Daniel J. Levitin's Books

This is Your Brain on Music

The Science of a Human Obsession

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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This is Your Brain on Music

The Science of a Human Obsession

By: Daniel J. Levitin

Explores the relationship between the mind and music by drawing on recent findings in the fields of neuroscience and evolutionary psychology to discuss topics such as the sources of musical tastes and the brain's responses to music.

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330

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0525949690

ISBN 13

9780525949695

The Organized Mind

Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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The Organized Mind

Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload

By: Daniel J. Levitin

New York Times bestselling author and neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin shifts his keen insights from your brain on music to your brain in a sea of details. The information age is drowning us with an unprecedented deluge of data. At the same time, we’re expected to make more—and faster—decisions about our lives than ever before. No wonder, then, that the average American reports frequently losing car keys or reading glasses, missing appointments, and feeling worn out by the effort required just to keep up. But somehow some people become quite accomplished at managing information flow. In The Organized Mind, Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, uses the latest brain science to demonstrate how those people excel—and how readers can use their methods to regain a sense of mastery over the way they organize their homes, workplaces, and time. With lively, entertaining chapters on everything from the kitchen junk drawer to health care to executive office workflow, Levitin reveals how new research into the cognitive neuroscience of attention and memory can be applied to the challenges of our daily lives. This Is Your Brain on Music showed how to better play and appreciate music through an understanding of how the brain works. The Organized Mind shows how to navigate the churning flood of information in the twenty-first century with the same neuroscientific perspective.

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Page Count

371

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0698157222

ISBN 13

9780698157224

A Field Guide to Lies

Critical Thinking with Statistics and the Scientific Method

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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A Field Guide to Lies

Critical Thinking with Statistics and the Scientific Method

By: Daniel J. Levitin

Winner of the National Business Book Award From the New York Times bestselling author of The Organized Mind and This Is Your Brain on Music, a primer to the critical thinking that is more necessary now than ever We are bombarded with more information each day than our brains can process—especially in election season. It's raining bad data, half-truths, and even outright lies. New York Times bestselling author Daniel J. Levitin shows how to recognize misleading announcements, statistics, graphs, and written reports, revealing the ways lying weasels can use them. It's becoming harder to separate the wheat from the digital chaff. How do we distinguish misinformation, pseudo-facts, and distortions from reliable information? Levitin groups his field guide into two categories—statistical information and faulty arguments—ultimately showing how science is the bedrock of critical thinking. Infoliteracy means understanding that there are hierarchies of source quality and bias that variously distort our information feeds via every media channel, including social media. We may expect newspapers, bloggers, the government, and Wikipedia to be factually and logically correct, but they so often aren't. We need to think critically about the words and numbers we encounter if we want to be successful at work, at play, and in making the most of our lives. This means checking the plausibility and reasoning—not passively accepting information, repeating it, and making decisions based on it. Readers learn to avoid the extremes of passive gullibility and cynical rejection. Levitin's charming, entertaining, accessible guide can help anyone wake up to a whole lot of things that aren't so. And catch some weasels in their tracks!

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Page Count

216

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0593182529

ISBN 13

9780593182529

This is Your Brain on Music

The Science of a Human Obsession

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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This is Your Brain on Music

The Science of a Human Obsession

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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330

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Penguin

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ISBN 10

0525949690

ISBN 13

9780525949695

The Organized Mind

Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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The Organized Mind

Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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371

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Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0698157222

ISBN 13

9780698157224

Foundations of Cognitive Psychology

Core Readings

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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Foundations of Cognitive Psychology

Core Readings

By: Daniel J. Levitin

An anthology of core readings on cognitive psychology.

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884

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262621592

ISBN 13

9780262621595

I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine

By: Daniel J. Levitin

Neuroscientist and New York Times best-selling author of This Is Your Brain on Music Daniel J. Levitin reveals the deep connections between music and healing. Music is one of humanity’s oldest medicines. From the Far East to the Ottoman Empire, Europe to Africa and the pre-colonial Americas, many cultures have developed their own rich traditions for using sound and rhythm to ease suffering, promote healing, and calm the mind. In his latest work, neuroscientist and New York Times best-selling author Daniel J. Levitin (This Is Your Brain on Music) explores the curative powers of music, showing us how and why it is one of the most potent therapies today. He brings together, for the first time, the results of numerous studies on music and the brain, demonstrating how music can contribute to the treatment of a host of ailments, from neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, to cognitive injury, depression, and pain. Levitin is not your typical scientist—he is also an award-winning musician and composer, and through lively interviews with some of today’s most celebrated musicians, from Sting to Kent Nagano and Mari Kodama, he shares their observations as to why music might be an effective therapy, in addition to plumbing scientific case studies, music theory, and music history. The result is a work of dazzling ideas, cutting-edge research, and jubilant celebration. I Heard There Was a Secret Chord highlights the critical role music has played in human biology, illuminating the neuroscience of music and its profound benefits for those both young and old.

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Page Count

422

Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

Published Date

ISBN 10

1324036192

ISBN 13

9781324036197

The World in Six Songs

How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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The World in Six Songs

How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature

By: Daniel J. Levitin

The author of the New York Times bestseller This Is Your Brain on Music reveals music’s role in the evolution of human culture in this thought-provoking book that “will leave you awestruck” (The New York Times). Daniel J. Levitin's astounding debut bestseller, This Is Your Brain on Music, enthralled and delighted readers as it transformed our understanding of how music gets in our heads and stays there. Now in his second New York Times bestseller, his genius for combining science and art reveals how music shaped humanity across cultures and throughout history. Here he identifies six fundamental song functions or types—friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge, and love—then shows how each in its own way has enabled the social bonding necessary for human culture and society to evolve. He shows, in effect, how these “six songs” work in our brains to preserve the emotional history of our lives and species. Dr. Levitin combines cutting-edge scientific research from his music cognition lab at McGill University and work in an array of related fields; his own sometimes hilarious experiences in the music business; and illuminating interviews with musicians such as Sting and David Byrne, as well as conductors, anthropologists, and evolutionary biologists. The World in Six Songs is, ultimately, a revolution in our understanding of how human nature evolved—right up to the iPod.

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376

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

1101043458

ISBN 13

9781101043455

Successful Aging

A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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Successful Aging

A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives

By: Daniel J. Levitin

INSTANT TOP 10 BESTSELLER • New York Times • USA Today • Washington Post • LA Times “Debunks the idea that aging inevitably brings infirmity and unhappiness and instead offers a trove of practical, evidence-based guidance for living longer and better.”—Daniel H. Pink, author of When and Drive SUCCESSFUL AGING delivers powerful insights: • Debunking the myth that memory always declines with age • Confirming that "health span"—not "life span"—is what matters • Proving that sixty-plus years is a unique and newly recognized developmental stage • Recommending that people look forward to joy, as reminiscing doesn't promote health Levitin looks at the science behind what we all can learn from those who age joyously, as well as how to adapt our culture to take full advantage of older people's wisdom and experience. Throughout his exploration of what aging really means, using research from developmental neuroscience and the psychology of individual differences, Levitin reveals resilience strategies and practical, cognitive enhancing tricks everyone should do as they age. Successful Aging inspires a powerful new approach to how readers think about our final decades, and it will revolutionize the way we plan for old age as individuals, family members, and citizens within a society where the average life expectancy continues to rise.

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363

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Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

1524744190

ISBN 13

9781524744199

Successful Aging

A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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Successful Aging

A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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363

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Penguin

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ISBN 10

1524744190

ISBN 13

9781524744199

This Is Your Brain on Music

The Science of a Human Obsession

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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This Is Your Brain on Music

The Science of a Human Obsession

By: Daniel J. Levitin

In this groundbreaking union of art and science, rocker-turned-neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin explores the connection between music—its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it—and the human brain. Taking on prominent thinkers who argue that music is nothing more than an evolutionary accident, Levitin poses that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language. Drawing on the latest research and on musical examples ranging from Mozart to Duke Ellington to Van Halen, he reveals: • How composers produce some of the most pleasurable effects of listening to music by exploiting the way our brains make sense of the world • Why we are so emotionally attached to the music we listened to as teenagers, whether it was Fleetwood Mac, U2, or Dr. Dre • That practice, rather than talent, is the driving force behind musical expertise • How those insidious little jingles (called earworms) get stuck in our head A Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist, This Is Your Brain on Music will attract readers of Oliver Sacks and David Byrne, as it is an unprecedented, eye-opening investigation into an obsession at the heart of human nature.

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330

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

1101218916

ISBN 13

9781101218914

I Heard There Was A Secret Chord

Music as Medicine

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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I Heard There Was A Secret Chord

Music as Medicine

By: Daniel J. Levitin

Neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author of This Is Your Brain on Music Daniel J. Levitin reveals how the deep connections between music and the human brain can be harnessed for healing. Music is perhaps one of humanity’s oldest medicines as well as its most universal: from China to the Ottoman Empire, Europe to Africa and pre-colonial South America, cultures have developed rich traditions for using sound and rhythm to ease suffering, spur healing, and calm the mind. Despite this history, musical therapy has long been considered the remit of ancient practice and alternative medicine, if not outright quackery and pseudoscience. In the last decade, however, an overwhelming body of scientific evidence has emerged that persuasively argues music can offer profoundly effective treatment for a whole host of ailments, from Alzheimer’s to PTSD, depression, pain, and cognitive injury. It is, in short, one of the most potent and remarkably promising new therapies available today. A work of dazzling ideas, cutting-edge research, and joyful celebration of the human mind, I Heard There Was a Secret Chord explores the critical role music has played in human evolution, illuminating how the story of the human brain is inseparable from the creative enterprise of music that has bound cultures together throughout history. Music insinuates itself into our earliest memories; it is intimately connected to our emotional regulation and cognition; its shared rhythms and sounds are essential to our social behaviors. As neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin demonstrates in this mind-expanding follow-up to This Is Your Brain on Music—which revolutionized our understanding of the neuroscience of song—medical researchers are now finding that these same deep connections can be harnessed to create profound benefits for those both young and old.

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Page Count

417

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0735246165

ISBN 13

9780735246164

The Organized Mind

Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload

By: Daniel Levitin

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The Organized Mind

Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload

By: Daniel Levitin

Author and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin tackles the problems of twenty-first century information overload in his New York Times bestselling book The Organized Mind. 'The Organized Mind is smart, important, and as always, exquisitely written' - Daniel Gilbert, Harvard University, author of Stumbling on Happiness Overwhelmed by demands on your time? Baffled by the sheer volume of data? You're not alone: modern society is in a state of information overload. The Organized Mind investigates this phenomenon and the effect it has on us, analysing how and why our brains are struggling to keep up with the demands of the digital age. The twenty-first century sees us drowning under emails, forever juggling six tasks at once and trying to make complex decisions ever more quickly. Using a combination of academic research and examples from daily life, neuroscientist and bestselling author Daniel Levitin explains how to take back control of your life. This book will take you through every aspect of modern life, from healthcare to online dating to raising kids, showing that the secret to success is always organization. Levitin's research is surprising, powerful and will change the way you see the world. It's time to learn why there's no such thing as multitasking, why email is so addictive and why all successful people need a junk drawer. In a world where information is power, The Organized Mind holds the key to harnessing that information and making it work for you. Dr. Daniel J. Levitin has a PhD in Psychology, training at Stanford University Medical School and UC Berkeley. He is the author of the No. 1 bestseller This Is Your Brain On Music (Dutton, 2006), published in nineteen languages, and The World in Six Songs (Dutton, 2008) which hit the bestseller lists in its first week of release. Currently he is a James McGill Professor of Psychology, Behavioral Neuroscience and Music at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

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Page Count

528

Publisher

Penguin UK

Published Date

ISBN 10

0241965799

ISBN 13

9780241965795

A Field Guide to Lies

Critical Thinking with Statistics and the Scientific Method

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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A Field Guide to Lies

Critical Thinking with Statistics and the Scientific Method

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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216

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Penguin

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ISBN 10

0593182529

ISBN 13

9780593182529

A Field Guide to Lies Deluxe

Critical Thinking in the Information Age

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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A Field Guide to Lies Deluxe

Critical Thinking in the Information Age

By: Daniel J. Levitin

From The New York Times bestselling author of THE ORGANIZED MIND and THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON MUSIC, a primer to the critical thinking that is more necessary now than ever. This deluxe eBook features six videos from Daniel Levitin, with more examples, anecdotes, and added visual guides. We are bombarded with more information each day than our brains can process—especially in election season. It's raining bad data, half-truths, and even outright lies. New York Times bestselling author Daniel J. Levitin shows how to recognize misleading announcements, statistics, graphs, and written reports revealing the ways lying weasels can use them. It's becoming harder to separate the wheat from the digital chaff. How do we distinguish misinformation, pseudo-facts, distortions, and outright lies from reliable information? Levitin groups his field guide into two categories—statistical infomation and faulty arguments—ultimately showing how science is the bedrock of critical thinking. Infoliteracy means understanding that there are hierarchies of source quality and bias that variously distort our information feeds via every media channel, including social media. We may expect newspapers, bloggers, the government, and Wikipedia to be factually and logically correct, but they so often aren't. We need to think critically about the words and numbers we encounter if we want to be successful at work, at play, and in making the most of our lives. This means checking the plausibility and reasoning—not passively accepting information, repeating it, and making decisions based on it. Readers learn to avoid the extremes of passive gullibility and cynical rejection. Levitin's charming, entertaining, accessible guide can help anyone wake up to a whole lot of things that aren't so. And catch some lying weasels in their tracks!

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Page Count

192

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

1101986182

ISBN 13

9781101986189

Weaponized Lies Deluxe

How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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Weaponized Lies Deluxe

How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era

By: Daniel J. Levitin

This deluxe eBook (previously published as A Field Guide to Lies Deluxe) features six videos from Daniel Levitin, with more examples, anecdotes, and added visual guides. We’re surrounded by fringe theories, fake news, and pseudo-facts. These lies are getting repeated. New York Times bestselling author Daniel Levitin shows how to disarm these socially devastating inventions and get the American mind back on track. Here are the fundamental lessons in critical thinking that we need to know and share now. Investigating numerical misinformation, Daniel Levitin shows how mishandled statistics and graphs can give a grossly distorted perspective and lead us to terrible decisions. Wordy arguments on the other hand can easily be persuasive as they drift away from the facts in an appealing yet misguided way. The steps we can take to better evaluate news, advertisements, and reports are clearly detailed. Ultimately, Levitin turns to what underlies our ability to determine if something is true or false: the scientific method. He grapples with the limits of what we can and cannot know. Case studies are offered to demonstrate the applications of logical thinking to quite varied settings, spanning courtroom testimony, medical decision making, magic, modern physics, and conspiracy theories. This urgently needed book enables us to avoid the extremes of passive gullibility and cynical rejection. As Levitin attests: Truth matters. A post-truth era is an era of willful irrationality, reversing all the great advances humankind has made. Euphemisms like "fringe theories," "extreme views," "alt truth," and even "fake news" can literally be dangerous. Let's call lies what they are and catch those making them in the act.

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Page Count

201

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

1524742279

ISBN 13

9781524742270

Weaponized Lies

How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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Weaponized Lies

How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era

By: Daniel J. Levitin

Previously Published as A Field Guide to Lies We’re surrounded by fringe theories, fake news, and pseudo-facts. These lies are getting repeated. New York Times bestselling author Daniel Levitin shows how to disarm these socially devastating inventions and get the American mind back on track. Here are the fundamental lessons in critical thinking that we need to know and share now. Investigating numerical misinformation, Daniel Levitin shows how mishandled statistics and graphs can give a grossly distorted perspective and lead us to terrible decisions. Wordy arguments on the other hand can easily be persuasive as they drift away from the facts in an appealing yet misguided way. The steps we can take to better evaluate news, advertisements, and reports are clearly detailed. Ultimately, Levitin turns to what underlies our ability to determine if something is true or false: the scientific method. He grapples with the limits of what we can and cannot know. Case studies are offered to demonstrate the applications of logical thinking to quite varied settings, spanning courtroom testimony, medical decision making, magic, modern physics, and conspiracy theories. This urgently needed book enables us to avoid the extremes of passive gullibility and cynical rejection. As Levitin attests: Truth matters. A post-truth era is an era of willful irrationality, reversing all the great advances humankind has made. Euphemisms like “fringe theories,” “extreme views,” “alt truth,” and even “fake news” can literally be dangerous. Let's call lies what they are and catch those making them in the act.

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Page Count

199

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

1524742228

ISBN 13

9781524742225

Weaponized Lies

How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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Weaponized Lies

How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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199

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Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

1524742228

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9781524742225

A Field Guide to Lies and Statistics

A Neuroscientist on How to Make Sense of a Complex World

By: Daniel J. Levitin

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A Field Guide to Lies and Statistics

A Neuroscientist on How to Make Sense of a Complex World

By: Daniel J. Levitin

A guide to critical thinking in the 'post-truth' era, from the author of Sunday Times best-seller The Organized Mind We live in a world of information overload. Facts and figures on absolutely everything are at our fingertips, but are too often biased, distorted, or outright lies. From unemployment figures to voting polls, IQ tests to divorce rates, we're bombarded by seemingly plausible statistics on how people live and what they think. Daniel Levitin teaches us how to effectively ask ourselves: can we really know that? And how do they know that? In this eye-opening, accessible guide filled with fascinating examples and practical takeaways, acclaimed neuroscientist Daniel Levitin shows us how learning to understand statistics will enable you to make better, smarter judgements on the world around you.

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