The Mind in Context PDF Download

Author: Batja Mesquita
Publisher: Guilford Press
ISBN: 1606235540
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
Most psychology research still assumes that mental processes are internal to the person, waiting to be expressed or activated. This compelling book illustrates that a new paradigm is forming in which contextual factors are considered central to the workings of the mind. Leading experts explore how psychological processes emerge from the transactions of individuals with their physical, social, and cultural environments. The volume showcases cutting-edge research on the contextual nature of such phenomena as gene expression, brain networks, the regulation of hormones, perception, cognition, personality, knowing, learning, and emotion.

Author: Virginia Slaughter
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 131760833X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
Theory of Mind Development in Context is the first book of its kind to explore how children’s environments shape their theory of mind and, in turn, their ability to interact effectively with others. Based on world-leading research, and inspired by the ground-breaking work of Candida Peterson, the original collected chapters demonstrate that children’s understanding of other people is shaped by their everyday environment. Specifically, the chapters illustrate how theory of mind development varies with broad cultural context, socioeconomic status, institutional versus home rearing, family size, parental communication style, and aspects of schooling. The volume also features research showing that, by virtue of their condition, children who are deaf or who have an autism spectrum disorder function in environments that differ from those of typical children and this in turn influences their theory of mind. Although much important research has emphasized the role of nature in theory of mind development, this book highlights that children’s understanding of other people is nurtured through their everyday experiences and interactions. This perspective is essential for students, researchers, and practitioners to gain a complete understanding of how this fundamental skill develops in humans. The book is invaluable for academic researchers and advanced students in developmental psychology, education, social psychology, cognitive psychology, and the social sciences, as well as practicing psychologists, counselors, and psychiatrists, particularly those who deal with disorders involving social and/or communicative deficits.

Author: Robert J. Sternberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521422871
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
This book discusses the idea that our abilities are dependent on the interaction between our minds and the contexts in which they are found.

Author: Joan M. Lucariello
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1135626723
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
This volume is a festschrift for Katherine Nelson, an NYU professor who was a pioneer in infant perception and memory. The "mediated mind" is a term coined by Dr. Nelson and it refers to how cognitive development is mediated by the sociocultural context, including language and social interaction. The impact of Nelson's views on the sociocultural basis of cognition and her functionalist perspective on cognitive development are evident in the collection of chapters in this book. The contributors--all leaders in the field of cognitive development--examine ways in which cognition is embedded in everyday, meaningful activities and the role of social context and cultural symbol symptoms, such as language and text influence children's developing concepts and thought. The concept of the mediated mind is examined from a variety of perspectives, including research in concept development, memory development, language learning, the development of literacy, narrative analysis, and children's theory of mind. The significant contribution of this volume is that it addresses all aspects of the mediated mind. Memory--both autobiographical and event-semantic--theory of mind, mental representation, temporality, narrative, and metalinguistic awareness comprise the chapter topics. The breadth of topics represented is a tribute to the impact Nelson's vision has on many developmental "domains." The contributors acknowledge and honor her work. Her theory and research paved the way for the advances in understanding a mediated mind that are evident and that will continue to shape notions of how the human mind develops and evolves within a social, interactive world.

Author: Cristina Sanz
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589013735
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
How do people learn nonnative languages? Is there one part or function of our brains solely dedicated to language processing, or do we apply our general information-processing abilities when learning a new language? In this book, an interdisciplinary collaboration of scholars and researchers presents an overview of the latter approach to adult second language acquisition and brings together, for the first time, a comprehensive picture of the latest research on this subject. Clearly organized into four distinct but integrated parts, Mind and Context in Adult Second Language Acquisition first provides an introduction to information-processing approaches and the tools for students to understand the data. The next sections explain factors that affect language learning, both internal (attention and awareness, individual differences, and the neural bases of language acquisition) and external (input, interaction, and pedagogical interventions). It concludes by looking at two pedagogical applications: processing instruction and content based instruction. This important and timely volume is a must-read for students of language learning, second language acquisition, and linguists who want to better understand the information-processing approaches to learning a non-primary language. This book will also be of immense interest to language scholars, program directors, teachers, and administrators in both second language acquisition and cognitive psychology.

Author: Jonathan D. Moreno
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231547102
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
The human brain is the most complex object in the known universe. The field of neuroscience has made remarkable strides in recent years in understanding aspects of the brain, yet we still struggle with seemingly fundamental questions about how the brain works. What lessons can we learn from neuroscience’s successes and failures? What kinds of questions can neuroscience answer, and what will remain out of reach? In The Brain in Context, the bioethicist Jonathan D. Moreno and the neuroscientist Jay Schulkin provide an accessible and thought-provoking account of the evolution of neuroscience and the neuroscience of evolution. They emphasize that the brain is not an isolated organ—it extends into every part of the body and every aspect of human life. Understanding the brain requires studying the environmental, biological, chemical, genetic, and social factors that continue to shape it. Moreno and Schulkin describe today’s transformative devices, theories, and methods, including technologies like fMRI and optogenetics as well as massive whole-brain activity maps and the attempt to create a digital simulation of the brain. They show how theorizing about the brain and experimenting with it often go hand in hand, and they raise cautions about unintended consequences of technological interventions. The Brain in Context is a stimulating and even-handed assessment of the scope and limits of what we know about how we think.

Author: T. Givon
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1317768027
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
Scholars concerned with the phenomenon of mind have searched through history for a principled yet non-reductionist approach to the study of knowledge, communication, and behavior. Pragmatics has been a recurrent theme in Western epistemology, tracing itself back from pre-Socratic dialectics and Aristotle's bio- functionalism, all the way to Wittgenstein's content-dependent semantics. This book's treatment of pragmatics as an analytic method focuses on the central role of context in determining the perception, organization, and communication of experience. As a bioadaptive strategy, pragmatics straddles the middle ground between absolute categories and the non-discrete gradation of experience, reflecting closely the organism's own evolutionary compromises. In parallel, pragmatic reasoning can be shown to play a pivotal role in the process of empirical science, through the selection of relevant facts, the abduction of likely hypotheses, and the construction of non-trivial explanations. In this volume, Professor Givon offers pragmatics as both an analytic method and a strategic intellectual framework. He points out its relevance to our understanding of traditional problems in philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, cognitive psychology, neuro-biology, and evolution. Finally, the application of pragmatics to the study of the mind and behavior constitutes an implicit challenge to the current tenets of artificial intelligence.

Author: George Ellis
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 366249809X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 502

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Book Description
Physics underlies all complexity, including our own existence: how is this possible? How can our own lives emerge from interactions of electrons, protons, and neutrons? This book considers the interaction of physical and non-physical causation in complex systems such as living beings, and in particular in the human brain, relating this to the emergence of higher levels of complexity with real causal powers. In particular it explores the idea of top-down causation, which is the key effect allowing the emergence of true complexity and also enables the causal efficacy of non-physical entities, including the value of money, social conventions, and ethical choices.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309172195
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Possible new breakthroughs in understanding the aging mind that can be used to benefit older people are now emerging from research. This volume identifies the key scientific advances and the opportunities they bring. For example, science has learned that among older adults who do not suffer from Alzheimer's disease or other dementias, cognitive decline may depend less on loss of brain cells than on changes in the health of neurons and neural networks. Research on the processes that maintain neural health shows promise of revealing new ways to promote cognitive functioning in older people. Research is also showing how cognitive functioning depends on the conjunction of biology and culture. The ways older people adapt to changes in their nervous systems, and perhaps the changes themselves, are shaped by past life experiences, present living situations, changing motives, cultural expectations, and emerging technology, as well as by their physical health status and sensory-motor capabilities. Improved understanding of how physical and contextual factors interact can help explain why some cognitive functions are impaired in aging while others are spared and why cognitive capability is impaired in some older adults and spared in others. On the basis of these exciting findings, the report makes specific recommends that the U.S. government support three major new initiatives as the next steps for research.

Author: Mark Johnson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022617784X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
"There are books—few and far between—which carefully, delightfully, and genuinely turn your head inside out. This is one of them. It ranges over some central issues in Western philosophy and begins the long overdue job of giving us a radically new account of meaning, rationality, and objectivity."—Yaakov Garb, San Francisco Chronicle