The Secret Life of the Mind

Mariano Sigman, a physicist by training, is an international leading figure in the cognitive neuroscience of learning and decision making. He is the founder of the Integrative Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Buenos Aires. Sigman is the only Latin American scientist to be a director of the Human Brain Project, was awarded a Human Frontiers Career Development Award, the National Prize of Physics, the Young Investigator Prize of "College de France," the IBM Scalable Data Analytics Award, and is a scholar of the James S. McDonnell Foundation. In 2016 he was made a Laureate of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

'Sigman finds the sweet spot between findings and experimental detail, and it makes for a compelling read. Entertaining... with moments of exhileration' Financial Times

'Sigman provides vivid depictions of foundational behavioral psychology experiments...The book's exhaustive survey of experiments is, overall, enlightening, and Sigman's clear passion for neuroscience makes it easy to browse' Science Magazine

'Sigman is one of the many professors to become popularizers of their own fields... His book is peppered with brief stories and artistic allusions, and it moves quickly from idea to idea, study to study' New York Times Book Review

'Mariano Sigman writes and thinks in a uniquely provocative way. He is a gifted cognitive neuroscientist, and we are lucky to have him excavating the secret life of the mind. He makes learning about the mind and brain easy and almost automatic. He is the Richard Feynman of the brain'
Andrew Meltzoff, Professor of Psychology, the University of Washington; co-author of 'The Scientist in the Crib

'The author takes us on grand tour covering an extraordinarily diverse range of topics that are of interest to readers and specialists alike' VS Ramachandran FRCP, author of The Tell-Tale Brain

'The brain is the star of this book, with chapters focussing on its characteristics throughout childhood and youth, identity, decision-making, consciousness, education and its capacity to transform itself. In exploring the psychological element of neuroscience, Mariano Sigman tells the story of the human mind as a journey through some of the least travelled paths of mankind ... A wonderful read' La Nacion

'What differentiates The Secret Life of the Mind from other books about the mind is that it takes on neuroscience from a psychological point of view, as well as taking into account psychoanalysis, behavioural economics and philosophy' Nosotras