<h2><font size="2"><a id="a062637" href="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/12/thumbnail_book_review_proust_w.php" _fcksavedurl="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/12/thumbnail_book_review_proust_w.php">Thumbnail book review: Proust was a Neuroscientist</a></font> Category: <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/opinion/" _fcksavedurl="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/opinion/">Opinion</a><br></h2>
<p class="categories">Posted on: December 21, 2007 11:47 AM, by <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/12/thumbnail_book_review_proust_w.php" _fcksavedurl="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/12/thumbnail_book_review_proust_w.php">Greta Munger</a></p>
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<p><img class="inset" alt="proust.jpg" src="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/proust.jpg" _fcksavedurl="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/proust.jpg" height="240" width="161">I just finished reading Jonah Lehrer's book <i>Proust was a Neuroscientist. <br></i></p>
<p>Quick review: good book, very fun read, and I'm happy to recommend it to almost everyone. I just have one small quibble. For the quibble to make any sense, you need to know something about
my teaching. Students in all my psychology classes have to write a few
paragraphs to earn "culture points." They must consider how psychology
connects to art, though the social context surrounding the event is
also fair game for analysis. So my students attend a concert, visit a
museum, or go to a play or dance performance and then write a paragraph
connecting some aspect of psychology to their experience. I get a lot
of discussion of the Gestalt grouping principles with paintings, but
every semester several students make more interesting connections:
noticing how a theatrical production manipulated their attention using
a sudden movement, or positive reinforcement at work between live
performers and their audience, or discussing how a particular aspect of
memory may explain a very surprising emotional reaction to a sculpture. </p>
This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 21 Jan 2008, by Brian G. Dowling.
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21 Jan 08
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Add Sticky NoteThe success of modern neuroscience represents the triumph of a method: reductionism. The premise of reductionism is that the best way to solve a complex problem -- and the brain is the most complicated object in the known universe -- is to study its most basic parts. The mind, in other words, is just a particular trick of matter, reducible to the callous laws of physics.
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Public Stiky Notes
Thumbnail book review: Proust was a Neuroscientist Category: Opinion
Posted on: December 21, 2007 11:47 AM, by Greta Munger
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Quick review: good book, very fun read, and I'm happy to recommend it to almost everyone. I just have one small quibble. For the quibble to make any sense, you need to know something about
my teaching. Students in all my psychology classes have to write a few
paragraphs to earn "culture points." They must consider how psychology
connects to art, though the social context surrounding the event is
also fair game for analysis. So my students attend a concert, visit a
museum, or go to a play or dance performance and then write a paragraph
connecting some aspect of psychology to their experience. I get a lot
of discussion of the Gestalt grouping principles with paintings, but
every semester several students make more interesting connections:
noticing how a theatrical production manipulated their attention using
a sudden movement, or positive reinforcement at work between live
performers and their audience, or discussing how a particular aspect of
memory may explain a very surprising emotional reaction to a sculpture.
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