This book provides a detailed analysis of classical and modern Indian views on consciousness along with their related meditative methods. It offers a critical analysis of three distinct trends of Indian thought.

The phenomenon of consciousness has always been a central question for philosophers and scientists. Emerging in the past decade are new approaches to the understanding of consciousness in a scientific light. This book presents a series of essays by leading thinkers giving an account of the current ideas prevalent in the scientific study of consciousness. The value of the book lies in the discussion of this interesting though complex subject from different points of view ranging from physics, computer science to (...) the cognitive sciences. Reviews of controversial ideas related to the philosophy of mind from western and eastern sources including classical Indian first person methodologies provide a breadth of coverage that has seldom been attempted in a book before. Additionally, chapters relating to the new approaches in computational modelling of higher order cognitive function and consciousness are included. The book is of great value for established as well as young researchers from a wide cross-section of interdisciplinary scientific backgrounds, aiming to pursue research in this field, as well as an informed public. * Presents the latest developments in the scientific study of consciousness * Critically reviews different theoretical and philosophical explanations related to the subject * An important book for both students and researchers in designing research projects on consciousness. (shrink)

In this review article we discuss some of the applications of noncommutative geometry in physics that are of recent interest, such as noncommutative many-body systems, noncommutative extension of Special Theory of Relativity kinematics, twisted gauge theories and noncommutative gravity.

Carpendale & Lewis (C&L) rightly emphasise the central role of social interaction in the development of children's understanding of mind. Further support and justification for their theoretical focus are provided by research on advanced reasoning about socio-emotional and socio-motivational processes. Variability in social experience can explain both developmental change and within-age-group differences in such social understanding.

Existing evidence suggests that children from around the age of 8 years strategically alter their public image in accordance with known values and preferences of peers, through the self-descriptive information they convey. However, an important but neglected aspect of this 'self-presentation' is the medium through which such information is communicated: the voice itself. The present study explored peer audience effects on children's vocal productions. Fifty-six children were presented with vignettes where a fictional child, matched to the participant's age and sex, (...) is trying to make friends with a group of same-sex peers with stereotypically masculine or feminine interests. Participants were asked to impersonate the child in that situation and, as the child, to read out loud masculine, feminine and gender-neutral self-descriptive statements to these hypothetical audiences. They also had to decide which of those self-descriptive statements would be most helpful for making friends. In line with previous research, boys and girls preferentially selected masculine or feminine self-descriptive statements depending on the audience interests. Crucially, acoustic analyses of fundamental frequency and formant frequency spacing revealed that children also spontaneously altered their vocal productions: they feminized their voices when speaking to members of the ballet club, while they masculinized their voices when speaking to members of the rugby club. Both sexes also feminized their voices when uttering feminine sentences, compared to when uttering masculine and gender-neutral sentences. Implications for the hitherto neglected role of acoustic qualities of children's vocal behaviour in peer interactions are discussed. This article is part of the theme issue 'Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact '. (shrink)