Luiz Pessoa Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland has recently published The Cognitive-Emotional Brain: From Interactions to Integration a book that lends neuroscientific support to one of the major tenets of CogZest and Cognitive Productivity. I haven’t read the book yet; but I’ve heard Pessoa interviewed by Ginger Campbell on one of my favourite podcasts, the Brain Science Podcast. In this compelling episode, which I highly recommend, they focus mainly on the amygdala and a region of the thalamus, debunking several myths while conveying very deep ideas about the brain, not the least of which is the importance of embracing complexity.
Continue reading Two Sides of the Same Coin: Pessoa’s Cognitive-Emotional Brain
Tag: Cognitive Productivity book
Cognitively Potent Software Is Mightier than the Pen in the Hands of Able, Motivated Knowledge Builders: Response to Mueller & Oppenheimer (2014)
Pam A. Mueller and Daniel M. Oppenheimer recently published a peer reviewed article in Psychological Science provocatively titled “The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking”.[1] Their claim would herald a significant discovery if it were true. For there are many important reasons to believe using a laptop, at least in certain ways, can increase cognitive productivity: Delving, assessing, comprehending, understanding, knowledge building, retention, learning, mastery and even mental development (deep learning). We need not retreat to the to lab refute their titular conclusion. This post, I believe, does the trick.
Things I Learned From My Dad — Reflections and Gratitude on Father’s Day
This one is dedicated to my dad for father’s day.
This being Father’s Day and me being well into my 40’s, the time is right to develop a conjecture about some of the influences my father has had on me. I’ve put this in conjectural terms because there is no way to tease out with any certainty the various causes of one’s current state: genetics (too oft underestimated), parents, siblings, the media, society, teachers, role models, friends, and ultimately our own selves. Furthermore, our own state is largely also conjectural — a “self-concept”.
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Cognitive Productivity and Clinical Psychology
I’ve released a substantial update to Cognitive Productivity today. The changes are summarized on the release notes page.
The main change here is that I have renamed and completely rewritten Chapter 15, Meta-effectiveness framework and clinical psychology.
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Release Notes for Cognitive Productivity Book
Ever since I published the first revision of Cognitive Productivity in June 2013, I have been making private notes of changes I make to this book. Now that the book is complete, I’ve concluded I really should publish release notes on my website for as many revisions of the book as possible. It’s not that I anticipate many revisions. At this point, I’m just handling errata and making minor changes in preparation for Amazon and iBookstore versions of the book (which incidentally might get a different title).
Why release notes for a Leanpub book?
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Spritz Text Streaming, “Speed Reading” and Cognitive Productivity
Spritz, new reading technology, is about to hit the Android market. It’s been called “speed-reading” technology; however, it’s sufficiently different from other approaches that this categorization can be misleading.
Can this app help with CogZest’s mission, which is to boost cognitive productivity with cognitive science and technology? Continue reading Spritz Text Streaming, “Speed Reading” and Cognitive Productivity
Cognitive Productivity Book Marked Complete on Leanpub
Cognitive Productivity is now marked as 100% complete on Leanpub (as of Thursday, March 6, 2014). This being a Leanpub book, however, I will avail myself of the opportunity to correct errata as they are discovered and to make minor improvements. I also intend to add supporting materials to the book’s Leanpub web page.
Revision notes
Since the last email I sent to readers of this book in early January, I have Continue reading Cognitive Productivity Book Marked Complete on Leanpub
Ten Tips for “Getting Things Learned” with Anki, Skim and Cognitive Productivity
David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done (GTD®), provides many useful productivity tips. I use several of them myself. However, it’s not specifically tailored for cognitive productivity.
The last principle of Steven R. Covey’s excellent book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, is to “Sharpen the Saw®”. This is a matter of preserving and improving ourselves, including the mental dimension through reading great literature. Covey’s book doesn’t delve very deeply into learning, however. It was written before the web, when cognitive science was much younger.
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Opening Quotations: Hermann Hesse Displaces Rudyard Kipling and M. C. Esher
Most sections of Cognitive Productivity have an opening quotation. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed choosing them. I’ve also appreciated the positive feedback I’ve received from readers about them.
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Broad Cognitive Science Deals with Emotion, Motivation and Moods
English has the largest lexicon of all languages. It is loaded with terms about affect (emotion, moods, motivation). Western culture has produced a panoply of emotion-conveying art that displays the tremendous power of “folk psychology”. Still, it does not equip us to understand and handle emotion as well as we could and perhaps should.
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