Chapter 1 Inside the Brain 1 --
1 Find Out How the Brain Works Without Looking Inside 2 --
2 Electroencephalogram: Getting the Big Picture with EEGs 5 --
3 Positron Emission Tomography: Measuring Activity Indirectly with PET 6 --
4 Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: The State of the Art 7 --
5 Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: Turn On and Off Bits of the Brain 8 --
6 Neuropsychology, the 10% Myth, and Why You Use All of Your Brain 9 --
7 Get Acquainted with the Central Nervous System 13 --
8 Tour the Cortex and the Four Lobes 16 --
10 Detect the Effect of Cognitive Function on Cerebral Blood Flow 22 --
11 Why People Don't Work Like Elevator Buttons 24 --
12 Build Your Own Sensory Homunculus 27 --
13 Understand Visual Processing 32 --
14 See the Limits of Your Vision 38 --
16 Map Your Blind Spot 46 --
17 Glimpse the Gaps in Your Vision 50 --
18 When Time Stands Still 52 --
19 Release Eye Fixations for Faster Reactions 55 --
20 Fool Yourself into Seeing 3D 57 --
21 Objects Move, Lighting Shouldn't 62 --
23 See How Brightness Differs from Luminance: The Checker Shadow Illusion 72 --
24 Create Illusionary Depth with Sunglasses 76 --
25 See Movement When All Is Still 80 --
27 Show Motion Without Anything Moving 86 --
28 Motion Extrapolation: The "Flash-Lag Effect" 90 --
29 Turn Gliding Blocks into Stepping Feet 93 --
30 Understand the Rotating Snakes Illusion 95 --
31 Minimize Imaginary Distances 101 --
32 Explore Your Defense Hardware 106 --
33 Neural Noise Isn't a Bug; It's a Feature 108 --
Chapter 3 Attention 111 --
34 Detail and the Limits of Attention 112 --
35 Count Faster with Subitizing 115 --
36 Feel the Presence and Loss of Attention 117 --
38 Don't Look Back! 126 --
39 Avoid Holes in Attention 129 --
40 Blind to Change 134 --
41 Make Things Invisible Simply by Concentrating (on Something Else) 137 --
42 Brain Punishes Features that Cry Wolf 139 --
43 Improve Visual Attention Through Video Games 143 --
Chapter 4 Hearing and Language 147 --
44 Detect Timing with Your Ears 148 --
45 Detect Sound Direction 150 --
47 Keep Your Balance 156 --
48 Detect Sounds on the Margins of Certainty 158 --
49 Speech Is Broadband Input to Your Head 160 --
50 Give Big-Sounding Words to Big Concepts 162 --
51 Stop Memory-Buffer Overrun While Reading 165 --
52 Robust Processing Using Parallelism 169 --
Chapter 5 Integrating 173 --
53 Put Timing Information into Sound and Location Information into Light 173 --
54 Don't Divide Attention Across Locations 176 --
55 Confuse Color Identification with Mixed Signals 179 --
57 Combine Modalities to Increase Intensity 186 --
58 Watch Yourself to Feel More 188 --
59 Hear with Your Eyes: The McGurk Effect 190 --
60 Pay Attention to Thrown Voices 193 --
61 Talk to Yourself 195 --
62 Broken Escalator Phenomenon: When Autopilot Takes Over 200 --
63 Keep Hold of Yourself 203 --
64 Mold Your Body Schema 207 --
65 Why Can't You Tickle Yourself? 210 --
66 Trick Half Your Mind 215 --
67 Objects Ask to Be Used 218 --
68 Test Your Handedness 221 --
69 Use Your Right Brain-and Your Left, Too 226 --
Chapter 7 Reasoning 231 --
70 Use Numbers Carefully 231 --
71 Think About Frequencies Rather than Probabilities 234 --
72 Detect Cheaters 239 --
73 Fool Others into Feeling Better 242 --
74 Maintain the Status Quo 246 --
Chapter 8 Togetherness 251 --
75 Grasp the Gestalt 252 --
76 To Be Noticed, Synchronize in Time 254 --
77 See a Person in Moving Lights 258 --
78 Make Things Come Alive 262 --
79 Make Events Understandable as Cause and Effect 265 --
80 Act Without Knowing It 269 --
Chapter 9 Remembering 273 --
81 Bring Stuff to the Front of Your Mind 274 --
82 Subliminal Messages Are Weak and Simple 277 --
83 Fake Familiarity 279 --
84 Keep Your Sources Straight (if You Can) 283 --
85 Create False Memories 287 --
86 Change Context to Build Robust Memories 292 --
87 Boost Memory Using Context 295 --
88 Think Yourself Strong 298 --
89 Navigate Your Way Through Memory 302 --
90 Have an Out-of-Body Experience 306 --
91 Enter the Twilight Zone: The Hypnagogic State 308 --
92 Make the Caffeine Habit Taste Good 311 --
Chapter 10 Other People 316 --
93 Understand What Makes Faces Special 317 --
95 Make Yourself Happy 325 --
96 Reminisce Hot and Cold 327 --
97 Look Where I'm Looking 331 --
98 Monkey See, Monkey Do 335 --
99 Spread a Bad Mood Around 338 --
100 You Are What You Think 342.