Psychology
If you read many books about behavioral economics or cognitive psychology, you will come across concepts that Scott Plous covers in The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making. In about 300 pages, Plous covers so much ground that the book could easily be a textbook and yet it reads quickly and easily. Where many authors cover these topics with almost a sense of wonderment and amazement, Plous is pragmatic in both his presentation of the evidence and his analysis thereof. Because of the exha
Recently I read an article from the Journal of Information Architecture by Brigitte Kaltenbacher regarding the role of emotions in Human Computer Interaction research. She referenced Damasio's book, Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorry and the Feeling Brain and the idea intrigued me. Kaltenbacher's premise is that the human decision making process is highly influenced by emotion and therefore emotions and feelings cannot be ignored by the interaction designer. Antonio Damasio explores the connectio
Dan Ariely tells a fascinating story of pain at the beginning of his book, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. As a youth he was involved in an accident that left 70% of his body badly burned. During his recovery he explains that he began to view the ordinary and everyday experiences that he used to experience as though he were an outside observer. He began to analyze the "why" behind daily decision making. This led him to an interest in the field of behaviora
Alfie Kohn doesn't like B.F. Skinner. At least he spends the first 180 or so pages of his book, Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise and Other Bribes, ranting against the basic elements of Skinner's writings on behaviorism. He derisively calls refers to "pop-behaviorism" throughout his book as the "Do this and you'll get that" mentality of getting what you want out of people. If you are want to read a somewhat narcisstic and lopsided discussion of Koh
Gary Marcus provides an entertaining trip through some of the oddities and weirdnesses of the human mind. The title Kluge reveals Marcus' main premise: the brain is not a wonderfully architected organ but rather a system of subsystems that has been cobbled together by an imperfect process called evoltion to produce a workable but far from perfect solution. Within a few pages of starting the book, Marcus makes it plain that he is a highly educated professor used to spending time around those le
I confess that it's been 2 months since I read this book so these notes are stale so I apologize. Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information Is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes, is a very fascinating read, although if you have read The User Illusion you will notice a great similarity between the books. In my opinion, Decoding was an easier read, albeit perhaps not as thorough as Illusion.
The underlying principles of Luke Hohmann's Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play are rock solid. Either Hohmann has a solid grasp of marketing principles, project management and cognitive psychology, or he is pretty good at buzz-word bingo. This is an intensely practical book without much meat so if you are looking for a "how-to" manual on getting good ideas from your customers, this book is for you. If you are looking for insight into why these kinds of
Ben Sherwood has experienced some of the toughest survival training in the world. As part of the research for his book, he went through the Aviation Survival Training program in Miramar, CA. There he learned what it's like to be drug across the ocean by a parachute, how it feels to be pulled up a cable in the rotor blast of a helicopter and what a helicopter crew goes through if their chopper crashes in the water. For Sherwood though, survival is about more than just military training and acc
I confess that I did not gain nearly as much from reading this book as I anticipated. My hope was to learn something useful about symbolism and the study of semiotics but instead I learned a lot of the psychology of dreams. If you are into that sort of thing then Carl Jung's Man and His Symbols is a must read. If, like me, you are quite skeptical of that sort of thing then you will be as disappointed as I was with this book. The illustrations in the hard cover book are fantastic, every page
In The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, Barry Schwartz takes us on an interesting journey through the psychology of choice. Decision theory is an interesting field with many spurs and side-tracks, a number of which Schwartz takes us down. The book covers a lot of ground but manages to stay on theme, namely: too much opportunity for choice is not necessarily a good thing.