Mind wide open :Your brain and the neuroscience of everyday life
By Jonathan Weiner
Until recently, people couldn't look into themselves directly to explore what Gerard Manley Hopkins called our "inscapes" but-tech mirrors, we can see right through our own foreheads and begin to watch our mental apparatus in action.
The scenario for Steven Johnson's Mind Wide Open is this: Johnson makes himself his own test subject to see what the neuroscientists can show us about our attention spans, talents, moods,thoughts, and drives--our selves.
He got the idea for this voyage of self-discovery a few years ago while he was hooked up to a biofeedback machine.
Lying on a couch with sensors attached to his palms, fingertip, and forehead made him feel nervous , and he started making jokers about it to the biofeedback guy.
The machine was designed to monitor adrenaline levels , like a life detector machine.