Explaining psychology’s most important theory

Huw Green in The Guardian:

A century ago, someone with an interest in psychology might have turned to the work of Freud for an overarching vision of how the mind works. To the extent there is a psychological theory even remotely as significant today, it is the “predictive processing” hypothesis. The brain is a prediction machine and our perceptual experiences consist of our prior experiences as well as new data. Daniel Yon’s A Trick of the Mind is just the latest popularisation of these ideas, but he makes an excellent guide, both as a scientist working at the leading edge of this field and as a writer of great clarity. Your brain is a “skull bound scientist”, he proposes, forming hypotheses about the world and collecting data to test them.

The fascinating, often ingenious research reviewed here is sorely in need of an audience beyond dusty scientific journals.

More here.

Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.