"This book, the first of its kind, examines three main aspects of mental imagery. Providing a state of the art review of this field of research, along with in-depth reviews, meta-analyses, and research syntheses, this book will be important for those in the fields of cognitive neuroscience, physiology, and rehabilitation." --Book Jacket.
Used for gestures of communication, environmental exploration, and the grasping and manipulating of objects, the hand has a vital role in our lives. The hand's anatomical structure and neural control are among the most complex and detailed of human motor systems.Hand and Brain is a comprehensive overview of the hand's sensorimotor control. It discusses mediating variables in perception and prehension, the coordination of muscles with the central nervous system, the nature of movement control and hand positioning, hand-arm coordination in reaching and grasping, and the sensory function of the hand.In the last decade the rapid growth of neuroscience has been paralleled by a surge of interest in hand function. This reflects the fact that many of the fundamental issues facing neuroscientists today--including the problem of relating physiology to behavior--are central to the study of sensorimotor control of the hand. This book takes a broad interdisciplinary perspective on the control of hand movements that includes neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, psychology and neuropsychology, and biomechanics.The authors, who have all made significant scientific contributions in their own right, have sought to introduce their chosen topics in a manner that the undergraduate reader will be able to follow without sacrificing detailed and up-to-date coverage ofthe major developments.Uses an interdisciplinary approach including behavioral and neurophysiological dataDescribes a variety of experimental methodologiesTreats neural computations necessary for the control of movementCovers implications of biomechanics for control, sensory mechanisms, and perceptual processing (haptics)Includes manipulative hand function as well as reachingOverviews each group of chapters using link sectionsContains an integrated index and a glosssaryThe five sections cover:Mediating variables in perception and prehensionThe coordination of muscles with the central nervous systemThe nature of movement control and hand positioningHand-arm coordination in reaching and graspingThe sensory function of the hand
This unique introductory textbook, the first to address psychology as a rigorous natural science, applies to the study of human behavior the same scientific standards taken for granted in other natural sciences. The result is a scientific psychology that studies the evolutionary, physiological, and environmental variables determining behavior. The authors discuss the relationship between science and psychology and examine issues traditionally important to psychologists, showing how these matters are often better understood by a natural science approach. Special features include; an outline and a summary for each chapter detailed learning objectives bold type for important terms italicized definitions, and a glossary.£/LIST£
The analysis of neurophysiological brain function is a highly interdisciplinary field of research. In addition to the traditional areas of psychology and neurobiology, various other scientific disciplines, such as physics, mathematics, computer science, and engineering, are involved. The book reviews a wide spectrum of model-based analyses of neurophysiological brain function. In the first part, physical and physiological models and synergetic concepts are presented. The second part focuses on analysis methods and their applications to EEG/MEG data sets. It reviews methods of source localization, the investigation of synchronization processes, and spatio-temporal modeling based on dynamical systems theory. The book includes contributions by well-known scientists such as Hermann Haken, Scott Kelso and Paul Nunez, among others. It is written for students and scientists from all the above-mentioned fields.
A collection of groundbreaking research by a leading figure in neuroscience. This book compiles, for the first time, Stephen W. Porges’s decades of research. A leading expert in developmental psychophysiology and developmental behavioral neuroscience, Porges is the mind behind the groundbreaking Polyvagal Theory, which has startling implications for the treatment of anxiety, depression, trauma, and autism. Adopted by clinicians around the world, the Polyvagal Theory has provided exciting new insights into the way our autonomic nervous system unconsciously mediates social engagement, trust, and intimacy.
This text presents a reflective theory of school didactics, incorporating German and Nordic research traditions in the theory of didactics, together with Anglo-American research on teaching instructional research and cognitivist theory.
Practicing neuropsychologists and students in clinical neuropsychology must increas ingly cross disciplinary boundaries to understand and appreciate the neuroanatomical, neurophysiological, and neuropharmacological bases of cognition and behavior, cur rent cognitive theory in many different domains of functioning, and the nature and tools of clinical assessment. Although the cognitive functions and abilities of interest are often the same, each of these fields has grappled with them from sometimes very different perspectives. Terminology is often specific to a particular discipline or ap proach, methods are diverse, and the goals or outcomes of study or investigation are usually very different. This book poises itself to provide a largely missing link between traditional approaches to assessment and the growing area of cognitive neuropsy chology. Historically, neuropsychology had as its central core the consideration of evidence from clinical cases. It was the early work of neurologists such as Broca, Wernicke, Hughlings-Jackson, and Liepmann, who evaluated and described the behavioral cor relates of prescribed lesions in individual patients and focused investigation on the lateralization and localization of cognitive abilities in humans. An outgrowth of those approaches was the systematic development of experimental tasks that could be used to elucidate the nature of cognitive changes in individuals with well-described brain lesions.
