Mind, Brain, and the Environment

by Cartledge, Bryan

• ISBN13: 9780198549925
• ISBN10: 019854992X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-01-08
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This volume offers a short and clear introduction to the relationships between the human mind or brain and the surrounding physical and social environments. From the varied perspectives of physiology, psychology, psychiatry, pathology, anthropology, and behavioral science, eight leading experts explain how we react to the world around us. The contributors explore the complex and fascinating relations between human behavior, our experience of the environment, the effects of our behavior on the environment, and the ways in which our environment affects us. Wide-ranging discussions include explorations of our perceptions of the physical and social environments; our evolved preferences for certain surroundings, colors, and landscapes; the vulnerability of the brain to external toxins, trauma, and infections; the effects of family breakdown and urban life on mental health; and the nature of emotions. This unique book provides an accessible look at a rapidly developing field of neuroscience.

Table of Contents

List of authors	ix
Introduction	1	(5)
Bryan Cartledge
1. Humans and human habitats: reciprocal influences	6	(22)
Robert A. Hinde
2. How the environment helps to build the brain	28	(29)
Colin Blakemore
3. Emotion and reason in the future of human life	57	(15)
Antonio R. Damasio
4. Perceiving social and physical environments	72	(35)
Andy Young
5. Toxins in the environment and human brain disease	107	(17)
David Marsden
6. Mental health and the urban environment	124	(20)
Hugh Freeman
7. Meeting of minds: the import of family and society	144	(14)
Anthony W. Clare
8. Culture, nature, environment: steps to an ecology of life	158	(23)
Tim Ingold
Glossary	181	(4)
Index	185