Adventures of a Psychologist - Reflections on What Made Up the Mind

In this enlightening biography, award- winning academic psychologist Michael Corballis tells the story of how the field of cognitive psychology evolved and the controversies and anecdotes that occurred along the way.

Since the Second World War, psychology has undergone several scientific movements, from behaviourism to cognitive psychology and finally to neuroscience. In this fascinating biography, Corballis recounts his career as a researcher who played a part in these monumental changes in psychology. Beginning with his boarding-school education in New Zealand, Corballis goes on to recount his PhD studies and behavioural research into mirror-image discriminations in pigeons, the uprising of the "cognitive revolution" amidst 1960s counterculture and his switch to become a cognitive psychologist, his research into brain asymmetry and the evolution of language and its origin of manual gestures, and the development of mental time travel in animals.

Featuring stories of prominent scientists who were integral in psychology's biggest discoveries and insight into the heated debates and controversies in psychology during a time of great scientific and sociocultural change, this biography is a must-read for those interested in how psychology became established as a science.

List of contents

Preface

1. Growing Up


2. Floundering at University


3. Hello Psychology


4. O God! O Montreal!


5. Rats and Pigeons


6. Revolutions


7. The Lopsided Brain


8. Doing the Splits


9. Mirrors


10. Gestures, Gestures


11. On Time


12. Chomsky, God, and Language


13. Professional Psychology and its Discontents


14. Anti-science


15. A Brief Reckoning

About the author

Michael Corballis was Professor of Psychology at McGill University and the University of Auckland. He has published widely in experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. In 2003 he was appointed Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and in 2016 he received the Rutherford Medal, New Zealand’s top scientific award.

Summary

Adventures of a Psychologist traces the developments in academic psychology across the last 60 years.

Product details

• Authors: Michael Corballis, Corballis Michael
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.12.2020
• EAN: 9780367420536
• ISBN: 978-0-367-42053-6
• No. of pages: 130
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Psychology > Theoretical psychology; Non-fiction book > Psychology, esoterics, spirituality, anthroposophy > Psychology: general, reference works; PSYCHOLOGY / Movements / General, PSYCHOLOGY / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition, Cognition & cognitive psychology, Psycholinguistics, Psychological theory, systems, schools and viewpoints, Psychological theory & schools of thought, Cognition and cognitive psychology, Psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics