Curious Behavior
eBook - ePub

Curious Behavior

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Curious Behavior

Book details
Table of contents
Citations

About This Book

Robert Provine boldly goes where other scientists seldom tread—in search of hiccups, coughs, yawns, sneezes, and other lowly, undignified human behaviors. Upon investigation, these instinctive acts bear the imprint of our evolutionary origins and can be uniquely valuable tools for understanding how the human brain works and what makes us different from other species.Many activities showcased in Curious Behavior are contagious, but none surpasses yawning in this regard—just reading the word can make one succumb. Though we often take it as a sign of sleepiness or boredom, yawning holds clues to the development of our sociality and ability to empathize with others. Its inescapable transmission reminds us that we are sometimes unaware, neurologically programmed beasts of the herd. Other neglected behaviors yield similar revelations. Tickling, we learn, may be the key to programming personhood into robots. Coughing comes in musical, medical, and social varieties. Farting and belching have import for the evolution of human speech. And prenatal behavior is offered as the strangest exhibit of all, defying postnatal logic in every way. Our earthiest acts define Homo sapiens as much as language, bipedalism, tool use, and other more studied characteristics.As Provine guides us through peculiarities right under our noses, he beckons us to follow with self-experiments: tickling our own feet, keeping a log of when we laugh, and attempting to suppress yawns and sneezes. Such humble investigations provide fodder for grade school science projects as well as doctoral dissertations. Small Science can yield big rewards.

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Yes, you can access Curious Behavior by Robert R. Provine in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Biological Sciences & Neuroscience. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
Belknap Press
Year
2012
ISBN
9780674071568
Topic
Biological Sciences
Subtopic
Neuroscience
Index
Biological Sciences

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Contents
  7. Introduction
  8. 1. Yawning
  9. 2. Laughing
  10. 3. Vocal Crying
  11. 4. Emotional Tearing
  12. 5. Whites of the Eyes
  13. 6. Coughing
  14. 7. Sneezing
  15. 8. Hiccupping
  16. 9. Vomiting and Nausea
  17. 10. Tickling
  18. 11. Itching and Scratching
  19. 12. Farting and Belching
  20. 13. Prenatal Behavior
  21. Appendix: The Behavioral Keyboard
  22. Notes
  23. References
  24. Acknowledgments
  25. Index