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Books > Social sciences > Psychology > Cognition & cognitive psychology
Designed for professionals and graduate students in the
personality/social, military, and educational psychology, and
assessment/evaluation communities, this volume explores the state
of the art in motivational research for individuals and teams from
multiple theoretical viewpoints as well as their effects in both
schools and training environments.
Do general-purpose creative-thinking skills -- skills like divergent thinking, which is touted as an important component of creative thinking no matter what the task domain -- actually make much of a contribution to creative performance? Although much recent research argues against such domain-transcending skills -- including several new studies reported in this book -- the appeal of such general skills remains strong, probably because of the theoretical economy and power such skills would provide. Divergent thinking, in particular, has had an incredible staying power. Despite its many flaws, divergent thinking remains the most frequently used indicator of creativity in both creativity research and educational practice, and divergent thinking theory has a strong hold on everyday conceptions of what it means to be creative. Reviewing the available research on divergent thinking, this book presents a framework for understanding other major theories of creativity, including Mednick's associative theory and a possible connectionist approach of creativity. It reports a series of studies (including the study that won APA's 1992 Berlyne Prize) that demonstrate the absence of effects of general creative-thinking skills across a range of creativity-relevant tasks, but indicate that training in divergent thinking does in fact improve creative performance across diverse task domains. The book then ties these findings together with a multi-level theory, in which a task-specific approach to creativity is strengthened by recasting some divergent-thinking concepts into domain- and task-specific forms. This book fills the gap between divergent-thinking theory and more recent, modular conceptions of creativity. Rather than advocate that we simply discard divergent thinking -- an approach that hasn't worked, or at least hasn't happened, because of many attacks on its validity and usefulness -- this book shows how to separate what is useful in divergent-thinking theory and practice from what is not. It shows that divergent-thinking training can be valuable, although often not for the reasons trainers think it works. And it offers specific suggestions about the kinds of creativity research most needed today.
This edition of the "Handbook" follows the first edition by 10
years. The earlier edition was a promissory note, presaging the
directions in which the then-emerging field of social cognition was
likely to move. The field was then in its infancy and the areas of
research and theory that came to dominate the field during the next
decade were only beginning to surface. The concepts and methods
used had frequently been borrowed from cognitive psychology and had
been applied to phenomena in a very limited number of areas.
Nevertheless, social cognition promised to develop rapidly into an
important area of psychological inquiry that would ultimately have
an impact on not only several areas of psychology but other fields
as well.
"The book draws on a lot of research, is friendly to the reader, and will be of good value to teachers." Paul Nation, Victoria University of Wellington, Australia This comprehensive, up-to-date, and accessible text on idiom use, learning, and teaching approaches the topic with a balance of sound theory and extensive research in cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, corpus linguistics, and sociolinguistics combined with informed teaching practices. Idioms is organized in three parts:
To assist the reader in grasping the key issues, study questions are provided at the end of each chapter. The text also includes a glossary of special terms and an annotated list of selective idiom reference books and student textbooks. Idioms is designed to serve either as a textbook for ESL/applied linguistics teacher education courses or as a reference book. No matter how the book is used, it will equip an ESL/applied linguistics students and professionals with a solid understanding of various issues related to idioms and the learning of them.
This work explores the psychological theory underlying methods of intervention in cognitive development. The authors, strive to show how the practical expression of such methods can lead to long-term gains in academic achievement in ordinary schools. Within a discussion of various attempts to "teach thinking", the design, delivery and results of the "Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education" (CASE) project are described. Other programmes such as Feuerstein's "Instrumental Enrichment" are also described, to abstract the features of successful intervention programmes. Key implications are also discussed for: teaching methods; the nature of the curriculum; teacher education; and educational policy at school, local and national levels. Having established the distinction between intervention and instruction, the authors go on to show how a population, and the learning demands made upon it, can be described in terms of levels of cognitive delvelopment. The emphasis then turns to how the current profile of thinking in schools can be changed through constructivist and metacognitive strategies.
The major aim of this book is to introduce the ways in which
scientists approach and think about a phenomenon -- hearing -- that
intersects three quite different disciplines: the physics of sound
sources and the propagation of sound through air and other
materials, the anatomy and physiology of the transformation of the
physical sound into neural activity in the brain, and the
psychology of the perception we call hearing. Physics, biology, and
psychology each play a role in understanding how and what we hear.
In this volume, Berkowitz develops the argument that experiential
and behavioral components of an emotional state are affected by
many processes: some are highly cognitive in nature; others are
automatic and involuntary. Cognitive and associative mechanisms
theoretically come into play at different times in the
emotion-cognition sequence. The model he proposes, therefore,
integrates theoretical positions that previously have been
artificially segregated in much of the emotion-cognition
literature.
In this volume leading developmentalists address the question of how children's thinking develops in context by drawing on the theories of Vygotsky, Gibson, and Piaget. Analyses of the ecology and the dynamics of behavior have become popular, emphasizing the particulars of people acting in specific environments and the many complex factors of human body and mind that contribute to action and thought. This volume brings together many of the current efforts to deal with development in this richly ecological, dynamic way. The research reported demonstrates that recent years have produced major shifts in approach. Activities are studied as they naturally occur in everyday contexts. Children's active construction of the world around them is treated as fundamentally social in nature, occurring in families, with peers, and in cultures. Behavior is studied not as something disembodied but within a rich matrix of body, emotion, belief, value, and physical world. Behavior is analyzed as changing dynamically, not only over seconds and minutes, but over hours, days, and years.
This book explores the history and continuing relevance of melancholia as an amorphous but richly suggestive theme in literature, music, and visual culture, as well as philosophy and the history of ideas. Inspired by Albrecht Durer's engraving Melencolia I (1514)-the first visual representation of artistic melancholy-this volume brings together contributions by scholars from a variety of disciplines. Topics include: Melencolia I and its reception; how melancholia inhabits landscapes, soundscapes, figures and objects; melancholia in medical and psychological contexts; how melancholia both enables and troubles artistic creation; and Sigmund Freud's essay "Mourning and Melancholia" (1917).
The surge of contemporary interest in Vygotsky's contribution to
child psychology has focused largely on his developmental method
and his claim that higher psychological functions in the individual
emerge out of social processes, that is, his notion of the "zone of
proximal development." Insufficient attention has been given to his
claim that human social and psychological processes are shaped by
cultural tools or mediational means. This book is one of the most
important documents for understanding this claim.
As in recent years, a thematic concept was selected over a general
one for the 26th annual Minnesota Symposium on Child Psychology. In
this case the relation between memory and affect was targeted for
two reasons. The first concerned the a priori theoretical relation
between these content areas. The second concerned the observation
that memory and affect have historically been studied as separate
content areas--an unfortunate decision considering the potential of
each area to inform the other. To redress this, investigators
working on the "relation" between memory and affect were
identified. Their presentations are also anchored by one or two
presentations on either memory or affect. Those familiar with the
broader domain of developmental psychology will readily identify
this volume in the series as filling the void left by the lack of
integration across domains of study.
Much work has been done on cognitive processes and creativity, but
there is another half to the picture of creativity -- the affect
half. This book addresses that other half by synthesizing the
information that exists about affect and creativity and presenting
a new model of the role of affect in the creative process. Current
information comes from disparate literatures, research traditions,
and theoretical approaches. There is a need in the field for a
comprehensive framework for understanding and investigating the
role of affect in creativity. The model presented here spells out
connections between specific affective and cognitive processes
important in creativity, and personality traits associated with
creativity.
Research in cognitive psychology has contributed much to our understanding of reading and spelling. Most of this work has concentrated on the processes used by literate adults to comprehend and produce written language, but there is a growing interest in applying cognitive theories to the development of literacy, and to the understanfing of disorders of reading and writing. Such disorders may be acquired as a consequence of a brain injury to a previously literate adult, or may be developmental, occurring in otherwise normal children.; This textbook attempts to present this work to a non-specialist audience. Though written primarily with students of psychology and education in mind, it is accessible also to parents and teachers.; The broad organization of the first edition is retained. The book opens with a consideration of the history and nature of writing, then moves on to deal with the nature of skilled reading. Other chapters deal with: the different ways that brain injury in adulthood can disrupt the mature reading skill the "acquired dyslexias"; spelling and writing processes, both in skilled writers and in patients with "acquired dysgraphia"; the way children develop the skills of reading and writing; and developmental reading and writing problems.
This book brings together psychometric, cognitive science, policy,
and content domain perspectives on new approaches to educational
assessment -- in particular, constructed response, performance
testing, and portfolio assessment. These new assessment approaches
-- a full range of alternatives to traditional multiple-choice
tests -- are useful in all types of large-scale testing programs,
including educational admissions, school accountability, and
placement. This book's multi-disciplinary perspective identifies
the potential advantages and pitfalls of these new assessment
forms, as well as the critical research questions that must be
addressed if these assessment methods are to benefit
education.
The current popularity of such phrases as "information age" and "information society" suggests thatlinks between information, communication, and: behavior have become closer and more complex in a technology-dominated culture. Social scientists have adopted an integrated approach to these concepts, opening up new theoretical perspectives on the media, social psychology, personal relationships, group process, international diplomacy, and consumer behavior. Between Communication and Information maps out a richly interdisciplinary approach to this development, offering innovative research and advancing our understanding of integrative frameworks. This fourth volume in the series reflects recently established lines of research as well as the continuing interest in basic areas of communications theory and practice. In Part I contributors explore the junction between communication and information from various theoretical perspectives, delving into the multilayered relationship between the two phenomena. Cross-disciplinary approaches in the fields of etymology and library science are presented in the second section. Part III. brings together case studies that examine the interaction of information and communication at individual and group levels; information exchanges between doctors and patients, children and computers, journalists and electronic news sources are analyzed in depth. The concluding segment focuses on large social contexts in which the interaction of communication and information affects the evolution of institutions and culture. Between Information and Communication both extends and challenges current thinking on the mutually supporting interplay of information and human behavior. It will be of interest to sociologists, media analysts, and communication specialists.
This book examines two questions: Do people make use of abstract rules such as logical and statistical rules when making inferences in everyday life? Can such abstract rules be changed by training? Contrary to the spirit of reductionist theories from behaviorism to connectionism, there is ample evidence that people do make use of abstract rules of inference -- including rules of logic, statistics, causal deduction, and cost-benefit analysis. Such rules, moreover, are easily alterable by instruction as it occurs in classrooms and in brief laboratory training sessions. The fact that purely formal training can alter them and that those taught in one content domain can "escape" to a quite different domain for which they are also highly applicable shows that the rules are highly abstract. The major implication for cognitive science is that people are capable of operating with abstract rules even for concrete, mundane tasks; therefore, any realistic model of human inferential capacity must reflect this fact. The major implication for education is that people can be far more broadly influenced by training than is generally supposed. At high levels of formality and abstraction, relatively brief training can alter the nature of problem-solving for an infinite number of content domains.
This volume features the complete text of all regular papers,
posters, and summaries of symposia presented at the 14th annual
meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
The idea for this volume took root during a recent annual
convention of the American Psychological Association. The
contributors share a common vision of research in their particular
area and have had an opportunity to debate and clarify their ideas.
Taken as a whole, the fifteen chapters provide an exciting
perspective of the field and form a basic set of readings for
courses on individual and group decision making in a variety of
disciplines. The coverage from basic laboratory research to complex
applied group decision processes should challenge researchers and
students to pursue the field of decision making as enthusiastic
scientists and practitioners.
The fact that cognitive psychology has become largely concerned
with a handful of laboratory tasks has brought expressions of
concern and suggestions about how to place the field on a more
solid footing. The view expressed here, however, is that the
classic cognitive paradigms have become fascinating puzzles on
which some of the best minds in the field have labored. An
examination of the development of research in these areas yields
many examples of the scientific method at its most sophisticated,
as well as impressive examples of how theories and data can
interact. Covering the whole temporal range of memory experiences,
this volume provides a review of the major paradigms that have been
used by experimental psychologists to study human memory.
The modern study of cognition finds itself with two widely endorsed
but seemingly incongruous theoretical paradigms. The first of
these, inspired by formal logic and the digital computer, sees
reasoning in the principled manipulation of structured symbolic
representations. The second, inspired by the physiology of the
brain, sees reasoning as the behavior that emerges from the direct
interactions found in large networks of simple processing
components. Each paradigm has its own accomplishments, problems,
methodology, proponents, and agenda.
These two volumes consist of chapters written by students and
colleagues of W.K. Estes. The books' contributors -- themselves
eminent figures in the field -- reflect on Estes' sweeping
contributions to mathematical as well as cognitive and experimental
psychology. As indicated by their titles, Volume I features
mathematical and theoretical essays, and Volume II presents
cognitive and experimental essays. Both volumes contain insightful
literature reviews as well as descriptions of exciting new
theoretical and empirical advances. Many of the essays also
incorporate personal reminiscences reflecting the authors' fond
affection for their illustrious mentor.
Vocal Traditions: Training in the Performing Arts explores the 18 most influential voice training techniques and methodologies of the past 100 years. This extensive international collection highlights historically important voice teachers, contemporary leaders in the field, and rising schools of thought. Each vocal tradition showcases its instructional perspective, offering backgrounds on the founder(s), key concepts, example exercises, and further resources. The text's systematic approach allows a unique pedagogical evaluation of the vast voice training field, which not only includes university and conservatory training but also private session and workshop coaching as well. Covering a global range of voice training systems, this book will be of interest to those studying voice, singing, speech, and accents, as well as researchers from the fields of communication, music education, and performance. This book was originally published as a series in the Voice and Speech Review journal.
Grounded in the user-centered design movement, this book offers a broad consideration of how our civilization has evolved its technical infrastructure for human purpose to help us make sense of the contemporary world of information infrastructure and online existence. The author incorporates historical, cultural and aesthetic approaches to situating information and its underlying technologies across time in the collective, lived experiences of humanity. In today's digital information world, user experience is vital to the success of any product or service. Yet as the user population expands to include us all, designing for people who vary in skills, abilities, preferences and backgrounds is challenging. This book provides an integrated understanding of users, and the methods that have evolved to identify usability challenges, that can facilitate cohesive and earlier solutions. The book treats information creation and use as a core human behavior based on acts of representation and recording that humans have always practiced. It suggests that the traditional ways of studying information use, with their origins in the distinct layers of social science theories and models is limiting our understanding of what it means to be an information user and hampers our efforts at being truly user-centric in design. Instead, the book offers a way of integrating the knowledge base to support a richer view of use and users in design education and evaluation. Understanding Users is aimed at those studying or practicing user-centered design and anyone interested in learning how people might be better integrated in the design of new technologies to augment human capabilities and experiences.
Arising out of consultations under the auspices of the Centre for the Study of the Christian Church, this book examines the Church of England's decision to ordain women to the priesthood and to make pastoral provision for those opposed. It attempts to discover and define the theological principles underlying both the ordination of women and the determination of the Church to maintain communion when these developments provoke fundamental disagreements.
This book's two primary objectives are to present theory and
research on the role of learners' achievement-related perceptions
in educational contexts and to discuss the implications of this
research for educational practices. Although contributors share the
view that students' perceptions exert important effects in
achievement settings, they differ in diverse ways including their
theoretical orientation, their choice of research methodology, the
perceptions they believe are of primary importance, and the
antecedents and consequences of these perceptions. They discuss the
current status of their ideas and provide a forward look at
research and practice. |
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