The Psychophysiology of Thinking

Book excerpt: The Psychophysiology of Thinking: Studies of Covert Processes describes the relation between brain events and peripheral bodily phenomena in the context of psychological theory. This book is organized into six parts encompassing 14 chapters, which focus on higher mental processes. This book starts with the historical development of electrical measures of covert processes. The subsequent chapters discuss the mechanism of conditioning of central nervous system, the skeletal musculature, and the autonomic activity. Other chapters explore the principles of hallucinations, sleep and dreaming, imagery, biofeedback, evoked potentials during thought, meaning, and thought with concomitant measures. The remaining chapters emphasize cerebral mechanisms, which principal concern is with the involvement of other bodily mechanisms in thought. Psychophysiologists, neurobiologists, behaviorists, and researchers in the fields of thinking and covert processes will find this book invaluable.