Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

Brainwashed : The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience, Paperback / softback Book

Brainwashed : The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience Paperback / softback

Paperback / softback

Description

What can't neuroscience tell us about ourselves? Since fMRI,functional magnetic resonance imaging,was introduced in the early 1990s, brain scans have been used to help politicians understand and manipulate voters, determine guilt in court cases, and make sense of everything from musical aptitude to romantic love.

But although brain scans and other neurotechnologies have provided ground-breaking insights into the workings of the human brain, the increasingly fashionable idea that they are the most important means of answering the enduring mysteries of psychology is misguided,and potentially dangerous.In Brainwashed , psychiatrist and AEI scholar Sally Satel and psychologist Scott O.

Lilienfeld reveal how many of the real-world applications of human neuroscience gloss over its limitations and intricacies, at times obscuring,rather than clarifying,the myriad factors that shape our behaviour and identities.

Brain scans, Satel and Lilienfeld show, are useful but often ambiguous representations of a highly complex system.

Each region of the brain participates in a host of experiences and interacts with other regions, so seeing one area light up on an fMRI in response to a stimulus doesn't automatically indicate a particular sensation or capture the higher cognitive functions that come from those interactions.

The narrow focus on the brain's physical processes also assumes that our subjective experiences can be explained away by biology alone.

As Satel and Lilienfeld explain, this neurocentric" view of the mind risks undermining our most deeply held ideas about selfhood, free will, and personal responsibility, putting us at risk of making harmful mistakes, whether in the courtroom, interrogation room, or addiction treatment clinic.

A provocative account of our obsession with neuroscience, Brainwashed brilliantly illuminates what contemporary neuroscience and brain imaging can and cannot tell us about ourselves, providing a much-needed reminder about the many factors that make us who we are.

Information

£13.99

 
Free Home Delivery

on all orders

 
Pick up orders

from local bookshops

Information