1999 LECTURE SERIES

How the Mind Works

Dr. Steven Pinker
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences/Director, McDonnell-Pew Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
May 11, 1999

How can the brain function as an engineering masterpiece that allows us to see, reason and plan - yet also be responsible for the deep emotion and quirky behaviors that are a part of everyone's life? Dr. Pinker, an imaginative researcher and one of the foremost science writers of our time, proposes answers to the fascinating puzzle of the mind.

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Learning Retunes the Brain: The Neural Representation of Experience

Dr. Norman Weinberger
Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory/Department of Psychology
University of California, Irvine
April 6, 1999

As we know, our brains store our memories. But there are no books or tape recorders in our heads. Thus, the way in which the brain encodes experience has been a great mystery. Dr. Weinberger's novel research provides a key to the solution of this problem by revealing how brain cells store the significance of life's events.

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The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse

Dr. Elizabeth Loftus
Department of Psychology
University of Washington
February 2, 1999

The question of whether memories can be repressed in childhood and recovered later in life is one of the most hotly debated issues in jurisprudence and psychology. Dr. Loftus discusses her 20 years of research on false memories and the scientific evidence she has brought into courtrooms as an expert witness. She is one of the country's most influential scientists in this ongoing societal and scientific controversy.

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