Stanislas Dehaene - Böcker

'Absorbing, mind-enlarging, studded with insights ... This could have significant real-world results' Sunday TimesHumanity's greatest feat is our incredible ability to learn. Even in their first year, infants acquire language, visual and social knowledge at a rate that surpasses the best supercomputers. But how, exactly, do our brains learn?In How We Learn, leading neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene delves into the psychological, neuronal, synaptic and molecular mechanisms of learning. Drawing on case studies of children who learned despite huge difficulty and trauma, he explains why youth is such a sensitive period, during which brain plasticity is maximal, but also assures us that our abilities continue into adulthood. We can all enhance our learning and memory at any age and 'learn to learn' by taking maximal advantage of the four pillars of the brain's learning algorithm: attention, active engagement, error feedback and consolidation.The human brain is an extraordinary machine. Its ability to process information and adapt to circumstances by reprogramming itself is unparalleled, and it remains the best source of inspiration for recent developments in artificial intelligence. How We Learn finds the boundary of computer science, neurobiology, cognitive psychology and education to explain how learning really works and how to make the best use of the brain's learning algorithms - and even improve them - in our schools and universities as well as in everyday life.

The study of mathematical cognition and the ways in which the ideas of space, time and number are encoded in brain circuitry has become a fundamental issue for neuroscience. How such encoding differs across cultures and educational level is of further interest in education and neuropsychology. This rapidly expanding field of research is overdue for an interdisciplinary volume such as this, which deals with the neurological and psychological foundations of human numeric capacity. A uniquely integrative work, this volume provides a much needed compilation of primary source material to researchers from basic neuroscience, psychology, developmental science, neuroimaging, neuropsychology and theoretical biology.

The first comprehensive and authoritative volume dealing with neurological and psychological foundations of mathematical cognition Uniquely integrative volume at the frontier of a rapidly expanding interdisciplinary field Features outstanding and truly international scholarship, with chapters written by leading experts in a variety of fields

Our understanding of how the human brain performs mathematical calculations is far from complete, but in recent years there have been many exciting breakthroughs by scientists all over the world. Now, in The Number Sense, Stanislas Dehaene offers a fascinating look at this recent research, in an enlightening exploration of the mathematical mind. Dehaene begins with the eye-opening discovery that animals--including rats, pigeons, raccoons, and chimpanzees--can perform simple mathematical calculations, and that human infants also have a rudimentary number sense. Dehaene suggests that this rudimentary number sense is as basic to the way the brain understands the world as our perception of color or of objects in space, and, like these other abilities, our number sense is wired into the brain. These are but a few of the wealth of fascinating observations contained here. We also discover, for example, that because Chinese names for numbers are so short, Chinese people can remember up to nine or ten digits at a time--English-speaking people can only remember seven. The book also explores the unique abilities of idiot savants and mathematical geniuses, and we meet people whose minute brain lesions render their mathematical ability useless. This new and completely updated edition includes all of the most recent scientific data on how numbers are encoded by single neurons, and which brain areas activate when we perform calculations. Perhaps most important, The Number Sense reaches many provocative conclusions that will intrigue anyone interested in learning, mathematics, or the mind. "A delight." --Ian Stewart, New Scientist"Read The Number Sense for its rich insights into matters as varying as the cuneiform depiction of numbers, why Jean Piaget's theory of stages in infant learning is wrong, and to discover the brain regions involved in the number sense." --The New York Times Book Review"Dehaene weaves the latest technical research into a remarkably lucid and engrossing investigation. Even readers normally indifferent to mathematics will find themselves marveling at the wonder of minds making numbers." --Booklist

Wir sind umgeben von Zahlen. Ob auf Kreditkarten gestanzt oder auf Münzen geprägt, ob auf Schecks gedruckt oder in den Spalten computerisierter Tabellen aufgelistet, überall beherrschen Zahlen unser Leben. Sie sind auch der Kern unserer Technologie. Ohne Zahlen könnten wir weder Raketen starten, die das Sonnensystem erkunden, noch Brücken bauen, Güter austauschen oder Rech­ nungen bezahlen. In gewissem Sinn sind Zahlen also kulturelle Erfindungen, die sich ihrer Bedeutung nach nur mit der Landwirtschaft oder mit dem Rad vergleichen lassen. Aber sie könnten sogar noch tiefere Wurzeln haben. Tausende von Jahren vor Christus benutzten babylonische Wissenschaftler Zahlzeichen, um erstaun­ lich genaueastronomische Tabellen zu berechnen. Zehntausende von Jahren zuvor hatten Menschen der Steinzeit die ersten geschriebenen Zahlenreihen geschaffen, indem sie Knochen einkerbten oder Punkte auf Höhlenwände malten. Und, wie ich später überzeugend darzustellen hoffe, schon vor weiteren Millionen von Jahren, lange bevor es Menschen gab, nahmen Tiere aller Arten Zahlen zur Kenntnis und stellten mit ihnen einfache Kopfrechnungen an. Sind Zahlen also fast so alt wie das Leben selbst? Sind sie in der Struktur unseres Gehirns verankert? Besitzen wir einen Zahlensinn, eine spezielle Intuition, die uns hilft, Zahlen und Mathematik mit Sinn zu erfüllen? Ich wurde vor fünfzehn Jahren, während meiner Ausbildung zum Mathema­ tiker, fasziniert von den abstrakten Objekten, mit denen ich umzugehen lernte, vor allem von den einfachsten von ihnen- den Zahlen.

Fifteen of the foremost scientists in this field presented testable theoretical models of consciousness and discussed how our understanding of the role that consciousness plays in our cognitive processes is being refined with some surprising results.

Fifteen of the foremost scientists in this field presented testable theoretical models of consciousness and discussed how our understanding of the role that consciousness plays in our cognitive processes is being refined with some surprising results.