Errata

Your Brain: The Missing Manual

Errata for Your Brain: The Missing Manual

Submit your own errata for this product.

The errata list is a list of errors and their corrections that were found after the product was released. If the error was corrected in a later version or reprint the date of the correction will be displayed in the column titled "Date Corrected".

The following errata were submitted by our customers and approved as valid errors by the author or editor.

Color key: Serious technical mistake Minor technical mistake Language or formatting error Typo Question Note Update

Version Location Description Submitted By Date submitted Date corrected
Printed
Page various
see below for details

Below is a compilation of errata submitted by the author. -Pete Meyers, editor, Your Brain:MM


p. ix, first paragraph, italicized word "that" should also be set in blue bold type (like the other italics in this book)

p. 1, last paragraph, last sentence (beginning "After all...") should be replaced with "After all, if it took you several minutes of conscious thought to separate a traffic sign from a sanitation truck, you'd have an unhappy time crossing the street. But other times your brain's automatic assumptions can mask reality or encourage exactly the wrong reaction."

p. 18, sidebar, last paragraph, remove hyphen from "neuro-transmitters"

p. 58, first sentence subject-verb agreement; change "If you wake someone up from REM sleep, you're certain to find them experiencing a vivid dream." to "If someone wakes you out of REM sleep, you're sure to report a vivid dream."

p. 70, 1st full paragraph (below "Your Shift Eyes" header);
change: "Like the pattern of dots shown to the right"

to: ""Like the pattern of dots shown below"

p. 85, last paragraph, change "imaginative illusions like this one" to "illusions that draw on imagination like this one"

p. 119, in "Cultivate odd tricks" bullet point, after "For example, did you know you can figure out whether a month is short or long using the knuckles of one hand?" add "(Note for knuckle nerds: We're talking about the knuckles at the base of your fingers, not the ones that allow your fingers to bend in the middle.)"

p. 121, in "Take frequent breaks" bullet point

Change this:
"A classic experiment in learning compared students who tackled a new subject in two 2-hour intervals a day against those who had just a single 1-hour interval. The heavy-learning group ..."

to this:

"A classic experiment in learning compared students who spent four hours a day learning a new subject against those who spent just a single hour a day. The hard-core four-hour-a-day group ..."

p. 161, picture doesn't agree with text. In small text above figure, second paragraph, change "he opens another door (which we'll call number 2)" to "he opens another door (which we'll call number 3)". Next paragraph, change "switch your initial choice from door 1 to door 3" to "switch your initial choice from door 1 to door 2"


Anonymous  Jul 18, 2008  Sep 08, 2009
Printed
Page viii
The bio entry for Jennifer Mangels

Professor Mangels is described as "principle investigator" of the Dynamic Learning Lab. I suspect she is actually the "principal investigator".

Pillarisetti Sudhir  Feb 22, 2016  Aug 21, 2020
Printed
Page 36
Note under the second paragraph of section 2.3.2. Meal Timing

The Note includes the following sentence:

"But for others, missing breakfast is akin to running on a tank with only millimeters of gas left."

The unit of measurement should be volumetric, such as milliliters, not millimeters, a unit of linear measurement.

Probably the author meant millimeters of depth in the gas tank.

Note from the Author or Editor:
p. 36, Note box, replace "millimeters" with "milliliters"

Anonymous    Dec 20, 2011
Printed
Page 37
top

no chart provided on "missing CD" cite

Note from the Author or Editor:
p. 37, first sentence, replace semicolon with colon and remove the last part (starting with "for a printable copy..."

jim  Dec 17, 2008  Dec 20, 2011
PDF
Page 45
1st paragraph

"Although proposals to place infants in caves haven�t faired well,"

I think it should read "fared," and not "faired?"

never_to_return  May 07, 2013  Aug 21, 2020
54
1st paragraph

Quoted text from book:
===========
Weight gain. when you sleep, leptin levels fall and ghrelin levels rise.
(You learned about leptin and ghrelin, two of the hormones that regulate appetite, on page 39.) If you skimp on sleep for long periods of
time, you end up with extra ghrelin, less leptin, and a greater appetite.
lack of sleep also boosts stress hormones like cortisol and can increase
insulin resistance, both of which can contribute to weight gain.
============
Needs further expl. If leptin falls and ghrelin rises as you sleep (1st part of paragraph), then it would seem that skimping on sleep would cause less ghrelin (and more leptin) than "not skimpy sleep" - which contradicts the "If you skimp on sleep for long periods of
time, you end up with extra ghrelin, less leptin" ... First part implies that the longer you sleep, the more ghrelin you would have, but second part implies that longer sleeping would result in less ghrelin (and less weight gain)??

Note from the Author or Editor:
p. 54, first bullet point, change "When you sleep, leptin levels fall and ghrelin levels rise." to "When you sleep, leptin levels rise and ghrelin levels fall."

s.holton  Aug 26, 2010  Dec 20, 2011
Printed
Page 58
Second bulleted paragraph/point

The contraction "you're" should be replaced with the word "your" in the bulleted sentence starting with "If you don't get your normal Rem sleep . . . ."

Pillarisetti Sudhir  Feb 22, 2016  Aug 21, 2020
Printed
Page 59
Note box

Note box indicates sleep spindles seen in stage 1 sleep while page 55 defines stage 2 sleep as containing this activity.

Note from the Author or Editor:
page 59, note box, 3rd line, change "seen in stage 1 sleep" to "seen in stage 2 sleep"

Anonymous  Jul 12, 2008  Dec 20, 2011
Printed
Page 67
Second sentence in the 4th paragraph in the boxed text

In the sentence starting "The next time you are listing to a dull sermon from your boss . . . ," "listing" should be replaced with "listening," although given the usefully lighthearted tone of the book, "listing" might also work, in its nautical meaning of leaning!

Pillarisetti Sudhir  Feb 22, 2016  Aug 21, 2020
Printed
Page 70
1st full paragraph (below "Your Shift Eyes" header)

change: "Like the pattern of dots shown to the right"

to: ""Like the pattern of dots shown below"

-Pete Meyers, MM managing editor

Anonymous  Jun 20, 2008  Sep 08, 2009
Printed
Page 95
Paragraph starting with "Short-term memory is notoriously limited"

In fifth line of paragraph, "But it is as least" should be "But it is at least" (change "as" to "at").

Note from the Author or Editor:
p. 95, paragraph starting with "Short-term memory is notoriously limited ...", change "But it is as least" to "But it is at least"

Anonymous  Sep 04, 2008  Dec 20, 2011
Printed
Page 110
2nd paragraph, 6th line

The phrase "Satan lunching on baby's brains" appears to be treating the singular form of "baby" as plural. It should probably either be "[...] on babies' brains" or "[...] on a baby's brain."

Note from the Author or Editor:
p. 110, second paragraph, 6th line, change "Satan lunching on baby's brains" to "Satan lunching on baby brains"

Tim Dowling  Mar 24, 2009  Dec 20, 2011
Printed
Page 185
In bottom 1/4 of page

The word "subtract" was left out when explaining the scoring calculation for the category of "conscientiousness"

Note from the Author or Editor:
p. 185, "Scoring the Test" section, paragraph starting "To calculate your conscientiousness score..." change "43 and 8" to "43 and subtract 8"

Steve Ramsey  Aug 23, 2010  Dec 20, 2011