A Trick of the Mind
How the Brain Invents Your Reality
-
-
4.5 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
From a groundbreaking neuroscientist, a book that will reshape the way we understand how our brain perceives the world around us—for readers of Adam Grant's Think Again and Lisa Genova's Remember.
How does your brain decide what it's seeing, from the physical world to other people? For decades, scientists have tried to understand how our brains work, not realizing that the answer lies much closer to home. New research in neuroscience and psychology suggests that the brain is doing the same thing that the scientists are: using past experiences to build theories of how the world works, and using these models to predict and make sense of it. Through this process, your brain constructs the reality that you live in.
Daniel Yon takes the research one step further, uncovering how your brain colors your perception of the world, the judgements you make about other people, and the beliefs you form about yourself. These mental processes help us navigate the world—but can also lead us astray, causing us to believe outlandish conspiracy theories or to see things that aren’t really there. By understanding the ways each of our brains construct our realities, we can better engage with other communities and make more informed approaches about mental illness. With cutting-edge research and transformative practical applications, A Trick of the Mind will revolutionize the way you think.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
What causes hallucinations? How do conspiracy theories take root? Why are some people convinced a lucky hat can help them catch more fish? Neuroscientist Yon tackles these questions and more in his riveting debut exploration of how the brain shapes perception. The account draws from philosopher Karl Popper's theory that people live in the worlds of matter, mind, and ideas. To navigate them, Yon argues, the brain functions as a kind of internal scientist, continually evaluating input and constructing or editing perceptual models to help make better predictions. (In linguistic models, for example, "I put butter on my..." primes the brain to hear a word like "toast"; when an unexpected "semantic violation" like "socks" follows instead, it elicits a mental jolt.) Upon encountering a mismatch between data and expectation, the brain must decide whether to revise its model, a choice that's highly dependent on its overall sense of the world's unpredictability. Social calamities like the Covid-19 pandemic make the brain more open to editing its models, but can cause it to inadvertently latch onto "malignant ideas" or assign outsize significance to unimportant evidence, creating mental distortions. Yon persuasively argues that better understanding how the brain's perceptual models work might reveal how to improve social communication, combat harmful dogma, and treat mental illnesses. It's a scintillating and surprisingly accessible look at why humans think as they do.
