Rating: 
Summary: A Big Let Down
Review: He talks a big talk in the begining of the book as of he were about to impart so secret knowledge to the world.In truth the book is short an doesn't reveal anything that wouldn't be encountered in a cognitive psychology class the graduate level.
My biggest problem with the book was the very last page where he decides to lambaste evolutionary thought with great fervor. Why? His book is on cognitive biases. Whe would you choose to end a book the that with a hughe dig at all who look at human behavior as the result of millions of years of evolution?
I am sorry I wasted my money. The only thing you really take away from the book is that humans aren't very good at intuitive probabilities. But, anyone who has taken a graduate statistics class already knows this.
Very poor.
Rating:
Summary: to many puzzles to little explanation
Review: I expected when I bought this book at the second hand bookstore to discuss more so why there are certain logic errors and how they relate to human reasoning, evolutionary psychology etc.The book is largely a composition of examples of logic tricks that defy human logic with answers in the back that make it seem more like a book of logic tricks to tell than others. Other than relating small bits about individual problems there is 1-2 paragraphs explaining logical illusions and it is limited to the rather basic explanation that it deals with a modular view of mind. unless one cares for logic tricks little will be learnt from this book on the human mind, except in particular circumstances. the few good parts such as bringing up bayes law in statistics is given 5 pages and without any mathematics. I don't often read in cognitive science but i am rather confident there is a better book to describe findings on mental illusions than this.
Rating:
Summary: to many puzzles to little explanation
Review: I expected when I bought this book at the second hand bookstore to discuss more so why there are certain logic errors and how they relate to human reasoning, evolutionary psychology etc. The book is largely a composition of examples of logic tricks that defy human logic with answers in the back that make it seem more like a book of logic tricks to tell than others. Other than relating small bits about individual problems there is 1-2 paragraphs explaining logical illusions and it is limited to the rather basic explanation that it deals with a modular view of mind. unless one cares for logic tricks little will be learnt from this book on the human mind, except in particular circumstances. the few good parts such as bringing up bayes law in statistics is given 5 pages and without any mathematics. I don't often read in cognitive science but i am rather confident there is a better book to describe findings on mental illusions than this.
Rating: 
Summary: Rough start, but it will convince you
Review: I'll admit it--I began reading this book with skepticism. After all, how many mental traps could folks (or *I*) really be subject too? And at first I was ready to put the book down. The first few examples seemed weak. "What? I learned a long time ago not to fall for THAT!" But as I (fortunately) progressed, I started coming across more convincing arguments and examples. I saw that, yes, there were innate mental traps that I fell into. Eventually I was convinced. While the start was slow for me, the book is overall a very good read. A bit thick at times, but the translation was excellent. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in how the mind works, how people think, and other such cognitive studies.
Rating:
Summary: Rigging the Deck, CogSci style
Review: I'm a third through this book and I'm not sure I'll be able to finish it. The author has a habit of posing ill-stated problems, then crowing about how people get them wrong when the information needed to solve them isn't available. Too bad; a book with this stated mission is needed, and some of the example syndromes are scary. I just wish they had earned a more careful treatment.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and informative
Review: Most people are familiar with term "optical illusion". One well-known example is the picture of two equally long lines, but one has arrow-heads at the end turned inward, while the other has arrow-heads turned outward. The arrow-heads make the lines appear to be of different lengths. They look something like this: <-------> >-------< However, most people are NOT aware that there are similar mental illusions that affect how we make decisions. This book describes what researchers have found in this field in the last decades, and it is a very interesting read. For example, there is an effect called framing, which means that the way a question or a problem is phrased has a large impact on how we answer it. In an experiment, doctors were told that when using a certain medical procedure, the probability that the patient is alive two years later is 93%. Another group of doctors were told that with another procedure there was a 7% chance of the patient dying within two years. Both groups of doctors were asked whether they would recommend the procedure or not. Significantly more doctors would recommend the procedure as stated in the first case than in the second, even though the two cases are identical! This shows how powerful the framing effect is. Another example: A wheel is spun, giving a number from 0 to 100. After seeing the number, people are asked to estimate the percentage of African nations that are part of the UN. If the number on the wheel was high, people give a high estimate of the percentage, if low a low estimate is given, even though people know that the number on the wheel has nothing to do with the actual percentage. This mental illusion is known as anchoring. There are many more mental illusions discussed in the book, and there are lots of entertaining (and revealing) examples. I found the book very interesting and informative, and it has made me look out for mental illusions in my own decision making. It is also interesting to note that it doesn't always help to be aware of a certain illusions - you can still be fooled by them. This is analogous to how the lines above still seem to be of different lengths even though we know that they are not. My one criticism of the book is that the language is a little bit difficult and sometimes it doesn't flow as well as it could. But this is a minor problem. Also, there is a similar book that concentrates on mental illusions when it comes to money. It is called "Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes" by Belsky and Gilovich, and is also highly recommended, even though a lot of the material they cover is the same as in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but not totally brought to the end
Review: The book discribes a lot of typical mental errors that we make in our every day life when we make judgements. This is interesting and helpful. We tend to overvalue our minds, and this book helps to put it back to the ground. All the time while reading it I thought about how much Voltaire and his friends 200 years ago were adoring the human brain, and what would have they said if they had read this book! However, some of the examples seemed to me too much black-and-white. I have made the tests in the book upon my friends, and the results were not according to the results in the book. May be Europeans think in a different way than Americans? Anyhow, the book is interesting, easy to read, but does not live up its the title.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but not totally brought to the end
Review: The book discribes a lot of typical mental errors that we make in our every day life when we make judgements. This is interesting and helpful. We tend to overvalue our minds, and this book helps to put it back to the ground. All the time while reading it I thought about how much Voltaire and his friends 200 years ago were adoring the human brain, and what would have they said if they had read this book! However, some of the examples seemed to me too much black-and-white. I have made the tests in the book upon my friends, and the results were not according to the results in the book. May be Europeans think in a different way than Americans? Anyhow, the book is interesting, easy to read, but does not live up its the title.
Rating: 
Summary: Defective
Review: This book contains a decent explanation of the Monty Hall problem. That's the one OK part. The rest is just a pointless meandering through well-known illusions. The fundamental problem with the book becomes obvious near the end, where the author dismisses biological evolution out of hand! Light dawns: of course the book lacks critical analysis and depth, as the author's thinking is enormously defective. Without powerful, modern tools like evolutionary psychology these illusions are mere curiosities, and inexplicable. In this age we can do better, much better. For an in-depth look at puzzles and oddities of perception and consciousness by an author without such a glaring cognitive handicap, try a book by Douglas Hofstadter, V.S. Ramachandran, or Antonio Damasio.
Rating: 
Summary: Overwrought But Fun
Review: This is a collection of "optical illusions of the mind," i.e., puzzles to which the intuitive answers are wrong. It gives several examples with non-technical discussions but is mostly a framework around the "Monty Hall" problem, a classic demonstration that probabilities can be tricky things. The book's sub-title is overblown -- it is not an explanation of how the brain works or doesn't work, or of consistent ways in which the mind distorts reality -- and the author's writing style is hyperbolic. Some readers have seen this book as an important discussion of the human mental process; it is not that. Read around the pretention, though, and it is fun.
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