A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives

Description

Perhaps your brains seems to stumble when faced with the 13 times table, or persistently fails to master parallel parking. But you're in control of it, right? Sorry. Think again. Dotted with popular explanations of the latest research and fascinating real-life examples, psychologist Cordelia Fine tours the less salubrious side of human psychology. She shows that the human brain is in fact stubborn, emotional and deceitful, and teaches you everything you always wanted to know about the brain - and plenty you probably didn't.

Cordelia Fine received a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from University College London. She is now a Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at Melbourne University and the author of the highly acclaimed Delusions of Gender.

'Consistently well-written and meticulously researched' -- Alain de Botton * The Sunday Times * 'In breezy demotic, Fine offers an entertaining tour of current thinking' * Telegraph * 'Fine sets out to demonstrate that the human brain is vainglorious and stubborn. She succeeds brilliantly.' * Mail on Sunday * 'This is one of the most interesting and amusing accounts of how we think we think - I think.' * Alexander McCall Smith * 'A fascinating, funny, disconcerting and lucid book ... by the end you'll realise that your brain can (and does) run rings around you.' * Helen Dunmore * 'Fine, a cognitive neuroscientist with a sharp sense of humour and an intelligent sense of reality, slaps an Asbo on the hundred billion grey cells that - literally - have shifty, ruthless, self-serving minds of their own.' * The Times * 'Clear, accessible writing makes her a science writer to watch' * Metro * 'Fine wears her learning lightly, blending facts with humorous observations. The result is a fascinating insight into how our minds work.' * Psychologies * 'A witty survey of psychology experiments demonstrating the depths of our suggestibility, the irrationality of our reasoning and the limits of free will.' * Focus *