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Brain Bugs

How the Brain’s Flaws Shape Our Lives

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Brain Bugs

By: Dean Buonomano
Narrated by: William Hughes
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About this listen

A lively, surprising tour of our mental glitches and how they arise.

With its trillions of connections, the human brain is more beautiful and complex than anything we could ever build, but it’s far from perfect: our memory is unreliable; we can’t multiply large sums in our heads; advertising manipulates our judgment; we tend to distrust people who are different from us; supernatural beliefs and superstitions are hard to shake; we prefer instant gratification to long-term gain; and what we presume to be rational decisions are often anything but. Drawing on striking examples and fascinating studies, neuroscientist Dean Buonomano illuminates the causes and consequences of these “bugs” in terms of the brain’s innermost workings and their evolutionary purposes. He then goes one step further, examining how our brains function—and malfunction—in the digital, predator-free, information-saturated, special-effects-addled world that we have built for ourselves. Along the way, Brain Bugs gives us the tools to hone our cognitive strengths while recognizing our inherent weaknesses.

©2011 Dean Buonomano (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Biological Sciences Neuroscience & Neuropsychology Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Science Human Brain Physiology

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Critic reviews

“Intriguing take on behavioral economics, marketing, and human foibles.” ( Kirkus Reviews)
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An interesting book about the brain and how we retain memories. However, I struggled to finish the book.

Interesting ideas

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Amazingly packed with lots of new and useful info about our brains and how they function.

It sheds light on many of the drawbacks of our brains and at some points lets you judge for yourself what should be the "ideal" solution to tackle those bugs.

Extremely Informative

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Hughes is an excellent reader of Buonomano's great book on the many ways our neural circuits fail us. The book is engaging and well organized. With apt analogies and anecdotes, Buonomano makes the complexities of neuroscience understandable. He does not mince words when he gets to controversial topics, but points out our stupidities with a spotlight. We hope that once enlightened, readers will now make better decisions, big and small.

Important for everyone

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This audiobook was fascinating and filled with facts, backed up with analogies or examples which help to explain the information.

It wasn't an easy listen and on occasion I had to backtrack to fully grasp some of the details but I'm glad I stuck with it as it contained so much of what we don't appreciate until it is spelled out to us.

Fascinating insight into the brain's foibles

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I love books that make me ponder over the complexities of the human mind/brain. I found this book to be very well structured and extremely interesting. The narration by William Hughes, who's tone of voice makes for a very comforting listen, adds to the enjoyable experience of this audiobook. It is without a doubt a treasure trove of practical knowledge and insight.

A very well written and narrated audiobook.

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Worth listening to, explains a lot of things we take for granted in our day to day lives.

Useful and informative

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I thoroughly enjoyed this book finding its coverage of this topic very good, the details just right. It brings together information on how our brains work, and what problems this causes for us, the brain bugs.

Very good read for any one wanting to get overall understanding of the brain, how it works and what issues that causes us.

Very interesting book covering a lot in good detai

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it was another of trying to connect our habits and society influence. I also find how we evolved as a human during last 2600 years to this mode of humanity is very relevant in his book.

Beautiful way of elaboration

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its ok as a summery of brain bugs but jumps around from nuro science to psychology, pathology, rare conditions. genetics, group selection theory etc.. whilst not going into much depth on anything. its fine as a rough overview but these subjects are covered better elsewhere.

some good ideas, not alot new.

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Simply put, there are 100's of audio books around this sort of subject I have looked at, some downloaded, many sampled and this is by far the best.

it's very very well read, easy to understand (and I have no experience in this field, just find it interesting), great examples and I'm on my second consecutive playing of it now and still learning. It's not roboticaly narrated like half these on Audible, and it's also not read in an annoying accent. Thought provoking, useful, interesting, engaging, well read, best book I've downloaded across approx 40 titles.

Can't recommend this enough and have just purchased the authors other book without even a sample I rate him and this book so highly.

Thought provoking, useful, interesting, best book!

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