Brains as Engines of Association
An Operating Principle for Nervous Systems
Dale Purves
Reviews and Awards
"Purves has produced a thought-provoking, beautifully written, and illustrated book that is well worth the time for any reader interested in how the brain works." -- Apostolos P. Georgopoulos, Neuroscience and Adam F. Carpenter Neurology, University of Minnesota, The Quarterly Review of Biology
"Purves has spent his career on the leading edge of decoding the nervous system. He consistently forwards new hypotheses to make sense of the phenomena that define our reality, and this book seeks to lay bare his insightful framework." -- David Eagleman, PhD, neuroscientist at Stanford, creator of The Brain on PBS, New York Times bestselling author
"In Brains as Engines of Association, Dale Purves has produced a well-formulated, highly accessible, provocative perspective that challenges the reader to think deeply about brain mechanisms of behavior, while guiding them through a wondrous tour of human endeavor that draws attention to relevant insights from biology, psychology, physics, and philosophy. The journey supports a wholly empirical explanation for brain function that Dale has championed, and includes evidence from his studies on visual and auditory perception that are sure to engage the interests of a broad audience" -- David Fitzpatrick, Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience
"Over the past 20 years, Purves has developed a theory of perception that he calls 'a wholly empirical strategy.' In this book, he provides a lucid explanation and comprehensive defense of his provocative ideas, and sets it in a broader evolutionary context. In addition to being of broad and general interest, it challenges biologists to find out how the brain accomplishes the remarkable feats that Purves documents." -- Joshua R. Sanes, Harvard University