Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness

Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness, Second Edition: Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience

ByBernard J. Baars, Nicole M. Gage
Publisher: Academic Press
Pages: 672
Source: girro@qq.com
Publication Date: 2010-03-11
ISBN-10: 0123750709
ISBN-13: 9780123750709

Product
Description: Girro

This is the fully revised and updated second edition of the very sucessful introductory textbook on cognitive neuroscience. Written by two leading experts in the field, this textbook book takes a unique thematic approach to introduce concepts of cognitive neurosciences, guiding students along a clear path to understand the latest findings whether or not they have a background in neuroscience. New to this edition are Frontiers in Cognitive Neuroscience text boxes; each one focuses on a leading researcher and their topic of expertise. There is a new chapter on Genes and Molecules of Cognition, and all other chapters have been thoroughly revised, based on the most recent discoveries.

New edition of a very successful textbook
Completely revised to reflect new advances, and feedback from adopters and students
Includes a new chapter on Genes and Molecules of Cognition

For Teachers:

Rapid adoption and course preparation: A wide array of instructor support materials are available online including PowerPoint lecture slides, a test bank with answers, and eFlashcords on key concepts for each chapter.

A textbook with an easy-to-understand thematic approach: in a way that is clear for students from a variety of academic backgrounds, the text introduces concepts such as working memory, selective attention, and social cognition.

A step-by-step guide for introducing students to brain anatomy: color graphics have been carefully selected to illustrate all points and the research explained. Beautifully clear artist's drawings are used to 'build a brain' from top to bottom, simplifying the layout of the brain.

For students:

An easy-to-read, complete introduction to mind-brain science: all chapters begin from mind-brain functions and build a coherent picture of their brain basis. A single, widely accepted functional framework is used to capture the major phenomena.

Learning Aids include a student support site with study guides and exercises, a new Mini-Atlas of the Brain and a full Glossary of technical terms and their definitions.

Richly illustrated with hundreds of carefully selected color graphics to enhance understanding.

Summary: Excellent, accessible introduction

Rating: 5

This book serves as a highly readable introduction to cognitive neuroscience, an excellent place to start before jumping into more in-depth books. I've only read the 2nd edition and I don't notice any of the problems with the 1st edition that other reviewers mentioned so I assume they were fixed in the 2nd edition. All in all, highly recommended

Summary: Poorly written

Rating: 2

This book looks like a clear, relatively easy introduction to its subject, because the illustrations are ample and text is not dense. However, the writing and organization are poor, perhaps because it's a first edition. But at present, it's not worth buying.

Summary: Nice presentation of a complex subject

Rating: 4

I picked this book because I was looking for a book that did not require a background in neuroscience, but would still provide a somewhat detailed account of the structures of the brain, what function(s) they're involved in and how they work together. This book fit the bill quite well. It's a serious science book that covered this (and more), but is still readable.
At a very high level the topics covered include the history of neuroscience, microstructures in the brain (such as neurons), the different parts of the brain and their functions, how these parts interact with each other, the interpretation of visual and audio input (both at a fine grained level and at the level of understanding language) and speech production. There are also several chapters covering long/short term memory, cognition, consciousness and more.
One of the things I liked is that the topics are often covered from a very low level perspective of how the brain functions as an organ and from a higher level phenomenological perspective. Evidence for the former coming from things like fMRI scans and PET scans of people engaged in certain cognitive tasks. Evidence for the later coming from things like case studies of people that had certain parts of their brain damaged and how that affects their behavior or their ability to perform certain tasks. There were also some diagrams that allowed the reader to directly experience some of the phenomena being discussed, for example lateral inhibition and the brain's perception of ambiguous data.
A short list of some of the things I found especially interesting include: the role of RNA and protein synthesis in the formation of long term memory, some parts of the adult brain have undifferentiated cells and the cerebellum has a role in cognitive functions (one of the few things I previously thought I knew about the brain was the cerebellum was only used for motor control), that olfactory information goes directly to the context (previously I only had a vague idea about the sense of smell being primitive in some sense), why the pleasure from anticipating an event often actually exceeds the pleasure of the event itself, how easily people get false memories, and the importance of sleep in forming long term memories.
All-in-all I liked this book a lot, but in my opinion it did have a few short comings. While most of the diagrams were helpful, some were confusing. There was a silly mistake referring to Galileo using his telescope to look at the moons of "Venus". I also think a couple of the statements were questionable. One is a claim that out conceptual system is a consequence of the language we speak. This is a fairly vague statement. Depending on the meaning of "conceptual system" its truth could be anywhere from obviously true to obviously false. Another is that it's stated that the main character of studies of executive functions of the brain tends to be reductionistic in nature, and it's stated that this is unfortunate. No reasons for that judgment were given, it's just hard to tell if it's a knee jerk reaction against reductionism (which exists) or if there are some needed phenomenological studies that aren't being done.
For me the main drawback is that it had only a small amount of material on neurotransmitters. There was a reference to an "Appendix C" that apparently supposed to cover them. However, my copy of the book does not have an appendix C (since the binding is intact it was printed that way). Obviously I don't know if this is a systematic problem or not.
For me it was a very good choice and I'm very happy I bought it.

Summary: High hopes, poor outcome

Rating: 2

I have been teaching "Mind, Brain and Behavior", and introductory course in Cognitive Neuroscience, for the past 10 years to college students at Columbia University and the City University of New York. After using Gazzaniga, Ivry and Mangun's "Cognitive Neuroscience: Biology of the Mind" for 8 of those years, I decided to try the Baars text because it appeared to have a strong overarching theme that would provide for greater pedagogy than my previous text. Indeed, skimming the text and the chapters suggests that it would be a beautiful, up-to-date and well-integrated treatment of cognitive neuroscience, with an emphasis on consciousness that is aligned with my own interests. So I assigned it to my class of 100.
I should have read it more carefully before doing that. In fact, I spent the semester trying to help them figure out what the figures really meant (since they didn't actually match what was discussed in the text much of the time), clarify concepts that came out of the blue, and generally apologizing to the students for all the clerical errors. It was frustrating for them and for me. Many of them wanted their money back from the publisher.
For students who are trying to learn new material, poor editing is particularly damaging because it creates unnecessary confusion (on top of the necessary confusion that comes with approaching challenging material). Even experts or interested laypeople shouldn't have to struggle through such poor editing in order to get information.
Needless to say, I'm not using the Baars text anymore. Hopefully, the 2nd edition will be better edited. I don't think it could be worse - in fact I've never read anything that was so poorly executed.
One positive note: I would say that the powerpoint slides that came with the instructor's version of the text were actually more useful than most instructor materials. Also, it has a cool bookmark.

Summary: Great design, flawed execution

Rating: 2

The design of this book is superb, and the approach to explaining a complex subject in a manner approachable to beginners and laymen is clever. Unfortunately, the execution is so flawed that the book is nearly worthless as a learning tool. The text often reads like a partially edited first draft, full of distracting inconsistencies, digressions, repetitions, and discussions that elaborate on concepts introduced later on, if ever. The index is grossly inadequate and references are often hazy. For example, on page 24, a quote is attributed to "Baddeley, personal communication." There is no entry in the index for Baddeley, but there are 5 entries in the bibliography for what would appear to be 3 different authors named Baddeley (A., A.D., and T.C.), although given the quality of the editing, they could actually refer to the same person. The book also desperately needs a glossary.
But the worst problem for a book that relies heavily on visual representation to get across its message is the frequent disconnect between text and illustrations. Some examples: In Figure 1.7, which introduces the major landmarks of the brain, the upper and lower portions are reversed from the way they are identified in the text. The framework upon which the entire teaching experience is based is introduced in an unnumbered figure at the front of Chapter 2, but what is labeled "Response output" in the figure is then called "motor output" in the text. The note under a truth table on page 459 ("Notice that the third Input column correlates with the Output") makes no sense because the input columns have been collapsed and appear to be a single 3-digit number. This kind of disconnect happens time and again throughout the book.
As an attractive coffee table book, this volume is not overpriced. As a textbook, the idea is great but I'd suggest waiting for a corrected second edition.

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