ARHS Recommended Reading Lists: Cognitive Psychology, Learning, and the Brain

Presents the histories of neurological patients whose departure from normalcy brings a new perspective to their individual worlds.

The author relates what she underwent during a month-long hospital stay during which she was diagnosed with encephalitis and discusses how the autoimmune disease affected her mental stability and her hospitalization influenced her life and family.

Discusses how the brain works and how to treat it well, including getting enough exercise and sleep, how to learn effectively, and how the brain evolved, presenting twelve principles for optimum brain performance at work, home, and school.

Malcolm Gladwell, the #1 bestselling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, and What the Dog Saw, offers his most provocative---and dazzling---book yet. Three thousand years ago on a battlefield in ancient Palestine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then the names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants. David's victory was improbable and miraculous. He shouldn't have won. Or should he have? In David and Goliath , Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks. Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago. From there, David and Goliath examines Northern Ireland's Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms---all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity. In the tradition of Gladwell's previous bestsellers--- The Tipping Point , Blink , Outliers and What the Dog Saw--- David and Goliath draws upon history, psychology, and powerful storytelling to reshape the way we think of the world around us.

Discusses the science behind creativity and how it can be used to make cities, companies, and culture more creative.

Neuroscientist David Eagleman explores the unconscious part of the human mind, discussing how it influences every aspect of human life and what it can reveal about a person and humanity as a whole.

Reveals how the NFL, over a period of nearly two decades, sought to cover up and deny mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage. This narrative moves between the NFL trenches, America's research labs and the boardrooms where the NFL went to war against science; it examines how the league used its power and resources to attack independent scientists and elevate its own flawed research.

Presents a story that provides insights into the challenges faced by children suffering with learning disabilities like dyslexia, and the impact of the disability on family members and friends, and features facts about the history of some learning disabilities, and their causes, diagnosis, and treatments.

Argues that migraines cannot be understood without viewing them as a complex condition, and not a simple illness, that plays a key role in the lives of patients.

A discussion on vision that describes six case studies with individuals who have had their sight compromised and examines the many ways that the human brain perceives the world, our abilities to see in three dimensions, how the mind sees the world when our eyes are closed, and related topics.

Oliver Sacks explores the power of music in the lives of ordinary people, as well as individuals with neurological and other conditions.

Explores the role introverts play in a world that is geared towards those who enjoy communicating with others and offers practical suggestions at how introverts can make sure their message is heard.

Examines the physiological and psychological effects the Internet has on the brain and argues that human focus and patience have become shorter, deep thought has lessened, and reading has turned into scanning due to changes the Internet usage causes on neural pathways.

Explores what science and philosophy have to say about the brain and how it works, especially for teens, looking at how the brain helps people create a sense of self, and discussing learning and memory, individuality, behavior, human nature, intelligence, and change.

Major New York Times bestseller Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award in 2012 Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the best books of 2011 A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title One of The Economist 's 2011 Books of the Year One of The Wall Street Journal 's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient In the international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow , Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation--each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions. Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives--and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011, Thinking , Fast and Slow is destined to be a classic.