How we learn - Stanislas Dehaene

'Absorbing, mind-enlarging, studded with insights ... This could have significant real-world results' Sunday Times

Humanity's greatest feat is our incredible ability to learn. Even in
their first year, infants acquire language, visual and social knowledge
at a rate that surpasses the best supercomputers. But how, exactly, do
our brains learn?

In How We Learn, leading neuroscientist
Stanislas Dehaene delves into the psychological, neuronal, synaptic and
molecular mechanisms of learning. Drawing on case studies of children
who learned despite huge difficulty and trauma, he explains why youth is
such a sensitive period, during which brain plasticity is maximal, but
also assures us that our abilities continue into adulthood. We can all
enhance our learning and memory at any age and 'learn to learn' by
taking maximal advantage of the four pillars of the brain's learning
algorithm: attention, active engagement, error feedback and
consolidation.

The human brain is an extraordinary machine. Its
ability to process information and adapt to circumstances by
reprogramming itself is unparalleled, and it remains the best source of
inspiration for recent developments in artificial intelligence. How We
Learn finds the boundary of computer science, neurobiology, cognitive
psychology and education to explain how learning really works and how to
make the best use of the brain's learning algorithms - and even improve
them - in our schools and universities as well as in everyday life.