UNIT VII Cognition

The following modules of the chapter are listed tothe left of the photo: 31 Studying and encoding Memories.32 storing and retrievingMemories.33 Forgetting, Memory Construction, and improving Memory.34 Thinking, Concepts, andCreativity.35 Solving Problems and Making Decisions.36 Thinking and Language.

MODULES

1. 31 Studying and Encoding Memories
2. 32 Storing and Retrieving Memories
3. 33 Forgetting, Memory Construction, and Improving Memory
4. 34 Thinking, Concepts, and Creativity
5. 35 Solving Problems and Making Decisions
6. 36 Thinking and Language

Throughout history, we humans have both bemoaned our foolishness and celebrated our wisdom. The poet T. S. Eliot was struck by “the hollow men . . . Headpiece filled with straw.” But Shakespeare’s Hamlet extolled the human species as “noble in reason! . . . infinite in faculties! . . . in apprehension how like a god!” In the preceding units, we have likewise marveled at both our abilities and our errors.

Earlier in this text, we studied the human brain—three pounds of wet tissue the size of a small cabbage, yet containing circuitry more complex than the planet’s telephone networks. We appreciated the amazing abilities of newborns. We marveled at our sensory system, translating visual stimuli into nerve impulses, distributing them for parallel processing, and reassembling them into colorful perceptions. Little wonder that our species has had the collective genius to invent the camera, the car, and the computer; to unlock the atom and crack the genetic code; to travel out to space and into our brain’s depths.

Yet we have also seen that our species is related to the other animals, influenced by the same principles that produce learning in rats and pigeons. We have noted that we not-so-wise humans are easily deceived by perceptual illusions, pseudopsychic claims, and hypnosis-induced false memories.

In this unit, we encounter further instances of these two images of the human condition—the rational and the irrational. We will ponder our memory’s enormous capacity, and the ease with which our two-track mind processes information, with and without our awareness. We will consider how we use and misuse the information we receive, perceive, store, and retrieve. We will look at our gift for language and consider how and why it develops. And we will reflect on how deserving we are of our species name, Homo sapiens—wise human.

Unit VII Overview Video