natural selection in shaping the mind to solve matters of life and death for our ancestors (356) and leaves open the possibility of explaining consciousness at a later date. Pinker's book is significant, therefore, because it explains both how many aspects of the mind work, as well as what we don't yet know about how the mind works. In his conclusion, Pinker offers only tentative answers about why scientists don't understand consciousness, for example, and leaves open the possibility that we may never understand it.

brilliant
with simple, familiar language MIT professor Pinker delves into how the mind evolved and how it works. Of special interest to me were the parallells he drew between computer code (logic) and brain tasks. Easy to read (considering the material) and right on as far as factual material goes, 5 stars for me. He could have cut the book down to ~500 pages or so (i struggled through most of the chapter on perception and finally just skipped on) but overall a great book.

In and Out of his element
Steven Pinker certainly knows his stuff when it comes to how our brain works. If you have the endurance and are a scientist already, you may get through this incredibly monotonous book. He is able to comprehend the mechanics of how the human mind works, but flops when it comes to drawing any meaningful implications. His views about religion and philosophy are stale and hackneyed. While his discussions about the biology of the brain and its varied mechanisms are within his expertise, his discussions of religion and philosophy are shallow and un-thoughtful-bordering upon arrogance. I would still recommend the book; it is better than counting sheep!

Three pounds of hamburger
Great book about how the Brain works but should be titled, "How the Brain Works". Without the Soul, there is no mind. The Soul IS the mind operating within the brain. Three pounds of hamburger with ten trillion neurons flashing is still not MIND!.

Families not Species?
I enjoy Mr Pinker's books - this is not the first one I have read.A nd yet I find myself balking at some of it. Indeed I have a personal characteristic, not unique of course, that separates me from a lot of what is said here. A physical characteristic, not an emotional one. Consequently I keep finding myself challenging, defending, objecting .....

Previously I had read 'Why Sex is Fun?' by Jared Diamond and during this book I realised that the title is totally misleading. It suggests that sex was developed by a conscious entity who thought - 'How can I make this work? I know, I'll make it fun.' For me this is back to front. We are here - our species - because sex just happens to be fun. If it were unpleasant or a chore we probably wouldn't be here.

So here we are again looking at evolution and trying to justify human behaviour as somehow driven by genetic imperatives - as if the genes are trying to meet objectives. For me, this is crazy. The genes are the accidental vehicles that keep the species going, but they don't do it by design.

And midway through the chapter on families in Mr Pinker's book I realised something new. All we can tell about our existence from evolution is that the species is still here, and something about the way we do things has contributed to that. But Bonobos are here too and they behave in an entirely different way - despite that, they are successful in terms of evolution. But as soon as Mr Pinker talks of the individual male wanting to promote his genes in advance of another man's I know the argument has gone off the rails. We are now talking about - not persistence of the species (which is demonstrable), but persistence of the particular family (which I suspect is not demonstrable). As far as the species is concerned what difference does it make whose genes are being contributed as long as there is variety.

OK, men do not like to be cuckolded but I don't think that that is an evolutionary matter. The psychological studies need to look elsewhere.

I recommend this book because it will get you thinking, not that I agree with it necessarily.

Recommended other reading:
'Why is Sex Fun?' by Jared Diamond

One that you might like to consider, but I hated:
'The Red Queen' by Matt Ridley ... Read more

Book Description

This book sets the standard in bringing technical scientificinformation on the subject of sensation and perception to a wide audience withoutstanding readability and thorough coverage.Retaining itstraditionally clear and accessible writing style, this new edition boasts athoroughly revised art program and over 1,300 new references. The motionchapter now focuses solely on visual motion perception, so it appears earlierin the book. In addition, the book includes thirteen In-Depth sections,each of which explore a current “hot” research topic to provide a senseof how researchers ask questions with subjects varying from the role of facerecognition in eyewitness testimony to phantom limb perception. ... Read more

Reviews (20)

Comments on Garnder's "Musical Intelligence" chapter
I read this book while researching music and intelligence, so what follows is a review and summary of the chapter on musical intelligence. I found the material presented in this chapter very useful in guiding my research; anyone interested in music & mind should definitely check this book out.

Gardner's work on musical intelligence presented in Frames of Mind has had a dramatic influence throughout the field of music-mind research, more so than any other single publication - he is often cited as a definitive expert and referenced in most books, essays, theses, and dissertations on the subject. He asserts that music is its own form of intelligence, unique among a group that includes linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic and personal intelligences. In his writings on musical intelligence, he surveys a wide range of thought and research findings: professional opinions of prominent musicians and composers, anthropological analyses of highly musical cultures, and neurological perspectives examining the evolution of music representations in the brain; just to name a few. Gardner provides a thorough synopsis of musical intelligence in that he addresses it from just about every perspective there is. His arguments are shaped with a forceful tone, but on the other hand they lack depth and proof. This is likely due in part to the fact that his work preceded (and perhaps inspired) the bulk of the available research. His argument that music is in and of itself a distinct form of intelligence is briefly laid out. He presents a wealth of commentary on the subject that is all truly impressive and thought provoking, but then he proceeds to his conclusion by simply stating that the research backs up his argument that music is its own intelligence. He further adds that any sort of relations to the other intelligences are superficial analyses at best. His conclusions are hastily drawn and based heavily on the reader's making assumptions about how the research and his hypothesis are related.

However, from the midst of this colloquium of quotes and references, one can deduce an implied logical theory regarding what composes music intelligence. The research is arranged so that there is a natural flow to it. Gardner starts off by quoting the Polish Hoene Wronsky, who summarized the relationship between music and intelligence rather succinctly: "[Music is] the corporealization of the intelligence that is in sound" (99). When one listens to music, a unique phenomenon occurs. Seemingly arbitrary auditory signals are recorded to memory and deciphered by intellect; meaning is attributed to them after whatever fashion our self wills. For those who have not been the recipients of an extensive music education, the method of processing music would be closest to what Gardner calls the "figural approach"-an intuitive understanding that is reached "based solely upon what is heard irrespective of any theoretical knowledge about music" (110-11). It is at this basic level that musical thought exists, untouched, in its rawest form...indeed, as Levi Strauss noted (among others), "if we can explain music...we may find the key for all thought" (123). In the event that the listener has developed a musical language according to fundamental music theory, they are approaching the music with a "formal mode of thought": this individual "can conceptualize his musical experience in a principled manner" (111). Musical thought is thus translated and transferred over to a common framework that is easily communicated, through speech, performance, or notation. Thus the composer is born - the better one knows the language, the more readily he can proceed to explicate and arrange the initial musical idea into patterns representative of a finished musical work. He has in essence created "passages that articulate or place into proper proportion the elements of the initial idea" (101-2). Aaron Copland calls this initial idea a "gift from heaven", the origin of which still remains the sole element of mystery in the compositional puzzle (102). As if to answer this, another 20th century composer Harold Shapero theorizes to the effect that the mind has a store of all recorded "tonal experiences" that it has absorbed. These are later recalled, and "compounded with remembered emotional experiences" in an act that renders them "more than an acoustical series of tones" (102).

What then, are the components of musical intelligence that make such an act of creative composition possible? Gardner's theory splits everything into two basic categories: pitch (melody) and rhythm. In this schema rhythm simply refers to the underlying beat, while pitch can be used in either a horizontal or vertical aspect. Horizontal pitch refers to the melody-composed of relations among the pitches as they unfold over time. Vertical pitch refers to harmony-when two or more sounds are emitted at the same time, giving rise to a "harmonious" or "dissonant" sound. A separate category that Gardner identifies is that of timbre-the characteristic qualities of a tone, the nuances by means of which emotion and a sense flow can be imbued into the music (104-5). Musical intelligence is made up of the ability to understand and manipulate these components when creating, performing, or listening to music.

All in all, Gardner presents a muddled theory for musical intelligence, which relies largely on the expertise of others, especially in explanation of musical facets. His book provides a good synopsis of the different perspectives and research; but he fails to really add anything unique to the discussion--other than the statement that music is a form of intelligence. The how & why are left to the reader to deduce from the arrangement of quotes & concepts. It needs a clear thesis that describes precisely what musical intelligence is and how the evidence supports this.

It's all in how you look at it...
Howard Gardner's 'Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences' is a fascinating book that helps to explain how and why different people seem to learn in different ways and possess different skills and talents. Gardner's main thesis throughout the text is that there is not one thing called intelligence, but rather several different types of intelligence that work together (or, sometimes, play together) inside each person's overall intellectual development and structure.

Gardner begins his discussion with an overview of the idea of multiple intelligences. The idea of different kinds of intelligence is hardly new, as Gardner concedes, but that idea having been formed, it is rarely carried forward save by the most innovative of teachers and thinkers. Why does a person, for instance, remember particular teachers from elementary or secondary school days rather clearly, while others not at all? Beyond the subject matter and interest, there is a manner of teacher connecting with the student that taps into dominant and active kinds of intelligence, despite the subject matter at hand.

Potential Isolation by Brain Damage
This establishes an autonomy of the function of a particular kind of intelligence from others, thus helping demonstrate uniqueness and separation.

The Existence of Idiot Savants, Prodigies, etc.
That certain kinds of intelligence can be highly developed in some to an extraordinary level also helps demonstrate uniqueness - for instance, rarely is the musical genius likewise a genius in all (or even many) other intellectual areas.

An Identifiable Core Operation or Set of Operations
There must be something that the intelligence processes or does in a particular way differently from others - for example, we process mathematical information and linguistic information in different ways.

Distinctive Development History
Intelligence, even if gifted naturally, has a development line that can be traced from earlier to later proficiency.

Evolutionary History and Plausibility
Intelligence can evolve to higher levels (this is readily seen in science and mathematics); likewise, intelligence can be lost in different arenas.

Experimental Data Support
Intelligences can be isolated and studied - linguistic and spatial abilities are often used as experiments easily documented.

Psychometric Finding Support
While the IQ test is hardly the final arbiter, there are ways of materially charting the relative state of intelligences of people in comparison with one another.

Susceptibility to Symbolic Expression
Intelligences should have a means of symbolic expression and transmission - linguistic intelligence can use words spoken and written; musical intelligence can use written and sound symbols, etc.

Using these criteria, Gardner proposes the following list of intelligences, alerting the reader that while this list is broad and encompasses much of human intelligence, it is not an exhaustive list.

Linguistic Intelligence
Musical Intelligence
Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
Spatial Intelligence
Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence
Personal Intelligence

Most of these items are fairly clear - we know that linguistic intelligence involves language, words, speech, and the understanding and use of such tools. Similarly, logical-mathematical intelligence is fairly well understood. It is on the basis of these two intelligences that most of Western academics is founded and evaluated - even the primary measuring instruments such as SAT tests recognise the difference between mathematical and linguistic abilities by separating out those tests and scoring them differently.

Musical intelligence is likewise understood. It is an intelligence people can tap into for enjoyment even if the sophisticated understanding of theory is not present, unlike the main part of logical-mathematical intelligence.

Spatial and bodily-kinesthetic intelligences are sensed by athletes, dancers, and others who use their bodies in ways that exceed normal abilities. These are intelligences that are closely related. A quarterback or a ballet dancer needs to have both an awareness of body motions and abilities as well as sense of the space involved for the action. However, these are separate intelligences. An architect may have a great sense for spatial requirements and have no real bodily-kinesthetic intelligence.

Perhaps the most difficult to express is the idea of personal intelligence. This is likewise the one intelligence that Gardner concedes he might have the most difficulty with in defining, symbolising, and expressing. It involves an ability to interact with others and with oneself. Perhaps Einstein is a classic example of a savant in logical-mathematical intelligence while being impaired in the personal intelligence arena - not having a good sense of himself and his relationships with others, with time, with place, etc. Religious leaders and diplomatic persons tend to be high in this intelligence.

In the third part of Gardner's book, he explores the education and application of intelligences. Gardner explores the educational systems of many cultures, past and present, to illustrate ways in which different kinds of intelligence are cultivated. A hunter needs good bodily-kinesthetic abilities as well as good spatial abilities honed to a high degree. City-dwellers tend to need linguistic and logical-mathematical abilities to a higher degree.

'As compared with hundred or even thirty years ago, talk about the development of intelligence, the realisation of human potential, and the role of education is very much in the international air.'

The ways in which all kinds of intelligence, including the very-difficult-to-teach personal intelligence, can be cultivated. First is the requirement of recognition of different kinds of intelligence and the ways in which students respond. In my theology class last semester, we had students who were divinity students, counseling students, and church music students. To have required the same pattern of assignment for each of these groups would have been unfair. So, one person turned in an audio tape as accompaniment for her theology paper. Another student framed her theological discussion in terms of a counseling session. These permitted the students to tap into their stronger intelligences while still learning what was valuable from the basic course materials.

This is a valuable book for teachers, pastors, counselors, parents, supervisors, and anyone who wants a clearer definition of what is working inside oneself as intelligence.

not a liberal and the book was still good
intelligent people would agree with me when i say that a unique approach to an otherwise tired theory is more than welcome. on the other hand, some readers from glenville, NY can suck it. If you are a close-minded mechanical conservative tight-@ss who cant appreciate a new idea, nor accept that creative minds might be just as much a contributing member of society as your self-righteous politican or tight-wad teacher, then this book might not be for you. stick to something more classic, like The Bible, or The Prince, by Machiavelli.

Nice theory, application is the problem
On first glance, much of the rhetoric on "multiple intelligences" does not sound particularly unreasonable, which is part of why it is so dangerously insidious. But a deeper look reveals three profound problems:

1. The core problem with this fad is the utter lack of any suggestion as to how such supposed "learning styles" might be OBJECTIVELY and QUANTITATIVELY identified or assessed, or how any of this would translate into effective teaching practices. Ultimately, there is a complete absence of even the slimmest quantitative evidence that any of this has any utility.
2. In an attempt to provide different kinds of exercises and projects for the different "learning styles" of the students in the classroom, spectacular blocks of precious time are wasted that could be better spent.
3. If the education industry really took to heart the notion that different kids require different approaches, then the obvious conclusion is that it's nuts to require all of the students in a geographic district to attend the same school. A student should be sent to the school that best addresses his or her needs, not merely according to which side of the street he or she lives on.

There are many good sources for true "critical thinking" and commentary about Gardner's theories. Try looking for "Illinois Loop" and going to the page on multiple intelligences.

Can you Spot a a Liberal?
This is based on opinion:
I had to unfortunately suffer through Mr. Gardner's diatribe as an education student. I have tried to educate my colleagues as to what he is about. Most specifically, we saw him lecture, where he called for a "revolution" in education. When he asked the audience what most people think of when they think of a revolutionist, he showed a picture of Lenin. Thereafter, the lecture blasted Ron Reagan and conservatives, and pointed to the fun aspects of there being a bad person in Iraq or Cuba.
This book is trying to tell you, the educator, that no one is smart and no one is "dumb". Dumb just means your true talent hasn't been discovered. While I agree many students have talents that are not uncovered, and public schools fail with the standardized test, don't tell me the basketball player is as intelligent as the person who invented the MRI; or the poet as smart as the scientist who finds a cure for cancer.
No, we are all not equally intelligent. Some of us are smart, some of us are not. But we are not equal, and we never will be.
This theory is a method to make us all equal--exactly where socialists and liberals lie. Sure the bell of equality rings harmoniously for many; while the aristocrats sit perched at the Harvard tower, controlling their brainwashed flock. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Less than meets the eye
"How People Learn" is both a simple summary of some recent research in the cognitive sciences and an argument for how teaching should be done. This is currently a very popular topic in the educational industry, as educators look for justification in the cognitive literature for the rather ad-hoc educational theories of the past 40 or 50 years. Most of this volume is devoted to a fairly low-level- let's say High School level- review of selected literature form the cognitive and neuropsychological literature of the last few decades, and as far as it goes, it's not bad. It's spotty, certainly, and musch of it is very old, but the lay reader will still find much of it interesting and informative.

But the final chapter- Conclusions- is a tremendous disappointment, at least for this reader. Half the conclusions offered are so simple, and so obvious, as to be laughable. The other half are either contradictory or simply unjustified.

Consider this gem: "Transfer and wide application of learning are most likely to occur when learners acheive an organized and coherent understanding of the material; when the situations for transfer share the structure of the original learning; when subject matter has been mastered and practiced; when subject domains overlap and share cognitive elements; when instruction includes specific attention to underlying principles; and when instruction specifically emphasizes transfer."

Translated, that means that people can best use things they learn when they've learned them very well, that practice helps, and that it helps to learn something in a way similar to how you're going to use it.

Or this: "The predominant indicator of expert status is the amount of time spent working and learning in a subject area to gain mastery of the content" That's Edu-Speak for "the best way to learn material is to practice it"

The author then concludes with an attempt to justify the "new approaches to teaching" that had their genesis in the ed school of the 60s and 70s in a way that in no way follows what was found in the last 230 pages:

"Traditional education has tended to emphasize memorization and mastery of text. Research on the development of expertise, however, has shown that more than a set of general general problem solving skills or memory for an array of facts is necessary to acheive deep understanding..."

Wait a minute. Didn't we just learn that people who learn things best are those who practice them?

The biggest problem with this book is that it, like so many education books, is written by people with a lot of time in schools of education, but little or no time in a classroom or a basic psychology lab. The authors misinteprret the findings of others, they ignire a few centuries of existing knowledge, and they tend to use an overly complex terminology that parodies the language of psychology. And they confuse the principles of basic learning with the techniques and strategies of more skilled practitioners. Sometimes the results are merely amusing, but often they have tragic consequences.

A perfect example is to be found in the great whole word vs. phonetics debate of the past twenty years. Some education researcher came across the interesting tidbit that skilled readers don't sound out words; they recognize whole words at a glance. This was seized on by the education community, and within a short time phonics were out, whole word was in, and reading acquisition skills plummeted. The educators, amazingly enough, missed the obvious: That the skills required for initial acquisition are very different from the strategies used later on. Even the best readers rely on phonological skills when they encounter new words. If all you learn is whole word, there's no way for you to learn on your own or to sound out new words. Despite the overwheling data in favor of phonetics, Ed schools still push the supposedly superior whole-word teaching method. (The tremendous commercial success of the "Hooked on Phonics" program should be evidence enough regarding which method works better.)

As anyone who has actually read the cognitive memory and learning literature of the past few decades will tell you, there are a number of facts regarding learning that are pretty much undisputable. One is that all learning is essentially unconcious. The brain tries to make patterns from repeated stimuli, and to associate these patterns with other patterns. Another is that repeated presentation strengthens these associations. This is something that's been demonstrated down to the cellular level back in the 1960s (Hebb, et al)

What this means is that initial learning is all about repetition, and lots of it. The best way to learn to play clainet is to practice clarinet, and the best way to learn to perform multiplication is to practice the heck out of your multiplication tables. You can use all the audio-visual aids, enrichment activies and voyages of self-discovery you want, but the only way to acquire inital skills is through repetition. Somehow, this message still hasn't gotten through to the education schools.

Very much an agenda setting book
As someone reading this outside the US, I found the agenda in the book quite interesting. Unsurprisingly about one third of the text is taking up with issues in mathematics and science teaching - a source of major concern in the industrialised West. Lots of advice on principles and techniques (more limited) are offered to the reader. The book's style is that of a report. Topics are numbered and flagged in bold print for your attention. The subsequent text expands on the issues at hand. A valuable component of the book is the number of case studies it references, and one presumes these have been carefully selected. Overall as a review of 'learning sciecne' I found this a most impressive work. My major quibble with it is that the chapter of Brain and Mind sticks out like a sore thumb, and personally I didn't take it to bring anything to the debate in the rest of the book.

Practice what they preach
The book starts at a place appropriate for someone who never taught before, and presents convincing arguments from the beginning, to the very end. Whenever they introduce important concepts and ideas, they describe studies that really make them come to life. In fact, it would have sounded like a liberal opinion piece had they not provided an extensive bibliography for their findings. Theoretical ideas are weaved into practical advice to create an excellent introduction for an aspiring teacher.

Great book for teachers!!
As a student reading this book, I found several different aspects of learning that would be beneficial to teachers and those reinforcing learning skills. The main focus of the book was directed toward having children use their prior knowledge and apply new information to already formed concepts. This idea encourages teachers to develop a student's understanding by first constructing a general knowledge base of the concrete conceptual information and later giving detailed information to reinforce and develop in depth knowledge. This book also touched upon the importance of technology in the classroom today. With where the world is headed, it is very important for children to have a classroom experience that is enriched with computers, internet connections, and introductions to programs such as power point and the like. Technology not only promotes learning, but it can bring the real-world into the classrooms through the use of videos, simulations, videos, and internet assignments. Overall, this is a great book for teachers! It gives several examples of how these ideas are acted out in the classroom and gives specific topic outlines and descriptions for easy reading.

Excellent book on cognitive learning
As a Deaf person and an educator, as well as having two degrees in Neuroscience, I found this book extremely helpful in elucidating what has been done in understanding how we learn. Perhaps even more important is the questions that the authors, contributors and editors raise concerning what more needs to be done, to adequately help all students reach their highest potential. The book is concise and knowledgeable without being needlessly wordy. It is written so that everybody can understand and make use of it to help educators and researchers to further their goals and those of their students. I've had this book less than six months and yet I've quoted it several times in papers, and refer to it constantly. Thanks to the editors for doing such a great job. Karen L. Sadler Science Education University of Pittsburgh ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Not like the other Arco books
I bought this book ... when I received word from my dad that GM was taking referals for Industrial Mechanics and he turned my name in. I needed to quickly brush up on my mathematical and mechanical skills before taking the pre-employment exam. This book really let me down.

First - It didn't cover anything about how to do any of the shop mathematics until after you (the reader) had taken the practice exams. NO formulas, equations, NOTHING! And they DID explain it at the end of the exams, but not well enough to understand where you the reader screwed up.

Second - There were so many errors I lost count and closed the book never to read it again. Several of their answers were wrong; there were many typos and miscalculations. I don't buy a preparation guide for errors all it will do is confuse you as to if you are correct or forgot how to do arithmetic. I checked several of their calculations with a TI-90 calculator and the answers I received were not the same as theirs. ...

Good Book
It has a lot of useful information, but for the mechanically inclined test takers, you don't need this book.

I took the AFOQT and I used all of my practical knowledge and experience to answer the mechanical comprehension questions.

This book is useful for those who have no idea what a lugnut is, or why Ford puts a differential in the rear of RWD cars.

Mechanical Aptitude and Spatial Relations Tests
This book is a perfect tool for anyone wishing to prepare for any basic mechanical aptitude test. These tests are common screening tools for companies who hire mechanical, electrical, and instrumentation craft personnel. It includes basic lessons for each area, such as pattern analysis, cube counting, etc. and then is followed by sample tests. It contains many test-taking tips and tricks, which can be extremely useful. It is simple, well organized and easy to understand. A must for anyone with a mechanical aptitude test in their future. ... Read more

Book Description

Solidly rooted in current cognitive psychology and motivationresearch, this book applies the findings of such research directlyto classroom teaching and students' learning. Discernable throughout the book is the authors' belief that a solid understanding of the cognitive psychologyperspective enhances a teacher's ability to understand educational goals, educational processes, and the overall educational system.After an introduction to the basic principles of cognitive psychology and its position in education, the book explains cognitive processes, explores the importance of beliefs and motivations in the process of cognition, and, finally,examines the ways cognitive psychology informs teaching and learning in specific content areas. Devotes an entire chapter to sensory, short-term, and working memory, presenting the modal memory model. ... Read more

Book Description

Organized categorically and based on solid research, Levinthal introduces many of the controversies related to drug use and abuse with a focus on health and preventionWith a strong emphasis on prevention and education, this book covers the effects of abuse from a biological, psychological, sociological, and health perspective. Solid research supports the frank and informative manner in which the material is presented to readers.The book addresses drug-related topics in every aspect of life with information on inhalants, over-the-counter drugs, nicotine, caffeine, and more. For students, or people working with drug related topics in the fields of psychology and health. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Excellent, Quick review for USMLE step 1 and NBME shelf exam
Information is presented in a clear and concise fashion with good graphs and charts. Easy reading makes this a quick review. ... Read more

Book Description

Barbara Okun's practical introduction to counseling has helped thousands of readers become effective and empathetic helpers. Logical, easy-to-understand, and applicable, the book's unique framework helps readers enhance their self-awareness and their understanding of contemporary forces. The hallmark of this book has been its practical, applied approach, infused with many case examples, dialogues, tables, and experiential exercises. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Insightful and useful book, but lacks multi-cultural flavor.
Okuns's book provides a strong counseling model that practioners can follow. I found her exercises and examples particularly helpful and seemingly useful. However, her model is based on an affective,western;client-centered model. Many of the techniques suggested would be difficult to apply to clients of diverse populations. If you decide to buy this book, consider purchasing her other book, Understanding Diverse Families:What Practioners Need to Know. ... Read more