Thinking in Pictures, Expanded Edition: My Life with Autism

Book Description

Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is a gifted animal scientist who has designed one third of all the livestock-handling facilities in the United States. She also lectures widely on autism—because Temple Grandin is autistic, a woman who thinks, feels, and experiences the world in ways that are incomprehensible to the rest of us.

In this unprecedented book, Grandin delivers a report from the country of autism. Writing from the dual perspectives of a scientist and an autistic person, she tells us how that country is experienced by its inhabitants and how she managed to breach its boundaries to function in the outside world. What emerges in Thinking in Pictures is the document of an extraordinary human being, one who, in gracefully and lucidly bridging the gulf between her condition and our own, sheds light on the riddle of our common identity.

Customer Reviews:

Temple Grandin is an inspiration.......2007-06-08

Temple Grandin's "Thinking in Pictures", is a must read for anyone who is affected by Autism Spectrum Disorders. Her book is well written and provides a lot of insight into what life is like for a young adult on the spectrum. This has been especially helpful for my husband and I as our first Aspie (we have four) is heading off to college and the "real" world. Definitely worth the money.

Amazing.......2007-05-21

Read this and Autism is more understandable (though still a mystery for those who do not have Autism) It also helps one to know better how to work with and interact with anyone having Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Aside from learning more about Autism, you will enjoy the writing and the stories used by the author.

More Conceptual than She Thinks.......2007-03-29

This book provides fascinating, intelligent, entertaining insights into the autistic mind.

Grandin is actually very conceptual, as the ability to use language requires, but appropriate concepts and contexts are difficult for her to define, seemingly due to a sensory system that leads to focusing on details rather than a broader scope. She and psychologists in general simply think she is largely non-conceptual due to their inadequate understanding of concepts, language, etc.

Actually, we all think in pictures; however, most of us use generalized, essentialized pictures most of the time for efficiency.

A grasp of how concepts are formed and organized, and how they are the essence of language, will help greatly. Best and easy to read for effective general psychology is "The Psychology of Self-Esteem," by Branden. Self-esteem is acquired from experience, not by choosing it. Emotions result from thoughts, not vice versa. The best and easy to read for the nature of concepts and language is "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology," by Rand, and then for a comparison with other theories and how they go wrong "Evidence of the Senses," by Kelly.

must read.......2007-03-08

gives insight and hope for parents of kids with autism. also realization of what kids with aspergers can accomplish. this woman has a phd!!!

Temple Grandin and Eleanor Roosevelt would have loved each other.......2007-03-06

Dip vat, squeeze machine, restraining chute...Temple Grandin makes poetry of these unlikely words, and out of the whole of the English language. It's a spiritual miracle that we experience the noise and overpowering smells of the stockyards, yet also find in them the triumph of compassion.

Quite simply, Grandin is one of the greatest women of the 20th and 21st centuries. She should be draped with laurels, carried through the streets on our shoulders as we sing our praise-songs; she should be awarded keys to cities, MacArthur Foundation buckets of money, a Nobel Prize, a Presidential Medal of Freedom...and any other accolade we can think of to bestow on her. Did I say she was one of the greatest women? Check that. She is one of the greatest human beings of any century.

In addition, she is delightful company. She humanizes scary conditions, autism and asperger's, evoking in readers compassion and curiosity they might not have known they had. In this regard, Grandin is a superb spiritual guide with abundant personal experience and vast knowledge, which she generously shares via neat, accessible anecdotes and lists.

Reading Grandin, it is easy to imagine being in the same room with her, listening wide-eyed, and never wanting her to leave. Some nights, I confess that I fall asleep thinking of her as a young girl, joyfully flying those kites in the park...

Robert McDowell, author of the forthcoming Poetry In Your Spiritual Practice

History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Average customer rating:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers
Pants on fire?
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
Very Interesting
History as Science Fiction

History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
Manufacturer: Mithec
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
History: Fiction or Science? Astronomical methods as applied to chronology. Ptolemy's Almagest. Chronology III
Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America: Lost History And Legends, Unearthed And Explored
Before the Pharaohs: Egypt's Mysterious Prehistory
They Cast No Shadows: A Collection of Essays on the Illuminati, Revisionist History, and Suppressed Technologies

ASIN: 2913621058

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

Thinking In Pictures: and Other Reports from My Life with Autism

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It doesn't live up to the hype
A Must-Read for Oliver Sacks Fans
Moving, inspiring, thought-provoking
Thinking In Pictures
Thinking In Pictures : and Other Reports from My Life with Autism (Vintage)

Thinking In Pictures: and Other Reports from My Life with Autism
Temple Grandin
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Emergence: Labeled Autistic
Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior
Autism Spectrum Disorders: The Complete Guide to Understanding Autism, Asperger's Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, and Other ASDs
Let Me Hear Your Voice: A Family's Triumph over Autism
Developing Talents: Careers for Individuals with Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism

ASIN: 0679772898
Release Date: 1996-10-29

Amazon.com

Oliver Sacks calls Temple Grandin's first book--and the first picture of autism from the inside--"quite extraordinary, unprecedented and, in a way, unthinkable." Sacks told part of her story in his An Anthropologist on Mars, and in Thinking in Pictures Grandin returns to tell her life history with great depth, insight, and feeling. Grandin told Sacks, "I don't want my thoughts to die with me. I want to have done something ... I want to know that my life has meaning ... I'm talking about things at the very core of my existence." Grandin's clear exposition of what it is like to "think in pictures" is immensely mind-broadening and basically destroys a whole school of philosophy (the one that declares language necessary for thought). Grandin, who feels she can "see through a cow's eyes," is an influential designer of slaughterhouses and livestock restraint systems. She has great insight into human-animal relations. It would be mere justice if Thinking in Pictures transforms the study of religious feeling, too.

Book Description

Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is a gifted animal scientist who has designed one third of all the livestock-handling facilities in the United States. She also lectures widely on autism because she is autistic, a woman who thinks, feels, and experiences the world in ways that are incomprehensible to the rest of us. In this unprecedented book, Grandin writes from the dual perspectives of a scientist and an autistic person. She tells us how she managed to breach the boundaries of autism to function in the outside world. What emerges is the document of an extraordinary human being, one who gracefully bridges the gulf between her condition and our own while shedding light on our common identity.

"There are innumerable astounding facets to this remarkable book...Displaying uncanny powers of observation...[Temple Grandin] charts the differences between her life and the lives of those who think in words."--Philadelphia Inquirer

Customer Reviews:

It doesn't live up to the hype.......2007-09-19

Yes, it is remarkable that an autistic person has written a book about autism and how autistic people see the world and process information.

But that's the only thing that makes it remarkable - if the book were written by a non-autistic person, it wouldn't have found a publisher, at least not without some serious editing. The subject is highly interesting, and the ideas in the book are really thought-provoking, and it's too bad that as a reader I found it hard to get really engaged in the book. It is sometimes rambling, with choppy sentences, and frequently highly repetitive -- sentences that are almost the same are repeated, ideas are restated over and over. It got to the point that I felt while the book could have been condensed into a fascinating article, as a book it was frustrating and bloated, and needed a good editor to prune it by at least a third. Maybe the stilted prose and repetition are meant to provide a valid simulation of how an autistic person actually speaks, but it doesn't make a book readable to the rest of us.

Don't get me wrong, I think Temple Grandin is an amazingly successful person and she should be commended for sharing her world and knowledge with us. I just wish the quality of the final published version had been better - she deserves it.

A Must-Read for Oliver Sacks Fans.......2006-10-30

As you would expect from a book subtitled And Other Reports From My Life with Autism, Temple Grandin gives us a fascinating inside view of what it's like to be autistic. What you might not expect is how deftly she weaves neuroscience, animal behavior, humane practices in America's animal processing facilities, biochemistry, and even religion into this bestseller.

In contrast to the "experts" who tell us that there can be no true thinking or tool building without language, she's here to tell us that her visual, computer-like method of solving problems and getting along in the world are just as valid as any language-based solutions. Inspired by the opening lines of the Lord's Prayer, for example, she explains that she grew up with a very clear image of God working at an easel.

What's not obvious from the title is that she holds a Ph.D. in animal science and has designed one third of all the livestock handling facilities in the United States. Sometimes her beliefs about her charges' thoughts and feelings would appear hard to confirm. However, when she applies her ideas to the many facilities she has designed, the animals become calmer and step through their paces more easily. Some readers may find her more gruesome slaughterhouse experiences hard to stomach. But she seems to be stressing the vast improvements she has made rather than trying to gross out her audience.

Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and often insightful, Thinking in Pictures is a treasure for anyone who wants to learn more about these topics.

Moving, inspiring, thought-provoking.......2006-03-23

Temple Grandin is an autistic who refused to take early retirement from life. With the help of her mother and some forward-thinking teachers, she drew upon her own inner resources, talents and strengths to move into the world of people who think in words and in two dimensions, rather than in 3-dimensional pictures.

I especially liked this book because it was highly informative. Ms. Grandin not only has a lot to say about autism, but goes into detail about an area that is obscure to most readers: Livestock handling. From any other writer, this might be a terribly dry and even distasteful subject, but her writing tone is one of great patience. She has learned how to bridge the comprehension gap by explaining in detail how she thinks and accomplishes various tasks.

I'd be honored to meet this lady and am hoping to attend one of her lectures some time. She helps us to understand that autistic people aren't so different from non-autistic people...and vice versa.

Thinking In Pictures.......2006-02-24

This book provides a wonderful account of how one person with autism views herself and the world. It helped clarify some perceptions I had about people with autism and is a must for service providers.

Thinking In Pictures : and Other Reports from My Life with Autism (Vintage).......2006-02-20

A fascinating account of the author's efforts to overcome her
genetic defect through learning and understanding, and through education of others. I learned a great deal about Autism that I was ignorant of, and of how the mind works in some of its infinite variety of ways.

Cognition: The Thinking Animal (3rd Edition)

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An adequate text
The Easiest to Read and Understand Required Text Ever!
Outstanding cognitive psychology textbook
Good, for a text book
Really Bad Book

Cognition: The Thinking Animal (3rd Edition)
Daniel T. Willingham
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Motivation: Biological, Psychological, and Environmental (2nd Edition)
Statistics for Psychology (4th Edition)
Foundations of Biopsychology (2nd Edition)
A History of Modern Psychology
Core Concepts of Organizational Behavior

ASIN: 0131736884

Book Description

This unique book helps readers understand why cognitive psychologists approach problems as they do. It explains the questions cognitive psychologists ask, gives clear answers, and provides interesting, lively and comprehensive coverage of controversies in the field. This book is a study of cognition: of how humans think. Topics covered include visual perception, attention, sensory and primary memory, memory encoding, memory retrieval, memory storage, motor control, visual imagery, decision making and deductive reasoning, problem solving, and language. For readers that are interested in understanding the mysteries of cognition, including psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, and those in the field of cognitive neuroscience.

Customer Reviews:

An adequate text.......2004-11-19

I used the Willingham text for my cognition course. At first I was delighted to find an author who attempted to frame the content of cognitive psychology as simple questions, devoid of jargon, the importance of which could be easily grasped by students. As the semester went on however, I found that the students found the text tedious and confusing. I feel that this was due to the lack of explicitly connecting the specific concepts back to the general theme of the chapter. Furthermore, his descriptions of certain experiments were outright confusing and ambiguously described, even to me. I think the approach is admirable- but the goal hasnt been reached yet. I look forward to the next edition, and hope I can once again use the text.

The Easiest to Read and Understand Required Text Ever!.......2004-04-27

If you actually have interest in the subject - this book is very easy to follow and understand. There are great 'real-life' examples for everything and questions (with answers in the back) at the end of every section so you can test yourself. The writing style is pretty casual (which is what separates it from many other books on the topic) and I also noticed a few minor spelling and grammatical errors - but nothing that disrupts the reading or understanding, provided your reading level is at or above 5th grade.

Outstanding cognitive psychology textbook.......2003-12-13

Before selecting a textbook for my cognitive psychology course, I read sections of many of the textbooks available. The Willingham textbook was by far the most readable and engaging. The students' evaluations confirmed my opinion; the vast majority loved the book. I had the same result in two different semester with about 100 students per semester. I'm using the second edition next semester.

Good, for a text book.......2003-04-07

Most psychology text books I've had to read have been a pain, but I found this one pretty easy to read and understand. (I think maybe the guys from UVA with the prof. that wrote this book must have a personal agenda...) But, that's just my opinion. Not that most of us have a choice in reading text books...

Really Bad Book.......2003-01-20

I wanted to learn about this subject and took the class from the author of the book at UVa. He's a pretty good professor but a terrible author of books. there are many usuage/grammatical mistakes in the book and its extremely hard to read. Doesnt make much sense and is highly not recommended.

Thinking with Animals: New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism

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Thinking with Animals: New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism

Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Watching Wildlife
Animals in Film (Reaktion Books - Locations)
Killing Animals
Reel Nature : America's Romance With Wildlife on Film
The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy - and Why They Matter

ASIN: 0231130392

Book Description

Is anthropomorphism a scientific sin? Scientists and animal researchers routinely warn against "animal stories," and contrast rigorous explanations and observation to facile and even fanciful projections about animals. Yet many of us, scientists and researchers included, continue to see animals as humans and humans as animals. As this innovative new collection demonstrates, humans use animals to transcend the confines of self and species; they also enlist them to symbolize, dramatize, and illuminate aspects of humans' experience and fantasy. Humans merge with animals in stories, films, philosophical speculations, and scientific treatises. In their performance with humans on many stages and in different ways, animals move us to think.

From Victorian vivisectionists to elephant conservation, from ancient Indian mythology to pet ownership in the contemporary United States, our understanding of both animals and what it means to be human has been shaped by anthropomorphic thinking. The contributors to Thinking with Animals explore the how and why of anthropomorphism, drawing attention to its rich and varied uses. Prominent scholars in the fields of anthropology, ethology, history, and philosophy, as well as filmmakers and photographers, take a closer look at how deeply and broadly ways of imagining animals have transformed humans and animals alike.

Essays in the book investigate the changing patterns of anthropomorphism across different time periods and settings, as well as their transformative effects, both figuratively and literally, upon animals, humans, and their interactions. Examining how anthropomorphic thinking "works" in a range of different contexts, contributors reveal the ways in which anthropomorphism turns out to be remarkably useful: it can promote good health and spirits, enlist support in political causes, sell products across boundaries of culture of and nationality, crystallize and strengthen social values, and hold up a philosophical mirror to the human predicament.

Alex and Friends: Animal Talk, Animal Thinking (Discovery)

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Alex and Friends
A Pleasure

Alex and Friends: Animal Talk, Animal Thinking (Discovery)
Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
Manufacturer: Lerner Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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Similar Items:

The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots

ASIN: 0822528592

Customer Reviews:

Alex and Friends.......2007-10-10

This is also a great read about animals and how they think and about their behavior. It also talks about the famous african grey parrot, Alex who is owned by Dr Irene Pepperberg. I highly reccomend reading this book.

A Pleasure.......2007-01-20

The product was quality and arrived quickly. Seller is a pleasure to do business with!

Average customer rating:

Comprehensive Review of Animal thinking

Rational Animals?

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Mental Health | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

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Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Mindreading (Philosophy of Mind)
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Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind
Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved (The University Center for Human Values Series)
Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong

ASIN: 0198528272

Book Description

To what extent can animal behaviour be described as rational? What does it even mean to describe behaviour as rational? This book focuses on one of the major debates in science today - how closely does mental processing in animals resemble mental processing in humans. It addresses the question of whether and to what extent non-human animals are rational, that is, whether any animal behaviour can be regarded as the result of a rational thought processes. It does this with attention to three key questions, which recur throughout the book and which have both empirical and philosophical aspects: What kinds of behavioural tasks can animals successfully perform? What if any mental processes must be postulated to explain their performance at these tasks? What properties must processes have to count as rational? The book is distinctive in pursuing these questions not only in relation to our closest relatives, the primates, whose intelligence usually gets the most attention, but also in relation to birds and dolphins, where striking results are also being obtained. Some chapters focus on a particular species. They describe some of the extraordinary and complex behaviour of these species - using tools in novel ways to solve foraging problems, for example, or behaving in novel ways to solve complex social problems - and ask whether such behaviour should be explained in rational or merely mechanistic terms. Other chapters address more theoretical issues and ask, for example, what it means for behaviour to be rational, and whether rationality can be understood in the absence of language. The book includes many of the world's leading figures doing empirical work on rationality in primates, dolphins, and birds, as well as distinguished philosophers of mind and science. The book includes an editors' introduction which summarises the philosophical and empirical work presented, and draws together the issues discussed by the contributors.

Customer Reviews:

Comprehensive Review of Animal thinking.......2006-10-04

Rational Animals? edited by Susan Hurley, Matthew Nudds (Oxford University Press) Are any nonhuman animals rational? What issues are we raising when we ask this question? Are there different kinds or levels of rationality, some of which fall short of full human rationality? Should any behaviour by nonhuman animals be regarded as rational? What kinds of tasks can animals successfully perform? From what kinds of processes does their behaviour result, and do they count as rational processes? Is it useful or theoretically justified to raise questions about the rationality of animals at all? Should we be interested in whether they are rational? Why does it matter?
This book pursues these questions both theoretically and empirically. The contributors include ' distinguished philosophers, as well as scientists who report and reflect on their work with such impressive animals as Kanzi the bonobo, Betty the New Caledonian crow, Sheba the chimpanzee, Sweetie-Pie the scrub jay, Akeakamai the bottlenose dolphin, and Alex the African Grey parrot. Studies of different species are brought together for comparison, and philosophical arguments about rationality are brought into contact with empirical evidence of the behavioural and cognitive capacities of animals. Sections of the volume focus on various types and levels of rationality, on rational versus associative processes, on metacognition and metarepresentation, on social behaviour and cognition, on mind reading versus behaviour reading, and on behaviour and cognition in symbolic environments. An editorial introduction provides an analytical framework for the issues discussed by contributors and a comparative summary of the chapters.
Contributors: Elsa Addessi, Colin Allen, Jose Luis Bermudez, Sarah T Boysen, Josep Call, Nicola S Clayton, Richard Connor, Gregory Currie, Anthony Dickinson, Fred I Dretske, Nathan J Emery, William M Fields, Louis M Herman, Cecilia Heyes, Susan Hurley, Alex Kacelnik, Janet Mann, Ruth G Mikan, Matthew Nudds, David Papineau, Irene M Pepperberg, Daniel Povinelli, Jolle Proust, Duane M Rumbaugh, E. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Sara J Shettleworth, Kim Sterelny, Jennifer E Sutton, Michael Tomasello, Alain J-P Tschudin, Elisabetta Visalberghi, Jennifer Vonk

Are any non-human animals rational? What issues are we raising when we ask this question? Are there different kinds or levels of rationality, some of which fall short of full human rationality? Should any behaviour by non-human animals be regarded as rational? What kinds of tasks can animals successfully perform? What kinds of processes control their performance at these tasks, and do they count as rational processes? Is it useful or theoretically justified to raise questions about the rationality of animals at all? Should we be interested in whether they are rational? Why does it matter?
The contributors to this volume approach these questions from a variety of theoretical and empirical perspectives. Contributors include distinguished philosophers as well as scientists, who report and reflect on their work with such impressive animals as Kanzi the bonobo, Betty the New Caledonian crow, Sheba the chimpanzee, Sweetie-Pie the scrub jay, Akeakamai the bottlenose dolphin, and Alex the African grey parrot. The volume aims both to bring leading empirical work with different species together for compar¬ison, and to bring philosophical arguments about rationality into contact with empirical evidence of the behavioural and cognitive capacities of animals.
Section 1.1 of this chapter provides a landscape of theoretical issues and distinctions that bear on attributions of rationality to animals; it can be read independently of the synopses of chapters, which follow in the remaining sections. These summarize the arguments of the chapters in each of the volume's six parts, on: types and levels of ration¬ality (Section 1.2); rational versus associative processes (Section 1.3); metacognition
(Section 1.4); social behaviour and cognition (Section 1.5); mind reading and behaviour reading (Section 1.6); and behaviour and cognition in symbolic environments (Section 1.7). The introduction as a whole aims to provide a substantive and self-standing survey of the topic of animal rationality that is accessible to students and researchers in different disciplines, including philosophy and various sciences...
Why, then, does it matter whether animals are rational? It matters both for our understanding of other animals and of ourselves. We live with animals, we interact with them and use them in our daily lives, and share a planet with them. Yet we see ourselves as discontinuous from them in important ways. Rationality is one of the main hooks on which human distinctiveness and specialness has been hung. We treat rationality as having intrinsic worth, in addition to sentience. If a creature can feel pain, we feel we ought to avoid making it suffer unnecessarily, but we may not on that account grant it the additional intrinsic value and dignity associated with rationality. Understanding whether and in what ways non-human animals can be rational may prompt us to rethink human rationality, our relations to other animals, and our own irrationalities. Perhaps our rationality is more piecemeal, less theoretical, more embedded in and conditioned by our environments than we realize. The possibility of explaining relatively complex animal behaviour by appealing to a variety of relatively simple, domain-specific processes may lead us to re-evaluate our presuppositions about human rationality and to ask whether we are operating a double standard in assessing human vs. animal rationality (see and cf. Shettleworth 1998, 563). On a disaggregated view of rationality, there is no single boundary distinguishing the human mind from other animal minds in respect of rationality; rather, there are various specific dimensions of comparison. Making comparisons across species and with human beings in this way elucidates the extent to which the abilities of different animals and of humans can be explained by appealing to similar kinds of processes, and in what sense these processes are rational. Should this rethinking debunk human rationality? Not necessarily. Rather, it may help us to understand it better, and to understand the continuities as well as the discontinuities between human and other animals.

Winnie the Pooh Thinking Games (Wipe Off Sound Book) (Disney's Winnie the Pooh)

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Winnie the Pooh Thinking Games (Wipe Off Sound Book) (Disney's Winnie the Pooh)
Dana Richter
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This wipe-off activity features Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and all his other pals from the Hundred-Acre wood. Each of the 27 educational activities has a corresponding sound button.

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The Thinking Body
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Minds of Their Own: Thinking and Awareness in Animals

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How do you want to interpret consciousness?
Great introduction to cognition and awareness in animals
Very interesting, but an author who belabors her points.
Best book in a disappointing genre
Well rounded, informative and interesting

Minds of Their Own: Thinking and Awareness in Animals
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Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness
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Examines the issue of animal consciousness by drawing comparisons with humans: how we think; how we remember; how we learn.

To most people, to be conscious means to be aware of oneself as well as to be aware of others. But does this hold true for animals? In Minds of Their Own, Lesley J. Rogers examines the issue of animal thought both sympathetically and critically by looking at the different behavior characteristics of a variety of animals, the evolution of the brain and when consciousness might have evolved. If animals are cognizant creatures, what, if any, moral responsibility do humans have to assure their rights? This timely book examines this question and others by emphasizing comparisons between humans and animals: how we evolved; how we remember; how we learn.

Do Animals have ideas? Do they experience pain like humans? Do they think about objects that they cannot see? About situations that have occurred in the past? Do they consciously make plans for the future or do they simply react unthinkingly to objects as they appear and situations as they arise? All of these questions have bearing on whether or not animals have consciousness. The advent of computers that "think" has lead us to consider "intelligence" in a way we never thought possible a decade ago. But when and how does information processing in the brain become automatic?

In Minds of Their Own, Lesley J. Rogers examines the issue of animal thought both sympathetically and critically by looking at the different behavior characteristics of a variety of animals, the evolution of the brain and when consciousness might have evolved. To most people, to be conscious means to be aware of oneself as well as to be aware of others. But does this hold true for animals? The answer may have implications which transcend mere scientific inquiry: if animals are cognizant creatures, what, if any, moral responsibility do humans have to assure their rights? This timely book examines this issue and others by emphasizing comparisons between humans and animals: how we evolved; how we remember; how we learn.

Customer Reviews:

How do you want to interpret consciousness?.......2006-08-15

Until very recently the subject of animal awareness has not even been approached with the correct questions. As Rogers clearly points out, most of the research on cognition has been directed at supporting the assumption that consciousness is an exclusively human phenomenon. An inherited predisposition to preserve a human monopoly on consciousness survives only because it appeases our omnivorous behaviors.

In the early 1600's Spinoza correctly determined the existence of an emotional balance. He told us that one extreme emotion will dominate the senses until such time that an equally extreme opposite emotion brings us back to emotional center. Antonio Damasio provides a compelling case that consciousness is inextricably linked to emotion in his book "The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness". Using Damasio and Spinoza as a frame of reference it follows that each and every decision we make is based on an emotion, not a uniquely quantifiable language infused thought, as the popular human interpretation might assume. Examples of this might be choosing the color of paint, a selection from a menu, the selection of a mate or which way to turn when unsure. Animals have provided us with an exhaustive and document able list of emotional behaviors. How is it possible to arrive at the conclusion that animals are not conscious when most animals will clearly display behaviors consistent with emotional stimulus?

The last frontier of computer science is the quest for a conscious, non-human entity.
Ray Kurzweil has spent the better part of his life predicting the emergence of an exponentially accelerating form of machine augmented human consciousness. In my view, it would be safer to assume that at some point technology will provide us with means to understand the different levels of consciousness that exist. While computers struggle to redefine consciousness by passing "Turing Tests", visionary ethologists might find ways to interpret the world through different eyes.

It is exceedingly difficult to discuss the subject of animal consciousness from the point of view of the animal and avoid emotional interpretations. Lesley Rogers has given us a glimpse of this vast subject by asking the correct questions and, providing the current objective answers from each available vantage point. At a disciplined two hundred pages the book stands out as a concise introduction to the subject of Animal Cognition.

Great introduction to cognition and awareness in animals.......2002-01-09

Although I personally would like to have explored the topic a little deaper in this book I think it is the best introduction to the topic I have read. Speacies of Mind was way to difficult to read and Animal Minds was okay but Griffin did not spend enough time discussion the concepts and definitions of his topic. Minds of Their Own is nicely organized and concise. Excellent book!

James O'Heare, Dip.C.B.

Very interesting, but an author who belabors her points........2002-01-02

There is a lot of very interesting material, reasonably well organized. Rogers, a researcher herself, seems to be aware of all the pertinent research, not only in animal intelligence, but in all the related areas: neuro-biology, anthropology, child developmental psychology and evolution. She takes great pride in her objectivity and care as a scientist, without being afraid to express personal beliefs, clearly labeled. Her style leaves something to be desired. She fears the reader will "unscientifically" draw unsubstantiated conclusions, and addresses this by constant repetition of more or less the same warnings. Surprisingly, a number of birds seem to be as intelligent as primates, and even domesticated chickens are fairly intelligent, not withstanding that birds don't have a neo-cortex, and must keep brain size small because of weight considerations.

Best book in a disappointing genre.......2000-06-13

In a marketplace crowded with texts popularizing recent research in animal cognition, the sophistication, lack of defensiveness, and engaging liveliness of this short book stands out.

Rogers generally avoids a shallow recitation of "gee-whiz" animal anecdotes and instead provides careful discussion and analysis of a few crucial case studies about animal minds. She is well aware that the evidence garnered so far is not conclusive, and she offers many helpful suggestions for new scientific experiments.

Rogers' notable successes include her discussion of brain evolution and the facinating "mirror studies" that tried to demonstrate animal self-awareness. Notable failures include the unsophisticated and dogmatic survey of so,me relevant philosophical issues in her first chapter.

Rogers book is among the best in a farly weak genre. Readers looking for a somewhat sophisticated general review of cognitive ethology would do well to select Rogers instead of the disappointing contributions by Masson, Griffin, and others. However, readers seeking for greater depth and sophistication should bypass this genre altogether and sample the more techincal works of, for example, Colin Allen and Mark Bekoff.

Well rounded, informative and interesting.......2000-03-28

Leslie Rogers writes a very comprehensive and well documented book. As a researcher in dolphin minds and well-being, this book highlighted not only ways to look at the controversal issue of animal consciousness, but also suggested 'gaps' in the research and directions we should be headed. It covers areas of traditional animal research and the strengths and weaknesses of these, looks into leading edge research and presents all of this is a way that is easy to read and hard to put down. I find Leslie Rogers to be an inspiration. Anyone interested in animal thinking and awareness, at any level will find alot in this book as it covers intelligence, consciousness, evolution, how the environment effects the physical body and visa versa, as well as many examples of animals that do not seem to fit the 'stereotyped' mould science has so far created for them.

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