Physical control of the mind by direct manipulation of the brain is a novel event in human history. In this volume, Dr. Jose M. R. Delgado describes his pioneering work in implanting electrodes in the brains of cats, monkeys, and men. Through electrical stimulation of specific cerebral structures, Delgado demonstrates how movements can be induced by radio command, hostility may appear or disappear, social hierarchy can be modified, sexual behavior may be changed, and memory, emotions, and the thinking process may be influenced by remote control. The mind is no longer unreachable, and may be the subject of experimental investigations. According to Delgado, we need to reorient the aims of civilization to restore a balance between its physical and psychological evolution. Our present mechanized society is dangerously self-perpetuating, and should be "psychocivilized" in order to develop wiser minds, to intelligently control our awesome technological advances. Dr. Delgado believes mankind's primary objective should be "not the development of machines, but of man himself." He writes lucidly about his work, putting it into the context of what is known about the mind and the brain, and exploring long-range ethical and social implications of his discoveries. Despite the ongoing controversy over his work, the result is an exceedingly important and provocative book. Jose M. R. Delgado was born in Ronda, Spain, and received his medical training at Madrid University, where he was Associate Professor of Physiology until 1950, when he came to Yale University to work with Dr. John Fulton. He became Professor of Physiology at Yale, where he developed techniques for electrical and chemical stimulation of the brain. He published more than 200 scientific papers, and became perhaps the most notorious "mind control" researcher in the history of neuro-behavioral research.

'Gaining control' tells the story of how human behavioral capacities evolved from those of other animal species. Exploring what is known about the psychological capacities of other groups of animals, the authors reconstruct a fascinating history of our own mental evolution. In the book, the authors see mental evolution as a series of steps in which new mechanisms for controlling behavior develop in different species - starting with early representatives of this kingdom, and leading to a species - us - that can engage in a large number of different types of behavioral control. Key to their argument is the idea that each of these steps -- from reflexes to instincts, drives, emotions, and cognitive planning - can be seen as a novel type of psychological adaptation in which information is 'inherited' by an animal from its own behavior through new forms of learning - a form of major evolutionary transition. Thus the mechanisms that result from these steps in increasingly complex behavioral control can also be seen as the fundamental building blocks of psychology. Such a perspective on behaviour has a number of implications for practitioners in fields ranging from experimental psychology to public health. Short, provocative, and insightful, this book will be of great interest and use to evolutionary psychologists and biologists, anthropologists and the scientific community as a whole.

In November 2005, Bonnie Blodgett was whacked with a nasty cold. After a quick shot of a popular nasal spray up each nostril, the back of her nose was on fire. With that, Blodgett—a professional garden writer devoted to the sensual pleasures of garden and kitchen—was launched on a journey through the senses, the psyche, and the sciences. Her olfactory nerve was destroyed, perhaps forever. She had lost her sense of smell. Phantosmia—a constant stench of “every disgusting thing you can think of tossed into a blender and pureed”—is the first disorienting stage. It’s the brain’s attempt, as Blodgett vividly conveys, to compensate for loss by conjuring up a tortured facsimile. As the hallucinations fade and anosmia (no smell at all) moves in to take their place, Blodgett is beset by questions: Why are smell and mood hand-in-hand? How are smell disorders linked to other diseases? What is taste without flavor? Blodgett’s provocative conversations with renowned geneticists, smell dysfunction experts, neurobiologists, chefs, and others ultimately lead to a life-altering understanding of smell, and to the most transformative lesson of all: the olfactory nerve, in ways unlike any other in the human body has the extraordinary power to heal.

In this book Jerry Fodor contrasts his views about the mind with those of a number of well-known philosophers and cognitive scientists, including John McDowell, Christopher Peacocke, Paul Churchland, Daniel Dennett, Paul Smolensky, and Richard Dawkins. Several of these essays are published here for the first time. The rest originated as book reviews in the Times Literary Supplement, the London Review of Books, or in journals of philosophy or psychology. The topics examined include cognitive architecture, the nature of concepts, and the status of Darwinism in psychology. Fodor constructs a version of the Representational Theory of Mind that blends Intentional Realism, Computational Reductionism, Nativism, and Semantic Atomism.