Customer Reviews

Biopsychology (4th Edition)

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I loved John P.J. Pinel's Biopsychology textbook. I'm a college student and I find most textbooks boring and difficult to read. I just loved this textbook! The scientific explanations were clearly, understandable. This book really drew me in on how the human brain works. The illustations were awesome! The narratives on behavior were great and lots of fun to read. This book was not wordy either, a problem that I have had with many of the textbooks I've read in the past. I looked forward to reading this book. I wish more textbooks were like these!

Being an undergraduate psychology student in university, I took a course which used Biopsychology as the course textbook. As with most academic texts, I was skeptical at first, but I quickly changed my mind about this one.

Biopsychology is a great psychology textbook that is an asset to any psych student. The chapters are very readable and easy to understand and I especially liked the full-colour, large, and easy to view pictures that appeared throughout the book. Pinel writes with a certain style that to me was aesthetically pleasing and not dull and drab like other psych textbook authors I've read -- believe me, there's been a lot of them!

In terms of content, Pinel gives a good overview of the biology of the brain and how it relates to psychological phenomena. I found his chapters on sleeping and eating/drinking to be particularly interesting.

There are also some helpful items included in the text for students. All important words are bolded and a definition appears on the same page in the corner. The layout of each chapter has natural divisions that make it easy for note-taking. There are also self-tests that are useful for a quick review of the material.

Overall, I enjoyed reading and studying from this book. Without a doubt, one of its best features is the collection of great graphics accompanying all the topics. I have yet to see another psych textbook with a supply of good graphics that rivals this one. Highly recommended.

I found chapters on sleeping and drugs use especially fascinating as they do effectively challenge popular and even professional traditional opinion. To make my point I want to present you a pop quiz based on the book's contents (please keep in mind that the book is counter-intuitive):

1) A person who sleeps four hours a day or less will usually suffer health consequences. True or False?
2) Smoking and Alcohol use are detrimental to one's health, but they are not as dangerous and addictive as illegal drugs. True or False ?
3) A very low caloric short-term diet could permanently help one lose weight. True or False ?

The answer to above questions is False, to find why you need to read this avant-garde textbook.