(Part 2) Top products from r/cogsci

haha I understand that feeling.

On the psychology/cognitive science/neuroscience side:

Stanislas Dehaene argues that learning to read rewires the brain by co-opting other capacities and essentially constructing a new neural network dedicated to processing written language. It's an interesting theory and a great book, but a little dense.

Raymond Mar has done a bunch of interesting work on fiction and empathy. Here's a link to most of his papers.

There's some research on how fiction more broadly can increase altruism:

Barraza, J. A., Alexander, V., Beavin, L. E., Terris, E. T., & Zak, P. J. (2015). The heart of the story: Peripheral physiology during narrative exposure predicts charitable giving. Biological Psychology, 105, 138-143. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2015.01.008

A more philosophical take - Martha Nussbaum on 'reading for life'.

Here are some books that take a bit of a general overview:

Lisa Zunshine - Why We Read

My own area is actually situating a lot of this research in an evolutionary context - looking at how and why we tell stories and what role they have served over longer timeframes. Here are some others that have written on the topic. I disagree with them in quite a few places, and I'm essentially arguing that we need to expand on their accounts, but there's a lot to agree with as well, and they're worth a read:

Brian Boyd - On The Origin of Stories

Ellen Spolsky - The Contracts of Fiction

Jonathon Gottschall - The Storytelling Animal

Let me know if there's any papers/books that you can't get access to, I have them all in PDF format and would be happy to forward you anything you're interested in reading that isn't available to you.

As to why I chose the topic, essentially I have a bit of a generalist educational background: I majored in philosophy, psychology, history/politics and english literature/creative writing as an undergraduate, and did a Master's in cognitive science and philosophy. I'm what you would most definitely refer to as over-educated, and I don't mean that in a good way - I have an Australian equivalent to a student loan that isn't pretty (although still much lower than what it would have cost me in the US!). So, I wanted a way of getting paid to read and think about all the areas I'm interested in - and it turns out writing about the evolution of fiction takes me across a whole range of disciplines and a whole range of research areas, including evolutionary biology/psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, economics, literary theory, etc. That, and I guess I have always disagreed with the idea of art as simply escapism or entertainment and wanted to look at how important it has been, and continues to be, in shaping who we are and where we're going.

'Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach' (it has machine learning and maybe less, datamining) is all I've used (besides Mitchell's one, that I'm anti-recommending), so I can't positively recommend any new ones. But there are several new titles. I'd try reading around the web to get an overview (or borrow one, even Mitchell's, from a library). Then, when you believe you know better what you're looking for look at books. I mean I could randomly pick one of the newer ones on Amazon but that's what it'd be. Chris Bishop (mentioned in the other reply) is a good writer + smart guy, I've been meaning to get that book of his; he's probably a safe bet but, reading around on the web first can't hurt either. The Weka-using datamining book might be an easy place to start, it's got a complete Java toolkit (which you can download free independently), Chris Bishop's book looks advanced. I might say Wikipedia but it doesn't look that helpful.

I have a couple (although I have read most of your books, and my favorite is "The man who mistook his wife for a hat is my favorite!)

59 seconds to change your life (Dr. .Richard Wiseman) -
https://www.amazon.com/59-Seconds-Change-Under-Minute/dp/0307474860

In this book wiseman pulls together many interesting studies and turns them into a kind of science-based self help book, showing how you can do simple things to make yourself happy, and how the science backs up what you are doing. Its kind of a "science does life hacks" type of book and I found it fascinating


The conscious universe - (Dr. Dean Radin)
https://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Universe-Scientific-Psychic-Phenomena/dp/0061778990/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474111002&sr=1-1&keywords=dean+radin+conscious

I think this one has to rate as controversial - but I personally found it a compelling read and it shifted my world view off kilter for a long time. Basically the author pulls together all of the experiments on telepathy, clairvoyance, etc. He is an experimental statistician and is able to make a strong case for there being some sort of physchic effect that science cannot explain. I have followed the topic through the years since, but I have not found a particularly strong rebuttal to this books contents

Another one I recently read

Peak - The new science of expertise (Anders Ericson and Robert Pool)
https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise/dp/0544456238/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474111419&sr=1-3&keywords=peak
This book is by the guy who coined the 10,000 hours rule (the one which Gladwell uses in Outliers) - It goes into a lot of scientific studies which have been run investigating how experts become experts - By now we know the soundbyte - 10000 hours - but I thought it was very interesting to see how this applies for different types of expertise, and for the neat experiments which have been run

I can't recall where I originally heard that handedness influenced drawing, but here are some relevant sources that I found:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1418831
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16350613

Interestingly, the second link says that in children handedness did not influence the subjects like it did the adults.

> My hypothesis is not that children (and people in general) see a letter and then spend time flipping it back and forth in the x-z plane, but rather that the mind encodes the memory of the object/symbol in a non-specific orientation in the x-z plane, so when it is recalled, there is a chance that it is seen from "the other side".

This definitely makes sense, and perhaps it is the case for some people? I know that for me, the symbol is encoded in a non-specific orientation, but not in a specific plane. I think that the part of my brain that does symbol processing bypasses my spatial perception - so it essentially all 2D. From a certain viewpoint I might see a pattern in a wall that looks like a face or a letter, but when I change my perspective it disappears.

I do know that symbol processing takes place in different parts of the brain depending on the language the person knows. Chinese speakers process characters differently than people who learned a language with an alphabet. (I know this from the book Proust and the Squid which is fascinating.) So, my thought is there are many factors that might be influencing these mirroring errors, but your theory is definitely a contender.

This is an excellent and well written introductory text on visual perception. Written to be engaging and entertaining without compromising the science.

http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Vision-Introduction-Visual-Perception/dp/0199286701/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291402509&sr=1-1

Other people are reccomending Marr, which is also excellent, although it's highly specific, I reccomend starting with sometime like the above, then moving to marr later.

> So is the neural rewiring from the pain what causes them to become doctors and lawyers later in life? Or is it just what makes them hilarious?

I'm assuming you're referring to Jews.

According to the WHO: Of all men who have been genitally mutilated by what is called 'circumcision':

• 0.8% are Jews
  
• 12.8% are Americans non-{Jews,Muslims}
  
• 68.8% are Muslims
  
  Nevertheless, the Jewish influence in the medical fields and entertainment industries in the U.S. are part of the reason genital mutilation is so rampant there[0][1][2][3]. Of course, the Victorian Christians got the ball rolling on genital mutilation, because they wanted to curb masturbation.
  
  In any case, genital mutilation is not a laughing matter, and I don't really appreciate you making light of it. When performed on a healthy child, "circumcision" is a slight against human rights, dignity, respect, and personal liberty.

Read Pim van Lommel's "Consciousness Beyond Life" It's a fascinating book, and arguably the most credible of a topic where there's not a lot of credibility to go around. He tries to refute the kinds of arguments made in articles like the one referenced here.

To be fair, his book and approach is an example of a very intelligent MD trying to do original research, and thus has limits, and he speculates in ways that few PhDs would, but on the other hand, I don't think a reasonable person can dismiss the book out of hand or disregard many of the experiences he includes.

The unnerving thing for me is that as I have mentioned the book to others, I started getting stories back of people who had NDEs.

From the way this first bit is framed, I wonder if you've ever studied or encountered any of the work that would fall under the aegis of "developmental systems theory". It seems like a lot of the ground you're trying to cover in terms of the distinction between genetic influences on evolution and epigenetic/cultural influences has been covered in great detail by developmental systems theorists from an anti-gene-centric perspective, and you should probably be engaging or at least acknowledging it. Susan Oyama's The Ontogeny of Information and Oyama/Griffiths/Gray's edited volume Cycles of Contingency are a couple of good texts to get acquainted with the DST approach and its (fairly far-reaching) philosophical implications.

If you liked this article, might I suggest a couple books. They literally changed how I see myself and other people. I know people brag about books "changing their life", but these books force you to realize how little control you actually have over your mind, and assess whether that control is actually productive. The subconscious is a fascinating subject.

The User Illusion

Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less

Wow that a pretty expensive book right there

btw, I was looking for an AMA on Memory improvement and speed reading, anyone knows if it has been done before, or is someone willing to?

Read The Freedom Manifesto, now! It might save your life.

Not politically incorrect. Just incorrect.

99% of babies learn language in exactly the same way. Even for different languages, children treat language and grammar quite similarly. In truth, you don't really have to "teach" a child to speak. Children will learn language on their own, if exposed to speech.

And, are you implying that more intelligent people (like MIT graduates) are better at using language than others? I think it's actually the other way around. The more education a person receives (like BA., PhD., etc), the less grammatical their everyday speech becomes.

Examples and arguments taken from The Language instinct, by Stephen Pinker.

This makes me think of an experience I had after reading What Every BODY is Saying, a book from an ex-FBI agent about reading body language. I was a temp in an ad department about a year ago, the only girl among 8 people, and felt like I could never get these guys to listen to me. Always interrupted, always dismissed, invisible, etc.

So that book was talking about body language, what assertive/aggressive/confident body language looks like. I had to do a presentation the next day, and decided to PARODY the book. Seriously, it was a joke to me, stupid and hilarious, had nothing to lose. I stood with my feet slightly apart, I tented my hands, I spread my papers all over the place to 'claim territory', the whole bit (as described in the book).

Night and day. No contest. My ideas were accepted, submitted, etc, no problem; first time in weeks. I was speaking in a bubble of silence and couldn't believe it. AWESOME.

Not a scientific experiment, and of course, I can't tell if it was my fake body language or that it made ME feel like I was confident, or a combination of each; but I've been using that stuff in poker games for months since, and feel it's powerful stuff.

/verbose mode

For a more detailed explanation of price anchoring Predictably Irrational is a fun read.

I took a course on Cognitive Science last term and the text we used was An Invitation to Cognitive Science: Vol. 3: Thinking, supplemented with a few other readings.

It's part 3 of a 4 part series that "employs a unique case study approach, presenting a focused research topic in some depth and relying on suggested readings to convey the breadth of views and results. Each chapter tells a coherent scientific story, whether developing themes and ideas or describing a particular model and exploring its implications."

For the rough history read A Brief History Of The Mind by William H. Calvin.

A more speculative read is Adam's Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans by Derek Bickerton.

The latter focuses on how language per se differentiates us from most other species (except some social insects: bees and ants). But it also reviews our history.

Not to be argumentative, but my knowledge comes from here:

http://www.amazon.com/Snakes-Suits-When-Psychopaths-Work/dp/0060837721

and here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hare_%28psychologist%29

I just searched and found Michael Talbot's book on Amazon. Read the first reviewer's comments, they seem to address your concerns.

I came here to say this. GTD seems like it would exactly meet your needs. I was a disorganised mess. After reading it I am still a mess, but I am organised.
The general thrust of GTD is:

• your brain can hold one thought at a time
  
  
• you need to manage when things appear in your mind so that they are only there when you can actually do something about them
  
  
• Once you know what you can do right now then do it right now
  
  
  
  There is much more to it than that, seriously though, read the book
  

Bad People

A man told me once that all the bad people

Were needed. Maybe not all, but your fingernails

You need; they are really claws, and we know

Claws. The sharks—what about them?

They make other fish swim faster. The hard-faced men

In black coats who chase you for hours

In dreams—that’s the only way to get you

To the shore. Sometimes those hard women

Who abandon you get you to say, “You.”

A lazy part of us is like a tumbleweed.

It doesn’t move on its own. Sometimes it takes

A lot of Depression to get tumbleweeds moving.

Then they blow across three or four States.

This man told me that things work together.

Bad handwriting sometimes leads to new ideas;

And a careless god—who refuses to let people

Eat from the Tree of Knowledge—can lead

To books, and eventually to us. We write

Poems with lies in them, but they help a little.