How long does it take to read Beyond the Brain?
How Body and Environment Shape Animal and Human Minds
Louise Barrett
Beyond the Brain by Louise Barrett takes about 5 hours 17 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 17 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2011. 288 pages, about 79,200 words.
11 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 8 hours 48 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 17 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 18 minutes |
The page count is the median across 4 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
"When a chimpanzee stockpiles rocks as weapons or when a frog sends out mating calls, we might easily assume these animals know their own motivations--that they use the same psychological mechanisms that we do. But as Beyond the Brain indicates, this is a dangerous assumption because animals have different evolutionary trajectories, ecological niches, and physical attributes. How do these differences influence animal thinking and behavior? Removing our human-centered spectacles, Louise Barrett investigates the mind and brain and offers an alternative approach for understanding animal and human cognition. Drawing on examples from animal behavior, comparative psychology, robotics, artificial life, developmental psychology, and cognitive science, Barrett provides remarkable new insights into how animals and humans depend on their bodies and environment--not just their brains--to behave intelligently. Barrett begins with an overview of human cognitive adaptations and how these color our views of other species, brains, and minds. Considering when it is worth having a big brain--or indeed having a brain at all--she investigates exactly what brains are good at. Showing that the brain's evolutionary function guides action in the world, she looks at how physical structure contributes to cognitive processes, and she demonstrates how these processes employ materials and resources in specific environments. Arguing that thinking and behavior constitute a property of the whole organism, not just the brain, Beyond the Brain illustrates how the body, brain, and cognition are tied to the wider world"-- "This book illustrates how the intelligent behaviour of animals doesn't necessarily depend on having a big brain; having the right kind of body and exploiting the right kinds of environmental resources can be equally important"--
Subjects: Brain, Evolution, Ecology, Evolution (Biology), Hjärna, Cognition
