Why am I passionate about this?
Over the past 25 years, I have spent half of my time as a professor of psychology at Cornell University and the second half as a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Merced. The interdisciplinary field of cognitive science invites a much wider range of methods, theories, and perspectives in studying the mind. My work employs dynamical systems theory, neural network simulations, eye-tracking, and other dense-sampling measures of cognitive processes to reveal how the brain, body, and environment cooperate to generate mental activity. In 2010, I was awarded the William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement from the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society. I have authored two books, The Continuity of Mind, and Who You Are.
Michael's book list on the mind as more than a brain
Why did Michael love this book?
One of the most important parts of the environment for human organisms is the linguistic information that we share back and forth with each other. The language(s) you share with the people around you cannot help but become a fundamental aspect of who you are. While the majority of the world is multilingual (i.e., able to talk about the same thing in different ways), many in North America struggle with developing fluency in a language other than English because English has become so overwhelmingly dominant. Julie Sedivy is in the curious (but not uncommon) situation of being “a linguistic orphan, a person without a mother tongue.” She learned only Czech for the first few years of her life but then was whisked away to Canada where she quickly learned English and rapidly forgot her native language. In Memory Speaks, Julie Sedivy draws the parallels between an individual losing a…
2 authors picked Memory Speaks as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
From an award-winning writer and linguist, a scientific and personal meditation on the phenomenon of language loss and the possibility of renewal.
As a child Julie Sedivy left Czechoslovakia for Canada, and English soon took over her life. By early adulthood she spoke Czech rarely and badly, and when her father died unexpectedly, she lost not only a beloved parent but also her firmest point of connection to her native language. As Sedivy realized, more is at stake here than the loss of language: there is also the loss of identity.
Language is an important part of adaptation to a…