Understanding Human Minds and Their Limits

Beskrivelse

This book is an introduction to how minds work, including how they make judgments and perceptions, and processes sensory information. It looks at the physiological and psychological methods humans use to function and survive as a species, but that put limits on their knowledge and understanding of the universe, their immediate environment and themselves. Topics include information processing, cognitive biases, visual and audio illusions, perception and misperception of moving and still objects, art perception, limits of symbolic language, and social and evolutionary psychology.  

About the author

 David Cycleback is Director of Center for Artifact Studies, and is an internationally known authentication expert with professional certification in museum sciences from Northwestern University. One of his areas of research is the scientific methods, including spectroscopy, used in identifying and dating artifacts and materials. In their second printing by China’s National Photographic Art Publishing House, his guides ‘Judging the Authenticity of Prints by the Masters’ and ‘Judging the Authenticity of Photographs’ were the first comprehensive books on the subjects published in China, and ‘Art Perception’ is one of four books students are recommended to study in preparation for India’s Common Entrance Exam for Design (CEED) for postgraduate studies in technical design. He has advised and examined artifacts for major institutions, was a writer for the standard academic reference Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Photography and is a memorabilia authenticity writer and researcher for Arizona State University’s Society for American Baseball Research.

Innhold

1. About the author
   
2. Introduction 
   
3. A brief overview of this book
   
4. Conceits: An introductory look at how humans think and perceive
   
5. The human mind as a computer?
   
   1. The Computation Theory of Mind
      
   2. Ambiguity
      
   3. Remember the importance of speed 
      
   4. Questions
      
6. Internal methods for making perceptions: introduction
   
7. Shape, form and pattern biases
   
   1. Overview 
      
   2. The Face on Mars
      
   3. Is it a vase or two faces
      
   4. Questions
      
8. Perceptions via comparison
   
   1. Questions 
      
9. Perception via comparison: the shepard scale
   
   1. Overview 
      
   2. How the Shepard Scale Works 
      
   3. Question   
      
10. Imagination 
    
    1. Overview 
       
    2. Ames card trick 
       
    3. Captchas: How computers use cognitive psychology to identify users as human 
       
    4. Hidden information and identification
       
    5. Questions
       
11. Attribution substitution 
    
12. Vision: What you see is different than what you look at
    
    1. Introduction
       
    2. A quick look at the physiology of seeing 
       
    3. The blind spot
       
    4. Detecting your blind spot
       
    5. Afterimages
       
    6. Binocular vision
       
    7. Triangularism and calculating depth
       
    8. The hole in the hand illusion
       
    9. Night versus day vision
       
    10. Final thoughts on human vision
        
13. Summary of internal methods to process information 
    
    1. Questions/study topics
       
14. Perception of movement 
    
    1. Introduction 
       
    2. Stroboscopic movement illusions 
       
    3. All movies as stroboscopic-like illusions 
       
    4. Ambiguity 
       
    5. Ambiguous movement: the barber pole illusion 
       
15. Narrative and the perception of still information 
    
    1. Narrative or storytelling
       
    2. Aleatory narrative in art
       
    3. Assignment
       
16. Attention 
    
    1. Attention in perception 
       
    2. Questions 
       
17. Humans use false information and made up beliefs to function and achieve   Introduction
    
    1. The rituals of baseball 
       
    2. Faith
       
    3. Positive achievement is regularly based on false beliefs
       
    4. Olympic psychology
       
    5. Depicting Jesus Christ in art
       
18. The unique subjective experience
    
    1. Subjectivit
       
    2. Simplicity 
       
    3. Question 
       
19. Automatic perceptions and uncorrectable illusions 
    
    1. Automatic perceptions 
       
    2. Uncorrectable Illusions
       
    3. Question
       
20. Language and its limitations: introduction 
    
21. Examples of ambiguity, arbitrariness and limits in language 
    
22. Subjective categorization, grouping and prioritizing of information 
    
    1. Overview 
       
    2. So, if a tree falls when no one is around does it make a sound or doesn’t it? Discussion question 
       
23. When does 1 + 1 not equal 2?: the subjectivity of identification 
    
24. Language: numeration systems and psychology 
    
    1. Introduction 
       
    2. Our base-10 numeral system 
       
    3. Quick comparison: counting with base-10 versus base-8 
       
    4. Another example of counting with different bases 
       
    5. A kid’s counting system: eeny meeny miny moe 
       
    6. Numerals and human psychology 
       
    7. Changing numeral systems, changing history 
       
25. Language and models: the fiction in science 
    
26. Summary of language
    
27. Basic qualities that evoke emotional and aesthetic reactions
    
    1. Introduction
       
    2. Symmetry and balanc
       
    3. Out of place 
       
    4. Mysteries nnd solving mysteries 
       
    5. Meaning and Identification 
       
    6. Contrast 
       
    7. Unrealistic exaggerations 
       
    8. Identifying objects through basic qualities 
       
    9. The strange and new 
       
    10. Colors 
        
    11. Final thoughts 
        
    12. Questions 
        
28. Learning 
    
29. Learning and perception: mirages 
    
30. Learning: values, culture and aesthetics in visual perception
    
31. Art perception: connecting to the unreal 
    
    1. Introduction 
       
    2. Art perception is irrational 
       
    3. We interpret art using many of the cognitive methods we use in the real world Symbols 
       
    4. Humans mentally adapt to and accept new and artificial worlds 
       
    5. Each art medium is limited in what it can show literally 
       
    6. Speculation, play acting, day and night dreams 
       
    7. Humans know and feel there is more than what they see and can comprehend, more than what they experience in their day to day lives   =Conceits and the limitations of art 
       
32. Art perception: presenting old art ‘authentically’ 
    
33. Trying to make 3D into 2D: The illusion of depth in art 
    
    1. Overview 
       
    2. Overlapping objects 
       
    3. Diminishing sale 
       
    4. Diagonal lines and diminishing scale 
       
    5. Colors 
       
    6. Bottom to top placement 
       
    7. Focus 
       
    8. Final notes 
       
    9. Picasso and cubism
       
34. Trying to define and label art
    
    1. Trying to define and label art 
       
    2. Assignments 
       
35. Logic versus art, facts versus fiction in explaining higher ideas 
    
36. Humans aren’t totally or even primarily about finding truth and factual accuracy
    
37. Judging the reliability of your mind
    
38. The human as social animal: group psychology, social intelligence, etc.
    
39.  Inborn survival drives
    
40. Summary and final notes 
    
41. Book encompassing questions 
    
42. Part II Other Minds 
    
43. Thinking about other minds 
    
44. Non-human animal minds 
    
45. Creating other minds: artificial intelligence 
    
46. Intelligence
    
47. Final food for thought