'Absorbing, mind-enlarging, studded with insights ... This could have significant real-world results' Sunday Times\nHumanity's greatest feat is our incredible ability to learn. Even in their first year, infants acquire language, visual and social knowledge at a rate that surpasses the best supercomputers. But how, exactly, do our brains learn?\nIn How We Learn, leading neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene delves into the psychological, neuronal, synaptic and molecular mechanisms of learning. Drawing on case studies of children who learned despite huge difficulty and trauma, he explains why youth is such a sensitive period, during which brain plasticity is maximal, but also assures us that our abilities continue into adulthood. We can all enhance our learning and memory at any age and 'learn to learn' by taking maximal advantage of the four pillars of the brain's learning algorithm: attention, active engagement, error feedback and consolidation.\nThe human brain is an extraordinary machine. Its ability to process information and adapt to circumstances by reprogramming itself is unparalleled, and it remains the best source of inspiration for recent developments in artificial intelligence. How We Learn finds the boundary of computer science, neurobiology, cognitive psychology and education to explain how learning really works and how to make the best use of the brain's learning algorithms - and even improve them - in our schools and universities as well as in everyday life.

How We Learn: The New Science of Education and the Brain

Computers & Technology

DEHAENE, STANISLAS

Computer Science

Penguin

"Brings together the cognitive, the cultural, and the neurological in an elegant, compelling narrative. A revelatory work."--Oliver Sacks, M.D. The act of reading is so easily taken for granted that we forget what an astounding feat it is. How can a few black marks on white paper evoke an entire universe of meanings? It's even more amazing when we consider that we read using a primate brain that evolved to serve an entirely different purpose. In this riveting investigation, Stanislas Dehaene, author of How We Learn, explores every aspect of this human invention, from its origins to its neural underpinnings. A world authority on the subject, Dehaene reveals the hidden logic of spelling, describes pioneering research on hiw we process languages, and takes us into a new appreciation of the brain and its wondrous capacity to adapt.

Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Psychology & Counseling

Penguin??Books

WINNER OF THE 2014 BRAIN PRIZE From the acclaimed author of Reading in the Brain and How We Learn, a breathtaking look at the new science that can track consciousness deep in the brain How does our brain generate a conscious thought? And why does so much of our knowledge remain unconscious? Thanks to clever psychological and brain-imaging experiments, scientists are closer to cracking this mystery than ever before. In this lively book, Stanislas Dehaene describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs of other cognitive neuroscientists worldwide have accomplished in defining, testing, and explaining the brain events behind a conscious state. We can now pin down the neurons that fire when a person reports becoming aware of a piece of information and understand the crucial role unconscious computations play in how we make decisions. The emerging theory enables a test of consciousness in animals, babies, and those with severe brain injuries. A joyous exploration of the mind and its thrilling complexities, Consciousness and the Brain will excite anyone interested in cutting-edge science and technology and the vast philosophical, personal, and ethical implications of finally quantifying consciousness.

Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts

Our understanding of how the human brain performs mathematical calculations is far from complete. But in recent years there have been many exciting scientific discoveries, some aided by new imaging techniques--which allow us for the first time to watch the living mind at work--and others by ingenious experiments conducted by researchers all over the world. There are still perplexing mysteries--how, for instance, do idiot savants perform almost miraculous mathematical feats?--but the picture is growing steadily clearer. In The Number Sense, Stanislas Dehaene offers general readers a first look at these recent stunning discoveries, in an enlightening exploration of the mathematical mind. Dehaene, a mathematician turned cognitive neuropsychologist, begins with the eye-opening discovery that animals--including rats, pigeons, raccoons, and chimpanzees--can perform simple mathematical calculations, and he describes ingenious experiments that show that human infants also have a rudimentary number sense (American scientist Karen Wynn, for instance, using just a few Mickey Mouse toys and a small puppet theater, proved that five-month-old infants already have the ability to add and subtract). Further, Dehaene suggests that this rudimentary number sense is as basic to the way the brain understands the world as our perception of color or of objects in space, and, like these other abilities, our number sense is wired into the brain. But how then did the brain leap from this basic number ability to trigonometry, calculus, and beyond? Dehaene shows that it was the invention of symbolic systems of numerals that started us on the climb to higher mathematics, and in a marvelous chapter he traces the history of numbers, from early times when people indicated a number by pointing to a part of their body (even today, in many societies in New Guinea, the word for six is "wrist"), to early abstract numbers such as Roman numerals (chosen for the ease with which they could be carved into wooden sticks), to modern numbers. On our way, we also discover many fascinating facts: for example, because Chinese names for numbers are so short, Chinese people can remember up to nine or ten digits at a time--English-speaking people can only remember seven. Dehaene also explores the unique abilities of idiot savants and mathematical geniuses, asking what might explain their special mathematical talent. And we meet people whose minute brain lesions render their mathematical ability useless--one man, in fact, who is certain that two and two is three. Using modern imaging techniques (PET scans and MRI), Dehaene reveals exactly where in the brain numerical calculation takes place. But perhaps most important, The Number Sense reaches many provocative conclusions that will intrigue anyone interested in mathematics or the mind. Dehaene argues, for instance, that many of the difficulties that children face when learning math, and which may turn into a full-blown adult "innumeracy," stem from the architecture of our primate brain, which has not evolved for the purpose of doing mathematics. He also shows why the human brain does not work like a computer, and that the physical world is not based on mathematics--rather, mathematics evolved to explain the physical world the way that the eye evolved to provide sight. A truly fascinating look at the crossroads where numbers and neurons intersect, The Number Sense offers an intriguing tour of how the structure of the brain shapes our mathematical abilities, and how our mathematics opens up a window on the human mind.

The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates Mathematics

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Oxford University Press

The Number Sense is an enlightening exploration of the mathematical mind. Describing experiments that show that human infants have a rudimentary number sense, Stanislas Dehaene suggests that this sense is as basic as our perception of color, and that it is wired into the brain. Dehaene shows that it was the invention of symbolic systems of numerals that started us on the climb to higher mathematics. A fascinating look at the crossroads where numbers and neurons intersect, The Number Sense offers an intriguing tour of how the structure of the brain shapes our mathematical abilities, and how our mathematics opens up a window on the human mind.

Our understanding of how the human brain performs mathematical calculations is far from complete, but in recent years there have been many exciting breakthroughs by scientists all over the world. Now, in The Number Sense, Stanislas Dehaene offers a fascinating look at this recent research, in an enlightening exploration of the mathematical mind. Dehaene begins with the eye-opening discovery that animals-including rats, pigeons, raccoons, and chimpanzees-can perform simple mathematical calculations, and that human infants also have a rudimentary number sense. Dehaene suggests that this rudimentary number sense is as basic to the way the brain understands the world as our perception of color or of objects in space, and, like these other abilities, our number sense is wired into the brain. These are but a few of the wealth of fascinating observations contained here. We also discover, for example, that because Chinese names for numbers are so short, Chinese people can remember up to nine or ten digits at a time-English-speaking people can only remember seven. The book also explores the unique abilities of idiot savants and mathematical geniuses, and we meet people whose minute brain lesions render their mathematical ability useless. This new and completely updated edition includes all of the most recent scientific data on how numbers are encoded by single neurons, and which brain areas activate when we perform calculations.

The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates Mathematics, Revised and Updated Edition

A lavishly illustrated and accessibly explained deep dive into the major new findings from cognitive neuroscience.\nWho are we? To this age-old question, contemporary neuroscience gives a simple answer: we are exquisite neuronal machines. Each of our dreams, thoughts, and feelings arises from a pattern of activity in our brain. In Stanislas Dehaene’s Seeing the Mind, we learn not only that the mind maps onto the brain, but that it is just a complex electrical motif on the tapestry of our neurons. In this richly illustrated and highly accessible book, Dehaene uses the power of brain images to tell the story of centuries-old efforts to understand who we are, and how it is possible that our thoughts emerge from just three pounds of flesh.\nSeeing the Mind is divided into one hundred topics, each described by a spectacular full-page color image and, on the facing page, a brief text that explains what this image means and why it matters. By weaving together images and text, the bookbrings readers into the intimacy of their own brains. As Dehaene explains, “All the gorgeous biological processes that you are about to discover are taking place, right now, inside your own brain.”\nA modern cabinet of curiosities, Seeing the Mind is an intriguing and memorable read thatwill astonish readers with a direct, face-to-face meeting with themselves—and with the material stuff of their thoughts and dreams.

Seeing the Mind: Spectacular Images from Neuroscience, and What They Reveal about Our Neuronal Selves

The MIT Press

How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine . . . for Now

An illuminating dive into the latest science on our brain's remarkable learning abilities and the potential of the machines we program to imitate them The human brain is an extraordinary machine. Its ability to process information and adapt to circumstances by reprogramming itself is unparalleled and it remains the best source of inspiration for recent developments in artificial intelligence. In How We Learn, Stanislas Dehaene decodes the brain's biological mechanisms, delving into the neuronal, synaptic, and molecular processes taking place. He explains why youth is such a sensitive period, during which brain plasticity is maximal, but assures us that our abilities continue into adulthood and that we can enhance our learning and memory at any age. We can all learn to learn by taking maximal advantage of the four pillars of the brain's learning algorithm: attention, active engagement, error feedback, and consolidation. The exciting advancements in artificial intelligence of the last twenty years reveal just as much about our remarkable abilities as they do about the potential of machines. How We Learn finds the boundary of computer science, neurobiology, and cognitive psychology to explain how learning really works and how to make the best use of the brain's learning algorithms, in our schools and universities, as well as in everyday life.

Reference

VIKING

Product Description 
“There are words that are so familiar they obscure rather than illuminate the thing they mean, and ‘learning’ is such a word. It seems so ordinary, everyone does it. Actually it’s more of a black box, which Dehaene cracks open to reveal the awesome secrets within.”--The New York Times Book ReviewAn illuminating dive into the latest science on our brain's remarkable learning abilities and the potential of the machines we program to imitate them\nThe human brain is an extraordinary learning machine. Its ability to reprogram itself is unparalleled, and it remains the best source of inspiration for recent developments in artificial intelligence. But how do we learn? What innate biological foundations underlie our ability to acquire new information, and what principles modulate their efficiency?\nIn 
How We Learn, Stanislas Dehaene finds the boundary of computer science, neurobiology, and cognitive psychology to explain how learning really works and how to make the best use of the brain’s learning algorithms in our schools and universities, as well as in everyday life and at any age. 
 Review 
"There are words that are so familiar they obscure rather than illuminate the thing they mean, and ‘learning’ is such a word. It seems so ordinary, everyone does it. Actually it’s more of a black box, which Dehaene cracks open to reveal the awesome secrets within . . . His explanation of the basic machinery of the brain is an excellent primer.” 
--The New York Times Book Review 
“[An] expert overview of learning . . . Never mind our opposable thumb, upright posture, fire, tools, or language; it is education that enabled humans to conquer the world . . . Dehaene's fourth insightful exploration of neuroscience will pay dividends for attentive readers.” 
--Kirkus Reviews\n“[Dehaene] rigorously examines our remarkable capacity for learning. The baby brain is especially awesome and not a ‘blank slate’ . . . Dehaene’s portrait of the human brain is fascinating.” 
--Booklist“A richly instructive [book] for educators, parents, and others interested in how to most effectively foster the pursuit of knowledge.” 
 --Publishers WeeklyPraise for Reading in the Brain:\n"Splendid...Dehaene reveals how decades of low-tech experiments and high-tech brain-imaging studies have unwrapped the mystery of reading and revealed its component parts...A pleasure to read. [Dehaene] never oversimplifies; he takes the time to tell the whole story, and he tells it in a literate way." 
—The Wall Street Journal\n"Masterful...a delight to read and scientifically precise." 
—Nature\nPraise for Consciousness and the Brain:\n"Ambitious . . . Dehaene offers nothing less than a blueprint for brainsplaining one of the world's deepest mysteries. . . . [A] fantastic book." 
—The Washington Post\n"Dehaene is a maestro of the unconscious." 
—Scientific American Mind\n"Brilliant... Essential reading for those who want to experience the excitement of the search for the mind in the brain." 
—Nature 
 About the Author 
Stanislas Dehaene is the director of the Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit in Saclay, France, and the professor of experimental cognitive psychology at the Collège de France. He is currently the president of the Scientific Council of the French Ministry of Education. 
 Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 
Chapter 1\nSeven Definitions of Learning\nWhat does "learning" mean? My first and most general definition is the following: to learn is to form an internal model of the external world.\nYou may not be aware of it, but your brain has acquired thousands of internal models of the outside world. Metaphorically speaking, they are like miniature mock-ups more or less faithful to the reality they represent. We all have in our brains, for example, a mental map of our neighborhood and our home-all we have to do is close our eyes and envision them with our thoughts. Obviously, none of us were born with this mental map-we

A renowned cognitive neuroscientist?s fascinating and highly informative account of how the brain acquires reading How can a few black marks on a white page evoke an entire universe of sounds and meanings? In this riveting investigation, Stanislas Dehaene provides an accessible account of the brain circuitry of reading and explores what he calls the ?reading paradox?: Our cortex is the product of millions of years of evolution in a world without writing, so how did it adapt to recognize words? Reading in the Brain describes pioneering research on how we process language, revealing the hidden logic of spelling and the existence of powerful unconscious mechanisms for decoding words of any size, case, or font. Dehaene?s research will fascinate not only readers interested in science and culture, but also educators concerned with debates on how we learn to read, and who wrestle with pathologies such as dyslexia. Like Steven Pinker, Dehaene argues that the mind is not a blank slate: Writing systems across all cultures rely on the same brain circuits, and reading is only possible insofar as it fits within the limits of a primate brain. Setting cutting-edge science in the context of cultural debate, Reading in the Brain is an unparalleled guide to a uniquely human ability.

Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention

Viking Adult

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by DEHAENE, STANISLAS. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by DEHAENE, STANISLAS

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by DEHAENE, STANISLAS. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

How We Learn: The New Science of Education and the Brain

Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read

Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts

The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates Mathematics

The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates Mathematics

The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates Mathematics, Revised and Updated Edition

Seeing the Mind: Spectacular Images from Neuroscience, and What They Reveal about Our Neuronal Selves

How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine . . . for Now

How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine . . . for Now

Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention