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Books > Social sciences > Psychology > Cognition & cognitive psychology
The term "skill" encompasses an array of topics and issues. For
example, individuals are skilled in a variety of domains such as
chess, typing, air traffic control, or knitting; researchers study
skill in a variety of ways, including speed of acquisition,
accuracy of performance, and retention over time; and there are a
variety of approaches to the study of skill such as computer
modeling or experimental analysis. Contributing to the
understanding of whether, how, when, and why skills may decline as
a function of age is the goal of this volume.
Recognizing the characteristics of children with learning
disabilities and deciding how to help them is a problem faced by
schools all over the world. Although some disorders are fairly
easily recognizable (e.g., mental retardation) or very specific to
single components of performance and quite rare (e.g.,
developmental dyscalculia), schools must consider much larger
populations of children with learning difficulties who cannot
always be readily classified. These children present high-level
learning difficulties that affect their performance on a variety of
school tasks, but the underlying problem is often their difficulty
in understanding written text. In many instances, despite good
intellectual abilities and a superficial ability to cope with
written texts and to use language appropriately, some children do
not seem to grasp the most important elements, or cannot find the
pieces of information they are looking for. Sometimes these
difficulties are not immediately detected by the teacher in the
early school years. They may be hidden because the most obvious
early indicators of reading progress in the teacher's eyes do not
involve comprehension of written texts or because the first texts a
child encounters are quite simple and reflect only the difficulty
level of the oral messages (sentences, short stories, etc.) with
which the child is already familiar. However, as years go by and
texts get more complex, comprehension difficulties will become
increasingly apparent and increasingly detrimental to effective
school learning. In turn, studying, assimilating new information,
and many other situations requiring text comprehension -- from
problem solving to reasoning with linguistic contents -- could be
affected.
A year before his death, B.F. Skinner wrote that "There are two
unavoidable gaps in any behavioral account: one between the
stimulating action of the environment and the response of the
organism and one between consequences and the resulting change in
behavior. Only brain science can fill those gaps. In doing so, it
completes the account; it does not give a different account of the
same thing." This declaration ended the epoch of radical
behaviorism to the extent that it was based on the doctrine of the
"empty organism," the doctrine that a behavioral science must be
constructed purely on its own level of investigation. However,
Skinner was not completely correct in his assessment. Brain science
on its own can no more fill the gaps than can single level
behavioral science. It is the relation between data and
formulations developed in the brain and the behavioral sciences
that is needed.
Basic researchers unlock the secrets of nature; applied researchers
unlock the means by which those secrets of nature can change
people's lives. Neither basic nor applied research has an
independent impact. These volumes examine the convergence of basic
and applied research in the field of memory. "Volume 1: Theory and
Context, " focuses on the methods for understanding and applying
basic memory theory, while "Volume 2: Practical Applications, "
expands the understanding of practical memory research by providing
in-depth research examples and findings.
My writing career has been, at least in this one respect, idiosyncratic: it had to mark and chart, step by step, its own peculiar champaign. My earliest papers, beginning in 1942, were technical articles in this or that domain of Uralic linguistics, ethnography, and folklore, with a sprinkling of contributions to North and South American linguistics. In 1954, my name became fecklessly associated with psycholinguistics, then, successively, with explorations in my thology, religious studies, and stylistic problems. It now takes special effort for me to even revive the circumstances under which I came to publish, in 1955, a hefty tome on the supernatural, another, in 1958, on games, and yet another, in 1961, utilizing a computer for extensive sorting of literary information. By 1962, I had edged my way into animal communication studies. Two years after that, I first whiffled through what Gavin Ewart evocatively called "the tulgey wood of semiotics." In 1966, I published three books which tem porarily bluffed some of my friends into conjecturing that I was about to meta morphose into a historiographer of linguistics. The topmost layer in my scholarly stratification dates from 1976, when I started to compile what eventually became my "semiotic tetralogy," of which this volume may supposably be the last. In the language of "Jabberwocky," the word "tulgey" is said to connote variability and evasiveness. This notwithstanding, the allusion seems to me apt."
By comparison with the other facets of intelligence, the analytical role provided by intelligence agencies has not received the scholarly attention that it rightly deserves. In October 1994 the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies (CASIS) and the Intelligence Section of the International Studies Association (ISA) attended to this deficit by holding a special international conference on the subject in Ottawa. This volume is the product of that conference. The essays comprising it may be divided into four self-contained sets of essays. The first critically examines the assessment systems now in place in Britain, the USA, Germany and Australia. Each is written by someone who participated at a senior level and hence knows their respective strengths and weaknesses well. The second series of essays looks at the bureaucratic dynamics of analysis and assessment. While two specifically examine how well intelligence producers have related to their political masters, another dissects the internal relationships that have developed between CIA analysts and their managers. The changing ground that intelligence is currently experiencing is the focus of the third section. Here such new analytical priorities as the environment, peacekeeping and arms proliferation are singled out for study. Finally, the volume considers the impact of new technologies and modes of communication on intelligence gathering and analysis.
Memory, Consciousness, and Temporality presents the argument that current memory theories are undermined by two false assumptions: the memory trace paradox' and the fallacy of the homunculus'. In these pages Gianfranco Dalla Barba introduces a hypothesis - the Memory, Consciousness, and Temporality (MCT) hypothesis - on the relationship between memory and consciousness that is not undermined by these assumptions and further demonstrates how MCT can account for a variety of memory disorders and phenomena. With a unique approach intended to conjugate phenomenological analysis and recent neuropsychological data, the author makes an important contribution to our understanding of the central issues in current cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience.
Early emotional development, emotional regulation, and the links
between emotion and social or cognitive functioning in atypically
developing children have not received much attention. This lack is
due in part to the priorities given to the educational and
therapeutic needs of these children. Yet an understanding of the
basic emotional processes in children with atypical development can
only serve to promote more effective strategies for teaching and
intervening in the lives of these children and their families and
may contribute to our understanding of basic emotional processes as
well.
Concern with stress and coping has a long history in biomedical, psychological and sociological research. The inadequacy of simplistic models linking stressful life events and adverse physical and psychological outcomes was pointed out in the early 1980s in a series of seminal papers and books. The issues and theoretical models discussed in this work shaped much of the subsequent research on this topic and are reflected in the papers in this volume. The shift has been away from identifying associations between risks and outcomes to a focus on factors and processes that contribute to diversity in response to risks. Based on the Family Research Consortium's fifth summer institute, this volume focuses on stress and adaptability in families and family members. The papers explore not only how a variety of stresses influence family functioning but also how family process moderates and mediates the contribution of individual and environmental risk and protective factors to personal adjustment. They reveal the complexity of current theoretical models, research strategies and analytic approaches to the study of risk, resiliency and vulnerability along with the central role risk, family process and adaptability play in both normal development and childhood psychopathology.
Recently, research on the ways in which goals, affect, and
self-regulation influence one another has enjoyed an upsurge. New
findings are being published and new theories are being developed
to integrate these findings. This volume reports on the latest of
this work, including a substantial amount of data and theory that
has not yet been published. Emanating from a conference exploring
affect as both a cause and effect in various social contexts, this
book examines some of the complex and reciprocal relationships
among goals, self structures, feelings, thoughts, and behavior. The
chapters address:
This book brings together the study of self-reflective fiction and the contemporary 4E theories of cognition in order to challenge existing cognitive-theoretical models and approaches to literary phenomena. Polvinen presents reflective attention on artifice as an integral part of engagement with fictional narratives, rather than as an external viewpoint that would obscure immersive experiences. The detailed analyses included are both of traditionally metafictional texts by John Barth, A.S. Byatt, Dave Eggers, and Ali Smith, as well as of speculative fictions by Ted Chiang, China Mieville, Christopher Priest, and Catherynne M. Valente. Each of the chapters focuses on a specific issue of fictional cognition: on metaphorical representation, spatiality, temporality, and fictionality. As a whole, the book argues that by combining a literary and theoretically complex view of artifice with the enactive paradigm of perception and imagination, practitioners of cognitive literary studies can further sharpen their own conceptual and terminological apparatus and continue to generate fruitful hermeneutic circulation around the study of the imagination in both the sciences and the humanities. This book will appeal to students and scholars interested in cognitive approaches to literary studies, speculative fiction, metafiction, and narrative studies.
* The debate about the effects of bilingualism on executive control is one of the most controversial and contentious issues in the field of bilingualism, so the topic is timely. * Includes coverage of the methodologies used in this area of investigation. * Offers a critical review of the research literature to balance the record about bilingual advantage.
The recent evolution of western societies has been characterized by
an increasing emphasis on information and communication. As the
amount of available information increases, however, the user --
worker, student, citizen -- faces a new problem: selecting and
accessing relevant information. More than ever it is crucial to
find efficient ways for users to interact with information systems
in a way that prevents them from being overwhelmed or simply
missing their targets. As a result, hypertext systems have been
developed as a means of facilitating the interactions between
readers and text. In hypertext, information is organized as a
network in which nodes are text chunks (e.g., lists of items,
paragraphs, pages) and links are relationships between the nodes
(e.g., semantic associations, expansions, definitions, examples --
virtually any kind of relation that can be imagined between two
text passages). Unfortunately, the many ways in which these
hypertext interfaces can be designed has caused a complexity that
extends far beyond the processing abilities of regular users.
Therefore, it has become widely recognized that a more rational
approach based on a thorough analysis of information users' needs,
capacities, capabilities, and skills is needed. This volume seeks
to meet that need.
Cognitive interference refers to unwanted, often disturbing thoughts which intrude on a person's life. This text examines the effects of this thinking on behaviour, particularly how stress can distort cognition and performance and the role it plays in social maladjustment and slow learning.
Focusing on the principles and applications of chaotic thinking, this text seeks to promote a more general understanding and acceptance of this cognitive style. It may help people deal more effectively with chaotic situations, such as economic crises, career changes, and relationship skills.
Helen Neville was a pioneer in the field of Neuroplasticity, focusing her research on deafness and contributing to an acceptance of the role that experience plays in shaping the sensory system This book will honour her work, following her untimely death in 2018 Featuring contributions from former students, collaborators, and colleagues, the book showcases Professor Neville's legacy to the field
An Introduction to Psychometrics and Psychological Assessment is the successor to Cooper's prize-winning book and shows how psychological questionnaires and tests can be chosen, administered, scored, interpreted and developed. In providing students, researchers, test users, test developers and practitioners in the social sciences, education and health with an evaluative guide to choosing, using, interpreting and developing tests, it provides readers a thorough grasp of the principles (and limitations) of testing, together with the necessary methodological detail. This book has three distinctive features. First, it stresses the basic logic of psychological assessment without getting bogged down with mathematics; the spreadsheet simulations and utilities which are integrated into the text allow users to explore how numbers behave, rather than reading equations. Readers will "learn by doing". Second, it covers both the theory behind psychological assessment and the practicalities of locating, designing and using tests and interpreting their scores. Finally, it is evaluative. Rather than just describing concepts such as test reliability or adaptive testing, it stresses the underlying principles, merits and drawbacks of each approach to assessment, and methods of developing and evaluating questionnaires and tests. Unusually for an introductory text, it includes coverage of several cutting-edge techniques, and this new edition expands the discussion on measurement invariance, methods of detecting/quantifying bias and hierarchical factor models, and features added sections on: -Best practices for translation of tests into other languages and problems of cultural bias - Automatic item generation - The advantages, drawbacks and practicalities of internet-based testing - Generalizability theory - Network analysis - Dangerous assumptions made when scoring tests - The accuracy of tests used for assessing individuals - The two-way relationship between psychometrics and psychological theory. Aimed at non-mathematicians, this friendly and engaging text will help you to understand the fundamental principles of psychometrics that underpin the measurement of any human characteristic using any psychological test. Written by a leading figure in the field and accompanied by additional resources, including a set of spreadsheets which use simulated data and other techniques to illustrate important issues, this is an essential introduction for all students of psychology and related disciplines. It assumes very little statistical background and is written for students studying psychological assessment or psychometrics, and for researchers and practitioners who use questionnaires and tests to measure personality, cognitive abilities, educational attainment, mood or motivation.
Introduced one hundred years ago, film has since become part of our
lives. For the past century, however, the experience offered by
fiction films has remained a mystery. Questions such as why adult
viewers cry and shiver, and why they care at all about fictional
characters -- while aware that they contemplate an entirely staged
scene -- are still unresolved. In addition, it is unknown why
spectators find some film experiences entertaining that have a
clearly aversive nature outside the cinema. These and other
questions make the psychological status of "emotions" allegedly
induced by the fiction film highly problematic.
Thirty-three of the top scholars in this fast moving domain present
a picture of work at the cusp in social psychology -- work that
deals with cognition and affect in close relationships. The present
volume contains a wealth of research findings and influential
theoretical accounts that spring as much from indigenous work in
the close relationship field as from purebred social cognition. The
chapters introduce theories and research programs concerned with
the role of individual and couple differences in close relationship
knowledge structures. They deal with the role of emotion and affect
in close relationships. And they discuss the function of cognition
and knowledge structures in relation to the developmental course of
close relationships. Each section is accompanied by a critical
review written by an expert in the field.
What is the basis of our ability to assign meanings to words or to
objects? Such questions have, until recently, been regarded as
lying within the province of philosophy and linguistics rather than
psychology. However, recent advances in psychology and
neuropsychology have led to the development of a scientific
approach to analysing the cognitive bases of semantic knowledge and
semantic representations. Indeed, theory and data on the
organisation and structure of semantic knowledge have now become
central and hotly debated topics in contemporary psychology.
What is text understanding?
Memory has long been ignored by rhetoricians because the written
word has made memorization virtually obsolete. Recently however, as
part of a revival of interest in classical rhetoric, scholars have
begun to realize that memory offers vast possibilities for today's
writers. Synthesizing research from rhetoric, psychology,
philosophy, and literary and composition studies, this volume
brings together many historical and contemporary theories of
memory. Yet its focus is clear: memory is a generator of knowledge
and a creative force which deserves attention at the beginning of
and throughout the writing process.
The usual method for studying mental processes entails taking words
in linguistics -- or concepts in logic -- and establishing the
connections and relationships between them. Thus, the traditional
approach to semantic problems -- those of meaning and understanding
-- is through language. Most researchers agree that thought and
language are generated by deep-seated semantic structures
determined by the structure of the brain. Until now, however, all
attempts at constructing semantic models have been made on the
basis of linguistic material alone, without taking brain structure
into account. Analysis of these models shows them to be as
inadequate as those based on the method of the black box.
How are we to understand the complex forces that shape human behav ior? A variety of diverse perspectives, drawing on studies of human behavioral ontogeny, as well as humanity's evolutionary heritage, seem to provide the best likelihood of success. It is in an attempt to synthesize such potentially disparate approaches to human development into an integrated whole that we undertake this series on the genesis of beh- ior. In many respects, the incredible burgeoning of research in child development over the last two decades or so seems like a thousand lines of inquiry spreading outward in an incoherent starburst of effort. The need exists to provide, on an ongoing basis, an arena of discourse within which the threads of continuity among those diverse lines of research on human development can be woven into a fabric of meaning and under standing. Scientists, scholars, and those who attempt to translate their efforts into the practical realities of the care and guidance of infants and children are the audience that we seek to reach. Each requires the oppor tunity to see-to the degree that our knowledge in given areas per mits-various aspects of development in a coherent, integrated fashion. It is hoped that this series-which brings together research on infant biology, developing infant capacities, animal models, and impact of so cial, cultural, and familial forces on development, and the distorted products of such forces under certain circumstances-serves these important social and scientific needs."
The power of odors to unlock human memory is celebrated in
literature and anecdote, but poorly documented by science. Odors --
perhaps more than other stimuli -- are widely believed to evoke
vivid and complex past experiences easily. Yet in contrast to the
frequency with which odors are thought to evoke memories of the
past, scientific evidence is thus far scant. |
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