Conversations About Psychology, Volume 1

This compendium includes the following 5 books featuring renowned psychologists Diana Deutsch, Chris Frith, Stephen Hinshaw, Stephen Kosslyn and Jonathan Schooler providing fully accessible insights into cutting-edge academic research while revealing the inspirations and personal journeys behind the research.

I. Believing Your Ears: Examining Auditory Illusions - A conversation with Diana Deutsch, Professor of Psychology at UC San Diego. Diana Deutsch is one of the world's leading experts on the psychology of music. This conversation provides behind-the-scenes insights into her discovery of a large number of auditory illusions, including the so-called Octave Illusion, which concretely illustrate how what we think we're hearing is often quite different from the actual sounds that are hitting our eardrums.

II. In Search of a Mechanism: From the Brain to the Mind - A conversation with Chris Frith, Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology, UCL. After a thought-provoking exploration of how Chris Frith became interested in the study of schizophrenia, this conversation examines topics such how our understanding of schizophrenia has evolved, the role of dopamine, how the brain works, the brain's predicting role, the phantom limb phenomenon, how the brain and mind link up, how culture affects the brain and much more.

III. Understanding ADHD - A conversation with Stephen Hinshaw, Professor of Psychology, UC Berkeley. Stephen Hinshaw is an expert in the fields of clinical child and adolescent psychology and developmental psychopathology, as well as stigma, preventive interventions and dehumanization related to mental illness. This extensive conversation examines the facts and misunderstandings surrounding ADHD, diagnosis and misdiagnosis, treatment, family responsibilities, the subtitles of medication, adult ADHD, gender, what's happening on an international level and finally the stigma of mental illness.

IV. Applied Psychology: Thinking Critically - A conversation with Stephen Kosslyn, psychologist and Founder, President and Chief Academic Officer of Foundry College. This conversation explores Kosslyn's extensive analysis of research results on the differences between the functions of the top parts and the bottom parts of the brain and what the implications of those results are for everyday life which led to a new theory of personality to better understand the way we think and behave, the so-called "Theory of Cognitive Modes".

V. Mind-Wandering & Meta-Awareness - A conversation with Jonathan Schooler, Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences, UC Santa Barbara. This conversation provides a detailed examination of Schooler's research on the nature of mental life, and in particular consciousness, and explores how mind-wandering can serve as a window into the psychological world of meta-awareness, the nature of consciousness, mindfulness, creativity, free will, and verbal overshadowing.