The Brain′s Sense of Movement (Perspectives in Cognitive Neuroscience) - Hardcover

Berthoz, Alain

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9780674801097: The Brain′s Sense of Movement (Perspectives in Cognitive Neuroscience)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674801091 ISBN 13: 9780674801097

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2000

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The neuroscientist Alan Berthoz experimented on Russian astronauts in space to answer these questions: how does weightlessness affect motion? how are motion and three-dimensional space perceived? In this book, the author describes how human beings on earth perceive and control bodily movement. Reviewing a wealth of research in neuro-physiology and experimental psychology, he argues for a rethinking of the traditional separation between action and perception, and for the division of perception into five senses. In Berthoz's view, perception and cognition are inherently predictive, functioning to allow us to anticipate the consequences of current or potential actions. The brain acts like a simulator that is constantly inventing models to project onto the changing world, models that are corrected by steady, minute feedback from the world. We move in the direction we are looking, anticipate the trajectory of a falling ball, recover when we stumble, and continually update our own physical position, all thanks to this sense of movement. This interpretation of perception and action allows Berthoz, in this work, to focus on psychological phenomena largely ignored in standard texts: proprioception and kinaesthesia, the mechanisms that maintain balance and co-ordinate actions, and basic perceptual and memory processes involved in navigation.

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Review:

"This is a welcome and salutary text, written by an eminent French neuroscientist and translated into English without loss of brilliance." -- The Times Higher Education Supplement, 5 October 2001

About the Author:

Alain Berthoz is Emeritus Professor at the College de France and Director of the Laboratory of Physiology of Perception and Action at the CNRS.

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