It's a Jungle in There: How Competition and Cooperation in the Brain Shape the Mind

It's a Jungle in There pursues the hypothesis that the overarching theory of biology, Darwin's theory, should be the overarching theory of cognitive psychology. Taking this approach, David Rosenbaum, a cognitive psychologist and former editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, proposes that the phenomena of cognitive psychology can be understood as emergent interactions among dumb neural elements all competing and cooperating in a kind of inner jungle. Rosenbaum suggests that this perspective allows for the presentation of cognitive psychology in a new way, both for students (for whom the book is mainly intended) and for seasoned investigators (who may be looking for a fresh way to approach and understand their material). Rather than offering cognitive psychology as a rag-tag collection of miscellaneous facts, as has generally been the case in cognitive-psychology textbooks, this volume presents cognitive psychology under a single rubric: "It's a jungle in there." Written in a light-hearted way with continual reference to hypothetical neural creatures eking out their livings in a tough environment, this text is meant to provide an over-arching principle that can motivate more in-depth study of the mind and brain.