Download or read book Human Spatial Navigation written by Arne D. Ekstrom and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to comprehensively explore the cognitive foundations of human spatial navigation Humans possess a range of navigation and orientation abilities, from the ordinary to the extraordinary. All of us must move from one location to the next, following habitual routes and avoiding getting lost. While there is more to learn about how the brain underlies our ability to navigate, neuroscience and psychology have begun to converge on some important answers. In Human Spatial Navigation, four leading experts tackle fundamental and unique issues to produce the first book-length investigation into this subject. Opening with the vivid story of Puluwat sailors who navigate in the open ocean with no mechanical aids, the authors begin by dissecting the behavioral basis of human spatial navigation. They then focus on its neural basis, describing neural recordings, brain imaging experiments, and patient studies. Recent advances give unprecedented insights into what is known about the cognitive map and the neural systems that facilitate navigation. The authors discuss how aging and diseases can impede navigation, and they introduce cutting-edge network models that show how the brain can act as a highly integrated system underlying spatial navigation. Throughout, the authors touch on fascinating examples of able navigators, from the Inuit of northern Canada to London taxi drivers, and they provide a critical lens into previous navigation research, which has primarily focused on other species, such as rodents. An ideal book for students and researchers seeking an accessible introduction to this important topic, Human Spatial Navigation offers a rich look into spatial memory and the neuroscientific foundations for how we make our way in the world.
Download or read book Human Spatial Cognition and Experience written by Toru Ishikawa and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-06-15 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers students an introduction to human spatial cognition and experience and is designed for graduate and advanced undergraduate students who are interested in the study of maps in the head and the psychology of space. We live in space and space surrounds us. We interact with space all the time, consciously or unconsciously, and make decisions and actions based on our perceptions of that space. Have you ever wondered how some people navigate perfectly using maps in their heads while other people get lost even with a physical map? What do you mean when you say you have a poor "sense of direction"? How do we know where we are? How do we use and represent information about space? This book clarifies that our knowledge and feelings emerge as a consequence of our interactions with the surrounding space, and show that the knowledge and feelings direct, guide, or limit our spatial behavior and experience. Space matters, or more specifically space we perceive matters. Research into spatial cognition and experience, asking fundamental questions about how and why space and spatiality matters to humans, has thus attracted attention. It is no coincidence that the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for research into a positioning system in the brain or "inner GPS" and that spatial information and technology are recognized as an important social infrastructure in recent years. This is the first book aimed at graduate and advanced undergraduate students pursuing this fascinating area of research. The content introduces the reader to the field of spatial cognition and experience with a series of chapters covering theoretical, empirical, and practical issues, including cognitive maps, spatial orientation, spatial ability and thinking, geospatial information, navigation assistance, and environmental aesthetics.
Download or read book Behavioural Neuroscience written by Seán Commins and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-12 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A visually engaging explanation of the neural process underlying various behaviours in species ranging from the simplest organisms to humans.
Download or read book Methods of Behavior Analysis in Neuroscience written by Jerry J. Buccafusco and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2000-08-29 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the most well-studied behavioral analyses of animal subjects to promote a better understanding of the effects of disease and the effects of new therapeutic treatments on human cognition, Methods of Behavior Analysis in Neuroscience provides a reference manual for molecular and cellular research scientists in both academia and the pharmaceutic
Download or read book Wayfinding Behavior written by Reginald G. Golledge and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The metaphor of a "cognitive map" has attracted interest since the 1940s. Researchers from many fields have explored how humans process and use spatial information, why they make errors or not. This text brings together contributors from diverse fields to explore the
Download or read book Wayfinding written by M. R. O'Connor and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At once far flung and intimate, a fascinating look at how finding our way make us human. In this compelling narrative, O'Connor seeks out neuroscientists, anthropologists and master navigators to understand how navigation ultimately gave us our humanity. Biologists have been trying to solve the mystery of how organisms have the ability to migrate and orient with such precision—especially since our own adventurous ancestors spread across the world without maps or instruments. O'Connor goes to the Arctic, the Australian bush and the South Pacific to talk to masters of their environment who seek to preserve their traditions at a time when anyone can use a GPS to navigate. O’Connor explores the neurological basis of spatial orientation within the hippocampus. Without it, people inhabit a dream state, becoming amnesiacs incapable of finding their way, recalling the past, or imagining the future. Studies have shown that the more we exercise our cognitive mapping skills, the greater the grey matter and health of our hippocampus. O'Connor talks to scientists studying how atrophy in the hippocampus is associated with afflictions such as impaired memory, dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease, depression and PTSD. Wayfinding is a captivating book that charts how our species' profound capacity for exploration, memory and storytelling results in topophilia, the love of place. "O'Connor talked to just the right people in just the right places, and her narrative is a marvel of storytelling on its own merits, erudite but lightly worn. There are many reasons why people should make efforts to improve their geographical literacy, and O'Connor hits on many in this excellent book—devouring it makes for a good start." —Kirkus Reviews
Download or read book What Makes Us Smart written by Samuel Gershman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How a computational framework can account for the successes and failures of human cognition At the heart of human intelligence rests a fundamental puzzle: How are we incredibly smart and stupid at the same time? No existing machine can match the power and flexibility of human perception, language, and reasoning. Yet, we routinely commit errors that reveal the failures of our thought processes. What Makes Us Smart makes sense of this paradox by arguing that our cognitive errors are not haphazard. Rather, they are the inevitable consequences of a brain optimized for efficient inference and decision making within the constraints of time, energy, and memory—in other words, data and resource limitations. Framing human intelligence in terms of these constraints, Samuel Gershman shows how a deeper computational logic underpins the “stupid” errors of human cognition. Embarking on a journey across psychology, neuroscience, computer science, linguistics, and economics, Gershman presents unifying principles that govern human intelligence. First, inductive bias: any system that makes inferences based on limited data must constrain its hypotheses in some way before observing data. Second, approximation bias: any system that makes inferences and decisions with limited resources must make approximations. Applying these principles to a range of computational errors made by humans, Gershman demonstrates that intelligent systems designed to meet these constraints yield characteristically human errors. Examining how humans make intelligent and maladaptive decisions, What Makes Us Smart delves into the successes and failures of cognition.
Download or read book Imagery and Spatial Cognition written by Tomaso Vecchi and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationships between perception and imagery, imagery and spatial processes, memory and action: These are the main themes of this text The interest of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience on imagery and spatial cognition is remarkably increased in the last decades. Different areas of research contribute to the clarification of the multiple cognitive processes subserving spatial perception and exploration, and to the definition of the neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning these cognitive functions. The aim of this book is to provide the reader (post-graduate students as well as experts) with a complete overview of this field of research. It illustrates the way how brain, behaviour and cognition interact in normal and pathological subjects in perceiving, representing and exploring space. (Series B).
Download or read book We the Navigators written by David Lewis and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1994-05-01 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new edition includes a discussion of theories about traditional methods of navigation developed during recent decades, the story of the renaissance of star navigation throughout the Pacific, and material about navigation systems in Indonesia, Siberia, and the Indian Ocean.
Download or read book From Here to There written by Michael Bond and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-12 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wise and insightful exploration of human navigation, what it means to be lost, and how we find our way. How is it that we can walk unfamiliar streets while maintaining a sense of direction? Come up with shortcuts on the fly, in places we’ve never traveled? The answer is the complex mental map in our brains. This feature of our cognition is easily taken for granted, but it’s also critical to our species’ evolutionary success. In From Here to There Michael Bond tells stories of the lost and found—Polynesian sailors, orienteering champions, early aviators—and surveys the science of human navigation. Navigation skills are deeply embedded in our biology. The ability to find our way over large distances in prehistoric times gave Homo sapiens an advantage, allowing us to explore the farthest regions of the planet. Wayfinding also shaped vital cognitive functions outside the realm of navigation, including abstract thinking, imagination, and memory. Bond brings a reporter’s curiosity and nose for narrative to the latest research from psychologists, neuroscientists, animal behaviorists, and anthropologists. He also turns to the people who design and expertly maneuver the world we navigate: search-and-rescue volunteers, cartographers, ordnance mappers, urban planners, and more. The result is a global expedition that furthers our understanding of human orienting in the natural and built environments. A beguiling mix of storytelling and science, From Here to There covers the full spectrum of human navigation and spatial understanding. In an age of GPS and Google Maps, Bond urges us to exercise our evolved navigation skills and reap the surprising cognitive rewards.
Download or read book The Cambridge Handbook of Visuospatial Thinking written by Priti Shah and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-07-25 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Spatial Navigation Memory Mechanisms and Executive Function Interactions written by Thackery I. Brown and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2019-10-09 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dark and Magical Places The Neuroscience of Navigation written by Christopher Kemp and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the brain helps us to understand and navigate space—and why, sometimes, it doesn’t work the way it should. Inside our heads we carry around an infinite and endlessly unfolding map of the world. Navigation is one of the most ancient neural abilities we have—older than language. In Dark and Magical Places, Christopher Kemp embarks on a journey to discover the remarkable extent of what our minds can do. Fueled by his own spatial shortcomings, Kemp describes the brain regions that orient us in space and the specialized neurons that do it. Place cells. Grid cells. He examines how the brain plans routes, recognizes landmarks, and makes sure we leave a room through a door instead of trying to leave through a painting. From the secrets of supernavigators like the indigenous hunters of the Bolivian rainforest to the confusing environments inhabited by people with place blindness, Kemp charts the myriad ways in which we find our way and explains the cutting-edge neuroscience behind them. How did Neanderthals navigate? Why do even seasoned hikers stray from the trail? What spatial skills do we inherit from our parents? How can smartphones and our reliance on GPS devices impact our brains? In engaging, engrossing language, Kemp unravels the mysteries of navigating and links the brain’s complex functions to the effects that diseases like Alzheimer’s, types of amnesia, and traumatic brain injuries have on our perception of the world around us. A book for anyone who has ever felt compelled to venture off the beaten path, Dark and Magical Places is a stirring reminder of the beauty in losing yourself to your surroundings. And the beauty in understanding how our brains can guide us home.
Download or read book Handbook of Spatial Cognition written by David Waller and published by American Psychological Association (APA). This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, which provides a detailed interdisciplinary overview of spatial cognition from neurological to sociocultural levels, is an accessible resource for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, as well as researchers at all levels who seek to understand our perceptions of the world around us.
Download or read book Why People Get Lost written by Paul A. Dudchenko and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At some point in our lives, most of us have been lost. How does this happen? What are the limits of our ability to find our way? Do we have an innate sense of direction? 'How people get lost' reviews the psychology and neuroscience of navigation. It starts with a history of studies looking at how organisms solve mazes. It then reviews contemporary studies of spatial cognition, and the wayfinding abilities of adults and children. It then considers how specific parts of the brain provide a cognitive map and a neural compass. This book also considers the neurology of spatial disorientation, and the tendency of patients with Alzheimer's disease to lose their way. Within the book, the author considers that, perhaps we get lost simply because our brain's compass becomes misoriented. This book is written for anyone with an interest in navigation and the brain. It assumes no specialised knowledge of neuroscience, but covers recent advances in our understanding of how the brain represents space.
Download or read book Genetics Neurology Behavior and Diet in Dementia written by Colin R Martin and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 954 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genetics, Neurology, Behavior, and Diet in Dementia: The Neuroscience of Dementia, Volume 2 consolidates different fields of dementia research into a single book, covering a range of subjects, including Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia, mixed dementia, vascular dementia, physical activity, risk factors, mortality, biomarkers, SPECT, CT, MRI, questionnaires, nutrition, sleep, delirium, hearing loss, agitation, aggression, delusions, anxiety, depression, hallucinations, psychosis, senile plaques, tau and amyloid-beta, neuroinflammation, and molecular biology. This foundational, comprehensive book assembles the latest understanding on all dementias and their common features in a single source. It is an invaluable resource for neuroscientists, neurologists, and anyone in the field. Offers comprehensive coverage of a broad range of topics related to dementia Serves as a foundational collection for neuroscientists and neurologists on the biology of dementia and brain dysfunction Contains in each chapter an abstract, key facts, mini dictionary of terms, and summary points to aid in understanding Provides unique sections on specific subareas, intellectual components, and knowledge-based niches that will help readers navigate key areas for research and further clinical recommendations Features preclinical and clinical studies to help researchers map out key areas for research and further clinical recommendations Serves as a "one-stop" source for everything you need to know about dementia
Download or read book The Parahippocampal Region written by Menno P. Witter and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2002 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The recent dramatic advances in imaging technologies have enabled researchers to build on the evidence obtained from lesion and behavioural studies to propose a new range of functions for the parahippocampal region. It is now possible to image the region in healthy human subjects and todefine the pathological changes occurring during the early phases of a range of neurologic and psychiatric conditions.The results have uncovered evidence suggesting that the region plays an important role in the higher cognitive processes of learning and memory, and in specific brain diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia and epilepsy, as well as in the aging process itself.The Parahippocampal Region: Organization and Role in Cognitive Functions examines the architecture and activity of this section of the temporal lobe, describes the systems active in memory, perception and behaviour, and outlines the significance of its involvement in the progress of a range ofdisease states. It provides an overview of our current basic and clinical knowledge and a baseline for further expansion of the functional understanding of the region.With contributions from an international team of authors this book will be of interest to neuroscientists, researchers and practitioners from the fields of neuropsychology, neurology and psychiatry, as well as to students from these disciplines.
