BRAIN BUGS CL

by Buonomano, Dean

• ISBN13: 9780393076028
• ISBN10: 0393076024
• Edition: 00
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-07-11
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

With its trillions of connections, the human brain is more beautiful and complex than anything we could ever build, but it's far from perfect. Our memory is unreliable; we can't multiply large sums in our heads; advertising manipulates our judgment; we tend to distrust people who are different from us; supernatural beliefs and superstitions are hard to shake; we prefer instant gratification to long-term gain; and what we presume to be rational decisions are often anything but. Drawing on striking examples and fascinating studies, neuroscientist Dean Buonomano illuminates the causes and consequences of these "bugs" in terms of the brain's innermost workings and their evolutionary purposes. He then goes one step further, examining how our brains function-and malfunction-in the digital, predator-free, information-saturated, special effects-addled world that we have built for ourselves. Along the way, Brain Bugs gives us the tools to hone our cognitive strengths while recognizing our inherent weaknesses.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
The Memory Web	p. 79
Memory Upgrade Needed	p. 47
Brain Crashes	p. 70
Temporal Distortions	p. 94
Fear Factor	p. 120
Unreasonable Reasoning	p. 142
The Advertising Bug	p. 171
The Supernatural Bug	p. 197
Debugging	p. 220
Acknowledgments	p. 237
Notes	p. 241
Bibliography	p. 263
Credits	p. 297
Index	p. 299
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