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Author: A. S. Barwich
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674245407
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
An NRC Handelsblad Book of the Year “Offers rich discussions of olfactory perception, the conscious and subconscious impacts of smell on behavior and emotion.” —Science Decades of cognition research have shown that external stimuli “spark” neural patterns in particular regions of the brain. We think of the brain as a space we can map: here it responds to faces, there it perceives a sensation. But the sense of smell—only recently attracting broader attention in neuroscience—doesn’t work this way. So what does the nose tell the brain, and how does the brain understand it? A. S. Barwich turned to experts in neuroscience, psychology, chemistry, and perfumery in an effort to understand the mechanics and meaning of odors. She discovered that scents are often fickle, and do not line up with well-defined neural regions. Upending existing theories of perception, Smellosophy offers a new model for understanding how the brain senses and processes odors. “A beguiling analysis of olfactory experience that is fast becoming a core reference work in the field.” —Irish Times “Lively, authoritative...Aims to rehabilitate smell’s neglected and marginalized status.” —Wall Street Journal “This is a special book...It teaches readers a lot about olfaction. It teaches us even more about what philosophy can be.” —Times Literary Supplement
Author: A. S. Barwich
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674245407
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Get Book Here
Book Description
An NRC Handelsblad Book of the Year “Offers rich discussions of olfactory perception, the conscious and subconscious impacts of smell on behavior and emotion.” —Science Decades of cognition research have shown that external stimuli “spark” neural patterns in particular regions of the brain. We think of the brain as a space we can map: here it responds to faces, there it perceives a sensation. But the sense of smell—only recently attracting broader attention in neuroscience—doesn’t work this way. So what does the nose tell the brain, and how does the brain understand it? A. S. Barwich turned to experts in neuroscience, psychology, chemistry, and perfumery in an effort to understand the mechanics and meaning of odors. She discovered that scents are often fickle, and do not line up with well-defined neural regions. Upending existing theories of perception, Smellosophy offers a new model for understanding how the brain senses and processes odors. “A beguiling analysis of olfactory experience that is fast becoming a core reference work in the field.” —Irish Times “Lively, authoritative...Aims to rehabilitate smell’s neglected and marginalized status.” —Wall Street Journal “This is a special book...It teaches readers a lot about olfaction. It teaches us even more about what philosophy can be.” —Times Literary Supplement
Author: A. S. Barwich
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674983696
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Get Book Here
Book Description
An NRC Handelsblad Book of the Year “Offers rich discussions of olfactory perception, the conscious and subconscious impacts of smell on behavior and emotion.” —Science Decades of cognition research have shown that external stimuli “spark” neural patterns in particular regions of the brain. We think of the brain as a space we can map: here it responds to faces, there it perceives a sensation. But the sense of smell—only recently attracting broader attention in neuroscience—doesn’t work this way. So what does the nose tell the brain, and how does the brain understand it? A. S. Barwich turned to experts in neuroscience, psychology, chemistry, and perfumery in an effort to understand the mechanics and meaning of odors. She discovered that scents are often fickle, and do not line up with well-defined neural regions. Upending existing theories of perception, Smellosophy offers a new model for understanding how the brain senses and processes odors. “A beguiling analysis of olfactory experience that is fast becoming a core reference work in the field.” —Irish Times “Lively, authoritative...Aims to rehabilitate smell’s neglected and marginalized status.” —Wall Street Journal “This is a special book...It teaches readers a lot about olfaction. It teaches us even more about what philosophy can be.” —Times Literary Supplement
Author: Larry E. Shiner
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190089814
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 373
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Book Description
In the last twenty years there has been a marked increase in artists using smells in their works at the same time that scents are being used to accompany plays, films, and music. There is also an increase in ambient scenting in stores and hotels and leading chefs are adding unusual scents to cuisine. The book explores these olfactory activities and the aesthetic and ethical issues they raise as well as answering the traditional disparagement of the sense of smell by leading intellectuals such as Kant, Darwin, and Freud, drawing on current science, social science, and humanities as well as literature.
Author: Jennifer M. Groh
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067474487X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
Knowing where things are seems effortless. Yet our brains devote tremendous computational power to figuring out the simplest details about spatial relationships. Going to the grocery store or finding our cell phone requires sleuthing and coordination across different sensory and motor domains. Making Space traces this mental detective work to explain how the brain creates our sense of location. But it goes further, to make the case that spatial processing permeates all our cognitive abilities, and that the brain’s systems for thinking about space may be the systems of thought itself. Our senses measure energy in the form of light, sound, and pressure on the skin, and our brains evaluate these measurements to make inferences about objects and boundaries. Jennifer Groh describes how eyes detect electromagnetic radiation, how the brain can locate sounds by measuring differences of less than one one-thousandth of a second in how long they take to reach each ear, and how the ear’s balance organs help us monitor body posture and movement. The brain synthesizes all this neural information so that we can navigate three-dimensional space. But the brain’s work doesn’t end there. Spatial representations do double duty in aiding memory and reasoning. This is why it is harder to remember how to get somewhere if someone else is driving, and why, if we set out to do something and forget what it was, returning to the place we started can jog our memory. In making space the brain uses powers we did not know we have.
Author: Ari Berkowitz
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674736907
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 246
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Book Description
From simple reflexes to complex movements, all animal behavior is governed by a nervous system. But what kind of government is it—a dictatorship or a democracy? Ari Berkowitz explains the variety of structures and strategies that control behavior, while providing an overview of thought-provoking debates and cutting-edge research.
Author: Avery Gilbert
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781505442878
Category : Nose
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Everything about the sense of smell fascinates us, from its power to evoke memories to its ability to change our moods and influence our behavior. Yet because it is the least understood of the senses, myths abound. For example, contrary to popular belief, the human nose is almost as sensitive as the noses of many animals, including dogs; blind people do not have enhanced powers of smell; and perfumers excel at their jobs not because they have superior noses, but because they have perfected the art of thinking about scents. In this entertaining and enlightening journey through the world of aroma, olfaction expert Avery Gilbert illuminates the latest scientific discoveries and offers keen observations on modern culture: how a museum is preserving the smells of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row; why John Waters revived the "smellie" in Polyester; and what innovations are coming from artists like the Dutch "aroma jockey" known as Odo7. From brain-imaging laboratories to the high-stakes world of scent marketing, What the Nose Knows takes us on a tour of the strange and surprising realm of smell.
Author: John S. Allen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674069870
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268
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Book Description
In this gustatory tour of human history, John S. Allen demonstrates that the everyday activity of eating offers deep insights into human beings’ biological and cultural heritage. We humans eat a wide array of plants and animals, but unlike other omnivores we eat with our minds as much as our stomachs. This thoughtful relationship with food is part of what makes us a unique species, and makes culinary cultures diverse. Not even our closest primate relatives think about food in the way Homo sapiens does. We are superomnivores whose palates reflect the natural history of our species. Drawing on the work of food historians and chefs, anthropologists and neuroscientists, Allen starts out with the diets of our earliest ancestors, explores cooking’s role in our evolving brain, and moves on to the preoccupations of contemporary foodies. The Omnivorous Mind delivers insights into food aversions and cravings, our compulsive need to label foods as good or bad, dietary deviation from “healthy” food pyramids, and cross-cultural attitudes toward eating (with the French, bien sûr, exemplifying the pursuit of gastronomic pleasure). To explain, for example, the worldwide popularity of crispy foods, Allen considers first the food habits of our insect-eating relatives. He also suggests that the sound of crunch may stave off dietary boredom by adding variety to sensory experience. Or perhaps fried foods, which we think of as bad for us, interject a frisson of illicit pleasure. When it comes to eating, Allen shows, there’s no one way to account for taste.
Author: Dale Purves
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674972961
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 115
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Book Description
The universality of musical tones has long fascinated philosophers, scientists, musicians, and ordinary listeners. Why do human beings worldwide find some tone combinations consonant and others dissonant? Why do we make music using only a small number of scales out of the billions that are possible? Why do differently organized scales elicit different emotions? Why are there so few notes in scales? In Music as Biology, Dale Purves argues that biology offers answers to these and other questions on which conventional music theory is silent. When people and animals vocalize, they generate tonal sounds—periodic pressure changes at the ear which, when combined, can be heard as melodies and harmonies. Human beings have evolved a sense of tonality, Purves explains, because of the behavioral advantages that arise from recognizing and attending to human voices. The result is subjective responses to tone combinations that are best understood in terms of their contribution to biological success over evolutionary and individual history. Purves summarizes evidence that the intervals defining Western and other scales are those with the greatest collective similarity to the human voice; that major and minor scales are heard as happy or sad because they mimic the subdued and excited speech of these emotional states; and that the character of a culture’s speech influences the tonal palette of its traditional music. Rethinking music theory in biological terms offers a new approach to centuries-long debates about the organization and impact of music.
Author: Robert B. Campenot
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674495586
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
Like all cellular organisms humans run on electricity. Cells work like batteries: slight imbalances of electric charge across cell membranes, caused by ions moving in and out of cells, result in sensation, movement, awareness, and thinking—the things we associate with being alive. Robert Campenot offers an accessible overview of animal electricity.
Author: Carl D. Marci MD
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674275861
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
Living in an age of digital distraction has wreaked havoc on our brains—but there’s much we can do to restore our tech–life balance. We live in a world that is always on, where everyone is always connected. But we feel increasingly disconnected. Why? The answer lies in our brains. Carl D. Marci, MD, a leading expert on social and consumer neuroscience, reviews the mounting evidence that overuse of smart phones and social media is rewiring our brains, resulting in a losing deal: we are neglecting the relationships that sustain us and keep us healthy in favor of weaker and more ephemeral ties. The ability to connect and form strong social bonds is fundamental to human experience and emerged through unique structures in our brains. But ever-more-powerful technologies and ubiquitous access to media have hijacked our need to connect intimately and emotionally with others. The quick highs of clicking “like” and swiping right overstimulate the same neurological reward centers associated with social relationships. The habits that accompany our digital lifestyles are putting tremendous pressure on critical components of the brain associated with attention, emotion, and memory, changing how we process information and altering how we communicate and relate, even at a physiological level. As a psychiatrist working at the forefront of research on the impact of digital technology, Marci has seen this transformation up close and developed a range of responses. Rewired provides scientifically supported solutions for everyone who wants to restore their tech–life balance—from parents concerned about their children’s exposure to the internet to stressed workers dealing with the deluge of emails and managing the expectation of 24/7 availability.
