Chance Discovery

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Gianfranco Dalla Barba

Memory, Consciousness, and Temporality presents the argument that current memory theories are undermined by two false assumptions: the `memory trace paradox' and `the fallacy of the homunculus'. In these pages Gianfranco Dalla Barba introduces a hypothesis - the Memory, Consciousness, and Temporality (MCT) hypothesis - on the relationship between memory and consciousness that is not undermined by these assumptions and further demonstrates how MCT can account for a variety of memory disorders and phenomena. With a unique approach intended to conjugate phenomenological analysis and recent neuropsychological data, the author makes an important contribution to our understanding of the central issues in current cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience.

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Geoffrey Hinton and Terrence J. Sejnowski

This volume, on unsupervised learning algorithms, focuses on neural network learning algorithms that do not require an explicit teacher. The goal of unsupervised learning is to extract an efficient internal representation of the statistical structure implicit in the inputs. These algorithms provide insights into the development of the cerebral cortex and implicit learning in humans. They are also of interest to engineers working in areas such as computer vision and speech recognition who seek efficient representations of raw input data.

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Ch'alsŭ Duhikŭ chiŭm

A group of data scientists at Google embark on a four-year study of how the best teams function, and find that how a group interacts is much more important than who is in the group. A Marine Corps general, faced with low morale among recruits, reimagines boot camp -- and discovers that instilling a 'bias toward action' can turn even the most directionless teenagers into self-motivating achievers. The filmmakers behind Disney's Frozen are on the brink of catastrophe -- until they shake up their team in just the right way, spurring a creative breakthrough that leads to one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. What do these people have in common? They know that productivity relies on making certain choices. The way we frame our daily decisions; the big ambitions we embrace and the easy goals we ignore; the cultures we establish as leaders to drive innovation: these are the things that separate the merely busy from the genuinely productive. At the core of Smarter Faster Better are eight key concepts -- from motivation and goal-setting to focus and decision-making -- that explain why some people and companies get so much done. Drawing on the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology and behavioural ecoƯnomics -- as well as the experiences of CEOs, educational reformers, four-star generals, airƯplane pilots and Broadway songwriters -- author Charles Duhigg explains that the most productive people, companies and organizations don merely act differently. They view the world, and their choices, in profoundly different ways.

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Peter J. Rentfrow

The places where people live vary considerably in terms of their social, economic, political, climatic, and physical characteristics. These conditions affect how people from different regions behave and interact with their environments and each other. This book makes the case that understanding of psychological phenomena can be greatly informed by a cross-disciplinary perspective that investigates the spatial organisation and geographical representation of such phenomena and the mechanisms that are responsible. The research described in this volume indicates that personality, political ideology, well-being, happiness, human virtues, and personal concerns are related to several important geographic social indicators.