5

I am slated to teach an undergrad Cognitive Neuroscience course next year and I am not sure which textbook to use. This would be an entry-level course (no pre-requisites) primarily intended for students in psychology and biology. There seem to be a lot of books on the market, so I'm hoping people will share their experiences (either as students or instructors) with whatever books they've used, especially why they liked or didn't like a particular book. Advice about strategies for selecting a book would also be helpful.

Dan M.
  • 1,719
  • 11
  • 13
  • I have converted this question to a Community Wiki question as there is no single correct answer to it. I can also suggest asking for recommendations in chat, as that format is well suited to open-ended discussions. – Josh Apr 06 '13 at 22:17
  • @JoshGitlin I think it should probably be closed, given that there are no criteria for evaluation and it's soliciting advice. – Chuck Sherrington Apr 07 '13 at 01:55
  • JoshGitlin - Thanks for converting my question to a Community Wiki question, I should've asked it there in the first place. @ChuckSherrington - I thought this question would be ok to ask because there's been at least one question about textbooks before and I followed the suggestions from this meta discussion and tried to frame the question in a focused and constructive way. – Dan M. Apr 07 '13 at 02:32
  • 1
    @DanM. I think at it's core, it's a good question. I'm not so much advocating for a "close this and get it out of here" as I am trying to prevent a rash of answers that may not turn out to be helpful to you. I think the reason the question you linked to didn't get closed was because it was incredibly specific and focused. If you presented this one as "I am thinking about Gazzaniga's book, but it might have too much information for an intro level class, but I if I used that as a supplement, what would a good – Chuck Sherrington Apr 07 '13 at 02:42
  • primary textbook be for students with limited stats background and 1-2 upper division courses in psych or biology..." I think it would be a much stronger question. – Chuck Sherrington Apr 07 '13 at 02:43
  • (example is just illustrative, of course) – Chuck Sherrington Apr 07 '13 at 02:44
  • @ChuckSherrington I personally agree, but wanted to see how the community receives it. It had more than a few upvotes when I converted it. – Josh Apr 07 '13 at 03:31
  • 2
    Part of my motivation in asking this question was that I thought questions about teaching Cognitive Science could become an active topic for this site. Such questions would naturally be a little more open-ended than the typical SE question, but maybe we'd have multiple good answers (currently a rare occurrence). In any case, although it seems like there was some interest in my question (and perhaps there would be for other teaching questions), there doesn't seem to be much interest in answering it, so perhaps this is the wrong place for it. – Dan M. Apr 07 '13 at 17:35
  • Do we really need a cognitive-neuroscience tag? Why not just tag it as cognitive-psychology and neurobiology? Does their intersection not cover this? You can add theoretical-neuroscience if you want a theory focus. – Artem Kaznatcheev Apr 07 '13 at 21:23
  • @DanM. As I had mentioned in chat with Jeff, I may be in the minority here, so we'll see what happens. Currently I'm the only close vote. – Chuck Sherrington Apr 07 '13 at 22:28
  • (I hadn't noticed the edit before, but yes, that seems a bit more reasonable) – Chuck Sherrington Apr 07 '13 at 23:06
  • 2
    I'd also like it if questions about how to teach psychology, cognitive science, etc. would be on topic on this site. – Jeromy Anglim Apr 08 '13 at 00:38
  • @ArtemKaznatcheev I agree that the combination of cognitive-psychology and neurobiology covers nearly the same territory as cognitive-neuroscience, but my sense is that "cognitive neuroscience" is a widely used term in the field and that it means something more than the sum of cognitive psychology and neurobiology, so it warrants its own tag. – Dan M. Apr 08 '13 at 12:47
  • Would it be useful to start a meta discussion about whether this site should allow questions about teaching psychology, cognitive science, etc., and how such questions should be formulated? – Dan M. Apr 08 '13 at 12:52
  • @DanM. I'm attempting to work on one, and I'll try to have it done by later tonight. I think the answer below, while an honest attempt, at least partly proves my point, though. – Chuck Sherrington Apr 08 '13 at 22:17

2 Answers2

3

I'm in an undergraduate course on Cognitive Neuroscience and have found the textbook we chose, Principles of Neural Science, to be helpful and illustrative. Strictly speaking, cognitive neuroscience is the subject of but one of the book's sections, but if you are not requiring prerequisites I think it is appropriate to have the basics (and some possible extensions) included.

Tyler James Young
  • 103
  • 3
2

There might be a new edition, but this one is good:

Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind by Michael Gazzaniga, Richard B. Ivry, and George R. Mangun.

Chuck Sherrington
  • 7,112
  • 4
  • 43
  • 83
user1589483
  • 186
  • 2