Temporal Mind

This book is the result of the International Workshop on Time, Mind, and Behavior, which was held at the University of Groningen in September 1984. The aim of the workshop was to produce an up to date review of the state of the art in the field of time psychology. The rapid development of a cognitive outlook in experimental psychology has, among other things, un­ derlined the need for a reconsideration of time experience, the coding and representation of temporal information, and the timing of complex re­ sponses. Since the publication of Paul Fraisse's classical Psychologie du Temps in 1957, time psychology has slowly but steadily drawn an in­ creasing amount of attention, to a point where it now seems to be incorpo­ rated into the mainstream of research. At the same time a noticeable ten­ dency for a renewed general interest in time can also be traced in several other disciplines.

Time Distortions in Mind brings together current research on aspects of temporal processing in clinical populations, in the ultimate hope of elucidating the interdependence between perturbations in timing and disturbances in the mind and brain. Such research may inform not only typical psychological functioning, but may also elucidate the psychological consequences of any pathophysiological differences in temporal processing.

Writer Alan Bissett explores the complex brain of Robert Burns in a quest to discover the real man behind the myths and reveal the conflicts in his life and work. Burns was a poetic genius, but full of contradictions. He was a lover of women, and an exploiter of them; a Republican firebrand, and a social-climbing government excise man; an advocate of freedom who almost became a Caribbean slave master. Alan examines the groundbreaking research that suggests that the poet suffered from bi-polar disorder, a condition that led him to have severe mood swings.

On November 25th, 1915, Einstein published his greatest work: general relativity. The theory transformed our understanding of nature’s laws and the entire history of the cosmos, reaching back to the origin of time itself. Now, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s achievement, NOVA tells the inside story of Einstein’s masterpiece. The story begins with the intuitive thought experiments that set Einstein off on his quest and traces the revolution in cosmology that is still playing out in today’s labs and observatories.

Thirty years after the collapse of the USSR, the martial rhetoric and other trappings of the "strong men" of the totalitarian era are making a comeback. Why?