Synopses & Reviews
In the same way atomic structures explain the physical properties of an object, neuroscientists are now learning about the human mind by examining how the neurons in the brain are connected to one another and their surrounding environments. Will brain scientists ever be capable of reading minds? Why are certain things harder to remember than others? The Brain-Shaped Mind addresses these and other questions to provide a clear account of how the structure of the brain influences the workings of the mind. Naomi Goldblum is a lecturer in psychology at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. She has studied neuropsychology with a particular emphasis on cognitive psychology.
Synopsis
Neural networks are used to explore how the brain's structure influences the mind.
Synopsis
Will brain scientists ever be able to read our minds? Why are some things harder to remember than others? Neural networks are used to address these questions and others, in a clear and informative manner, by examining how the structure of the brain shapes the workings of the mind.
About the Author
Born in New York, Naomi Goldblum was originally educated in mathematics at the Yeshiva University. She later moved to Israel where, at the Hebrew University, she extended her interests to the field of psychology. Her doctorate was entitled 'A psycholinguistic study of the metaphor'. Naomi Goldblum is now a lecturer in psychology at Bar-Ilan University, where she specialises in cognitive psychology, in particular psycholinguistics and the processes involved in creative endeavours.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction; 2. What the brain can tell us about the mind; 3. Brain webs: neural networks; 4. Theories and models of how the mind functions; 5. What are connectionist networks?; 6. How our networks learn; 7. Connecting the networks: how different things are related; 8. Evidence for connectionist models; 9. Two different types of memory; 10. Coping with disaster: damage to the net; 11. Practical implications; 12. Criticism of connectionist theory.