The Ecological Brain is the first book of its kind, using complexity science to integrate the seemingly disparate fields of ecological psychology and neuroscience. The book develops a unique framework for unifying investigations and explanations of mind that span brain, body, and environment: the NeuroEcological Nexus Theory (NExT). Beginning with an introduction to the history of the fields, the author provides an assessment of why ecological psychology and neuroscience are commonly viewed as irreconcilable methods for investigating and explaining cognition, intelligent behavior, and the systems that realize them. The book then progresses to its central aim: presenting a unified investigative and explanatory framework offering concepts, methods, and theories applicable across neural and ecological scales of investigation. By combining the core principles of ecological psychology, neural population dynamics, and synergetics under a unified complexity science approach, NExT offers a compressive investigative framework to explain and understand neural, bodily, and environmental contributions to perception-action and other forms of intelligent behavior and thought. The book progresses the conversation around the role of brains in ecological psychology, as well as bodies and environments in neuroscience. It is essential reading for all students of ecological psychology, perception, cognitive sciences, and neuroscience, as well as anyone interested in the history and philosophy of the brain/mind sciences and their state-of-the-art methods and theories.

Present day neuroscience places the brain at the centre of study. But what if researchers viewed the brain not as the foundation of life, rather as a mediating organ? Ecology of the Brain addresses this very question. It considers the human body as a collective, a living being which uses the brain to mediate interactions. Those interactions may be both within the human body and between the human body and its environment. Within this framework, the mind is seen not as a product of the brain but as an activity of the living being; an activity which integrates the brain within the everyday functions of the human body. Going further, Fuchs reformulates the traditional mind-brain problem, presenting it as a dual aspect of the living being: the lived body and the subjective body - the living body and the objective body. The processes of living and experiencing life, Fuchs argues, are in fact inextricably linked; it is not the brain, but the human being who feels, thinks and acts. For students and academics, Ecology of the Brain will be of interest to those studying or researching theory of mind, social and cultural interaction, psychiatry, and psychotherapy.

When a chimpanzee stockpiles rocks as weapons or when a frog sends out mating calls, we might easily assume these animals know their own motivations--that they use the same psychological mechanisms that we do. But as Beyond the Brain indicates, this is a dangerous assumption because animals have different evolutionary trajectories, ecological niches, and physical attributes. How do these differences influence animal thinking and behavior? Removing our human-centered spectacles, Louise Barrett investigates the mind and brain and offers an alternative approach for understanding animal and human cognition. Drawing on examples from animal behavior, comparative psychology, robotics, artificial life, developmental psychology, and cognitive science, Barrett provides remarkable new insights into how animals and humans depend on their bodies and environment--not just their brains--to behave intelligently. Barrett begins with an overview of human cognitive adaptations and how these color our views of other species, brains, and minds. Considering when it is worth having a big brain--or indeed having a brain at all--she investigates exactly what brains are good at. Showing that the brain's evolutionary function guides action in the world, she looks at how physical structure contributes to cognitive processes, and she demonstrates how these processes employ materials and resources in specific environments. Arguing that thinking and behavior constitute a property of the whole organism, not just the brain, Beyond the Brain illustrates how the body, brain, and cognition are tied to the wider world.

How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.

Merging evolutionary ecology and cognitive science, cognitive ecology investigates how animal interactions with natural habitats shape cognitive systems, and how constraints on nervous systems limit or bias animal behavior. Research in cognitive ecology has expanded rapidly in the past decade, and this second volume builds on the foundations laid out in the first, published in 1998. Cognitive Ecology II integrates numerous scientific disciplines to analyze the ecology and evolution of animal cognition. The contributors cover the mechanisms, ecology, and evolution of learning and memory, including detailed analyses of bee neurobiology, bird song, and spatial learning. They also explore decision making, with mechanistic analyses of reproductive behavior in voles, escape hatching by frog embryos, and predation in the auditory domain of bats and eared insects. Finally, they consider social cognition, focusing on alarm calls and the factors determining social learning strategies of corvids, fish, and mammals. With cognitive ecology ascending to its rightful place in behavioral and evolutionary research, this volume captures the promise that has been realized in the past decade and looks forward to new research prospects.

Why does brain size vary so widely among vertebrate animal species? What role has natural selection played in shaping the structure and function of the vertebrate brain? This accessible book unravels the myriad adaptive explanations that have built up over decades, providing both a review and a critique of the work that has sought to explain which natural selection pressures have led to changes in brain size. Debate over the causes of variation in brain size, especially within extant humans and during the course of hominid evolution, has persisted for at least a couple of centuries. However, it was not until relatively recently that there has been sufficient data to allow a coherent (and taxonomically widespread) evolutionary perspective to emerge. The comparative approach employed by evolutionary biologists and behavioural ecologists has been particularly enlightening with regard to addressing variation in brain size. However, the extent to which correlational data - currently generated in some profusion - can provide a suitable explanation is not yet clear, and a constructively critical analysis of the relevant data is now timely. Five classes of selection pressure have formed the majority of explanations: ecology, technology, innovation, sex, and sociality. The book starts with a brief description of the difficulties of measuring both brain size and intelligence (cognition), before addressing the evidence for each of these five factors in turn. It argues that although ecology currently provides the most convincing explanation for variation in the size of brain regions, none of the factors yet offers a robust and compelling explanation for variation in whole brain size. The book concludes by looking forwards, suggesting the future steps necessary to reach such an explanation; steps that are challenging but now within reach. Adaptation and the Brain is suitable for graduate level students taking courses in animal behaviour and cognition, behavioural ecology, evolutionary ecology, psychology, and neuroscience as well as academics and professional researchers in these fields. The reader will not require a specific understanding of neuroscience, nor of the function of any particular brain region.

This is a book about how we see: the environment around us (its surfaces, their layout, and their colors and textures); where we are in the environment; whether or not we are moving and, if we are, where we are going; what things are good for; how to do things (to thread a needle or drive an automobile); or why things look as they do. The basic assumption is that vision depends on the eye which is connected to the brain. The author suggests that natural vision depends on the eyes in the head on a body supported by the ground, the brain being only the central organ of a complete visual system. When no constraints are put on the visual system, people look around, walk up to something interesting and move around it so as to see it from all sides, and go from one vista to another. That is natural vision -- and what this book is about.