Wet Mind: The New Cognitive Neuroscience [Paperback]

Stephen Michael Kosslyn (Author), Olivier Koenig (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0028740858 | ISBN-13: 978-0028740850 | Publication Date: October 3, 1995

How do our brains allow us to recognize objects and locate them accurately in space, use mental imagery to remember yesterday's breakfast, read, understand speech, learn to dance, and recall a new telephone number? Recent breakthroughs in brain scanning and computing techniques have allowed researchers to plumb the secrets of the healthy brain's operation; simultaneously, much new information has been learned about the nature and causes of neuropsychological deficits in animals and humans following various sorts of brain damage in different locations. In this first comprehensive, integrated, and accessible overview of recent insights into how the brain gives rise to mental activity, the authors explain the fundamental concepts behind and the key discoveries that draw on neural network computer models, brain scans, and behavioral studies. Drawing on this analysis, the authors also present an intriguing theory of consciousness. In addition, this paperback edition contains an epilogue in which the authors discuss the latest research on emotion and cognition and present new information on working memory.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

"Dry mind" computer models mimic intelligence. "Wet mind" models mimic the brain's way of producing intelligence, thereby showing how the brain gives rise to the structure of the mind. Kosslyn and Koenig have done an outstanding job of summarizing "wet mind" research, comparing the findings of neural net research and brain research. Two initial chapters summarize the approach of the book and present a layperson's introduction to neural nets. A chapter each is then devoted to visual perception, visual cognition, reading, language, movement, and memory. In each, the authors summarize the research and develop a comprehensive flowchart of the subsystems for their model of brain activity. Specific brain dysfunctions are explained through deficits in one or more subsystems. The final chapter summarizes the role of consciousness in brain activity. The notes and bibliography are extremely thorough. An invaluable guide to the workings of the brain. Highly recommended for both general readers and specialists.
- Doug Kranch, Ambassador Coll. Lib., Big Sandy, Tex.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

``Cognitive neuroscience'' is the name of the game, which Harvard psychologist Kosslyn and Univ. of Geneva colleague Koenig equate to ``wet mind.'' The ``wet'' alludes to understanding how the brain really works (equating brain function to mind), and not, as with ``dry mind,'' to designing computers or models of artificial intelligence to perform visual perception or reasoning tasks. The computer designs and experiments the authors describe, then, are based on neuronal networks and parallel-processing systems rather than the sequential mode of operation of your ordinary PC. Their constructs of how we see or hear or read or remember are based on breaking the process into component subsystems and relating these systems to anatomical sites and pathways in the brain. Finally, as a partial test of their hypotheses, they use the data from patients with brain lesions to relate loss of function to damage in a particular subsystem (or systems). This is heady stuff, embodying at the outset five principles: the brain works by a division of labor; it expresses ``weak'' modularity (its components are not independent and, while they may be anatomically close, may include distant elements as well); the systems operate under ``weak'' constraints (they may be tuned to some inputs but accept others as well); parallel processing is the mode; and the brain is opportunistic, so that, for example, parts controlling fine movements may be applied to doing serial arithmetic problems too. The authors provide detailed accounts of how computer networks have been used to model visual perception and thinking, reading, language, movement, and memory, and how they may apply to emotion, consciousness, and other mental phenomena. Exciting, important research that's on the right track: It's about time that neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and computers got together. Now if they could only clean up the language (``The property lookup and categorical-to-coordinate conversion subsystems are probably implemented in the frontal lobes....''). -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (October 3, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028740858
• ISBN-13: 978-0028740850
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,322,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Commendable Effort, August 16, 2010

By 

Owen Brown - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wet Mind: The New Cognitive Neuroscience (Paperback)

K and K break down the buzzing confusion of perception, language (ex linguistics), reading, movement and memory into more subsystems then one can count, and It all makes sense - but is it right? Maybe so, and it is well reasoned, there is PET and other evidence to support their neurological suppositions, ans well as analogues from the world of "hard mind" computer programming. The principles of least complication hold sway, as well as the five pointers described by the last reviewer.

Sometimes a hard slog, but leavened by the earnest authors' attempt at humour. If you are interested - not in how or why we think or feel, but how the brain as an organ works, you owe it to yourself to read this book. When done, turn to something extremely frothy to balance it all out - I suggest a hard game of basketball while eating caramel corn!