Of Sound Mind

How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World

De: Nina Kraus

Narrado por: Elizabeth Wiley

Making sense of sound is one of the hardest jobs we ask our brains to do. In Of Sound Mind, Nina Kraus examines the partnership of sound and brain, showing for the first time that the processing of sound drives many of the brain's core functions. Our hearing is always on - we can't close our ears the way we close our eyes - and yet we can ignore sounds that are unimportant. We don't just hear; we engage with sounds. Kraus explores what goes on in our brains when we hear a word - or a chord, or a meow, or a screech.

Our hearing brain, Kraus tells us, is vast. It interacts with what we know, with our emotions, with how we think, with our movements, and with our other senses. Auditory neurons make calculations at one-thousandth of a second; hearing is the speediest of our senses. Sound plays an unrecognized role in both healthy and hurting brains. Kraus explores the power of music for healing as well as the destructive power of noise on the nervous system. She traces what happens in the brain when we speak another language, have a language disorder, experience rhythm, listen to birdsong, or suffer a concussion. Kraus shows how our engagement with sound leaves a fundamental imprint on who we are. The sounds of our lives shape our brains, for better and for worse, and help us build the sonic world we live in.

©2021 Nina Kraus (P)2021 Tantor

The importance of sound in the overall development of perception.

It was amazing. Through the concepts in this book, I have learnt strategies to read better, learn new languages and pace myself while speaking to reduce my social anxiety.

Very affirming.

As a bilingual musician, I very much enjoyed it. my non-musician wife was less enamored, but found it interesting all the same... especially the part about noise.

A beautiful and engrossing journey into sound and mind

Nina Kraus shares her lifetime of work building the BrainVolts lab at Northwestern and many of the important discoveries she and her team has made -- while always conveying her awe of the beauty and mystery of the mind, the brain, music and language. Science writing is seldom this clear, elegant, and accessible. It had a similar impact on me as Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas. Superb and potentially life-changing for young scientists especially.

A must-listen!!

Phenomenal coverage of a critical topic that overlaps personal and societal impacts of the modern world's soundscape. The author does an excellent job of explaining the complicated science and showing the importance of continued discovery in this multidisciplinary effort.

Just read the book. Wasn't meant to be narrated

Good content, enough so that I'll seek out the hard copy to read. The narrator, while having a lovely voice, is more geared to fiction titles. I felt like Mary Poppins was trying get her umbrella to liven up a scientific treatise. It's good for story telling, not for serious topics.

Enlightening!

Beautiful perspective and broad review of the intersection between human behavior, cognition, and the science of sound.