We Know It When We See It, Richard Masland
We Know It When We See It, Richard Masland
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We Know It When We See It
What the Neurobiology of Vision Tells Us About How We Think

Author: Richard Masland

Narrator: Matt Kugler

Unabridged: 7 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 03/10/2020

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

A Harvard researcher investigates the human eye in this insightful account of what vision reveals about intelligence, learning, and the greatest mysteries of neuroscience.

Spotting a face in a crowd is so easy, you take it for granted. But how you do it is one of science's great mysteries. And vision is involved with so much of everything your brain does. Explaining how it works reveals more than just how you see. In We Know It When We See It, Harvard neuroscientist Richard Masland tackles vital questions about how the brain processes information -- how it perceives, learns, and remembers -- through a careful study of the inner life of the eye.
Covering everything from what happens when light hits your retina, to the increasingly sophisticated nerve nets that turn that light into knowledge, to what a computer algorithm must be able to do before it can be called truly "intelligent," We Know It When We See It is a profound yet approachable investigation into how our bodies make sense of the world.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Dee on March 22, 2020

One might think that the clinical study of neuroscience would be akin to watching paint dry, until it is considered that only these slow, painful gains of knowledge lead to greater understanding of how our bodies and minds work. I consider the content of this book to be dense, jam-packed with knowle......more

Goodreads review by Dawn on January 10, 2021

I'm a scientist and I enjoy books on the science of all different subjects. However the title and blurb for this book were extremely misleading. It sounded like it would be something along the lines of evolutionary biology. Essentially vision affects how we do things, why we do them, and our culture......more

Goodreads review by Sarah on December 09, 2021

"We Know It When We See It" was an interesting read and I liked learning more about how our vision works, but the writing style and some of the author's tangents didn't really work for me. The information itself was interesting (if incredibly complex in some places), but the presentation could have......more

Goodreads review by The Inquisitive Biologist on April 20, 2021

An exhilarating dive down the rabbit hole of neurobiology, We Know It When We See It shows that there is, quite literally, more to vision than meets the eye. Read my full review at [URL not allowed]......more

Goodreads review by Jeff on December 16, 2019

Remarkable. This is one of those science books you love to find, no matter your particular interest in any field - a book written by seemingly one of the leaders in the field who has seemingly contributed much to the study of the issue at hand, yet who writes a book that we who barely know what the......more

Quotes

"How do we recognize a face in a crowd? Starting with this question, Masland teaches us not only how we see but how we think and remember. Step by step, he paints a picture of the brain as a dynamic, wide-ranging coalition of nerve nets. This picture provides striking parallels with artificial intelligence and highlights the remarkable adaptability, creativity, and resilience of the brain."—Susan R. Barry, author of Fixing My Gaze and professor emeritus of neuroscience and behavior, Mount Holyoke College

"We Know It When We See It is the definitive description of the neuroscience of perception. Using language anyone can understand, Masland teaches us about the hardware -- the cells and circuits, and the software -- the logic and computations, that our brains use to create our experience of the world. Anyone interested in perception, machines that can learn, or how the brain works should read it."—Andrew D. Huberman, professor of neurobiology and Ophthalmology, Stanford University School of Medicine

"A masterful page-turner that braids science and the stories behind the science. Wise, insightful, and written with the approachability and wisdom that only a veteran of the field can achieve."—David Eagleman, neuroscientist at Stanford, New York Times-bestselling author

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