Secrets Of The Mind

Rating:
Summary: A word from one of the Author of this cd
Review: Hello

My name is Bruno Levy and I co-authored this cd-rom with life long friend Emile Servan-Schreiber.(I apologize for self rating this cd with 5 stars but it looks like the amazon software force me to give a rating.)

Our idea in designing and producing this cd-rom was to give an introductory (and interactive) overview about what is currently known on the brain and the mind. One of the big revolution of the 90s is that the knowledge of how the mind works(the goal of cognitive psychology) starts to be in close correspondance with the knowledge of how the brain work s(the goal of neuroscience).

That's why we interviewed some of the best specialists in both domain and asked them to explain in the simplest language what they have discovered and understood about the brain and the mind in their research.

In addition, we have included a serie of first person interactive experiments. All these experiments have been designed and discovered by cognitive psychologists in the last 25 years. A lot of them are extremely entertaining but not very well known by the general public. When we designed our cd-rom, we thought it would be interesting to have people discover **on themselves** the mechanism of their own mind at work. Its a great way to understand that cognitive psychology is really a science able to made predictions (A word of caution: these experiments are NOT IQ test.)

Our cd-rom was published two years ago in France and Italy and has been a great success: we sold 25000 units in France and 25000 more in Italy. We received several prestigious award in France for both its content and interactivity.

I honestly believe that the cd-rom is still actual in terms of content. I also want to say that all the cd is illustrated by French Artist Philippe Andrieu who has really provided a welcomed and appropriate poetic touch to this whole subject.

Here is a list of the people whose interviews are reproduced in the cd-rom:

- Herbert Simon (Nobel prize of economics and one of the founder of AI & cognitive psychology). - Eric Kandel (He just received the Nobel Prize in medecine this year).In the cd he explained a part of the work he has received his Nobel for. - Daniel Schacter from Harvard. He will speak about how memory are formed. - Stephen Kosslyn from Harvard, he will speak about vision and imagination. - John Anderson from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), he will speak about the rule of thoughts. - Rodney Brooks from MIT, he will describe his attenpt to build a humanoïd robot (COG). - James McClelland from CMU, he will explain how neurones work and communicate together to produce mental thoughts (neural nets). _ Michale Posner form Oregon U, he will describe the mechanisms of attention. - Jean Pierre Changeux from Pasteur Institut, he will describe how the brain grows. - David Servan Schreiber from U of Pittsburgh, he will speak about the emotional brain - Rodolfo Llinas from NYU who will introduce us to some of the brain mechanisms underlying consciousness.

I hope this description helps.

Bruno Levy

Rating:
Summary: Marvellous resources for the serious students
Review: The editorial and author's reviews already give you a good idea of the content. I just wish to express my appreciation for the opportunity to have exposure to 11 of the top-notch scientists of the brain and cognition, including one in French, through such an informative tool. First click through all the titles of the 20 icons on the "map of knowledge" and listen to the charming voice explaining what is contained there. You can systematically select what you are interested in. You can also use the index to search for a topic. Much effort has been put into creating so many video clips for the texts of the interviews. There are many graphic illustrations. I like the "round-table" of scientists's views on diverse theme topics, such as "Can there be free will?". If passive listening gets boring, you can switch to reading the texts instead. There are just too many interesting topics. Having to use 2 CDs is a bit inconvenient. I hope there will be a single DVD, updated and expanded version with more links to current resources in a couple of years to catch up with the explosion of brain knowledge.

Rating:
Summary: Marvellous resources for the serious students
Review: The editorial and author's reviews already give you a good idea of the content. I just wish to express my appreciation for the opportunity to have exposure to 11 of the top-notch scientists of the brain and cognition, including one in French, through such an informative tool. First click through all the titles of the 20 icons on the "map of knowledge" and listen to the charming voice explaining what is contained there. You can systematically select what you are interested in. You can also use the index to search for a topic. Much effort has been put into creating so many video clips for the texts of the interviews. There are many graphic illustrations. I like the "round-table" of scientists's views on diverse theme topics, such as "Can there be free will?". If passive listening gets boring, you can switch to reading the texts instead. There are just too many interesting topics. Having to use 2 CDs is a bit inconvenient. I hope there will be a single DVD, updated and expanded version with more links to current resources in a couple of years to catch up with the explosion of brain knowledge.

Rating:
Summary: A Breakthrough
Review: Very informative and Educational and a nice way of presentation. The navigation could have been improved a bit.