Although complex problem solving has emerged as a field of psychology in its own right, the literature is, for the most part, widely scattered, and often so technical that it is inaccessible to non-experts. This unique book provides a comprehensive, in-depth, and accessible introduction to the field of complex problem solving. Chapter authors -- experts in their selected domains -- deliver systematic, thought-provoking analyses generally written from an information-processing point of view. Areas addressed include politics, electronics, and computers.

This compelling book provides one of the most comprehensive and detailed evaluations of a very popular cognitive skills course -- Reuven Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment Programme. Feuerstein claims that his program, a model for diagnosing and remedying cognitive deficiencies in poor attainers, can equip pupils with the basic prerequisites of thinking, thereby enabling them to become more effective learners. Combining innovative and traditional experimental techniques, this text analyzes both teacher and pupil outcomes on a wide range of issues including abilities, accomplishments, and behavioral characteristics. The implications of the study are set against theoretical and practical issues involved in other popular intellectual skills training programs. "Real world" concerns that have been largely ignored by research literature are addressed, as are their effects on the teaching of thinking skills.

The long-held belief that acquired aphasia in children is primarily of the non-fluent type has been challenged in recent years. It is also now apparent that children with acquired aphasia have a number of features in common with developmental language-learning disabilities, especially if the linguistic deficits persist long-term. Consequently, in addition to discussing language problems arising from cerebro-vascular accidents occurring in childhood, detailed discussion of each of the childhood linguistic deficits caused by other aetiologies, including head injury infections, cerebral anoxia, neural tube defects, brain tumours and metabolic disorders is presented in this book.

This important volume examines the phenomena of cognition from an adaptive perspective. Rather than adhering to the typical practice in cognitive psychology of trying to predict behavior from a model of cognitive mechanisms, this book develops a number of models that successfully predict behavior from the structure of the environment to which cognition is adapted. The methodology -- called rational analysis -- involves specifying the information-processing goals of the system, the structure of the environment, and the computational constraints on the system, allowing predictions about behavior to be made by determining what behavior would be optimal under these assumptions. "The Adaptive Character of Thought" applies this methodology in great detail to four cognitive phenomena: memory, categorization, causal inference, and problem solving.

Comprehension Processes in Reading addresses the interrelationship among several areas relevant to understanding how people comprehend text. The contributors focus on the on-line processes associated with text understanding rather than simply with the product of that comprehension -- what people remember from reading. Presenting the latest theories and research findings from a distinguished group of contributors, Comprehension Processes in Reading is divided into four major sections. Each section, concluding with a commentary chapter, discusses a different aspect of reader understanding or dysfunction such as individual word comprehension, sentence parsing, text comprehension, and comprehension failures and dyslexia .

Comprehension Processes in Reading addresses the interrelationship among several areas relevant to understanding how people comprehend text. The contributors focus on the on-line processes associated with text understanding rather than simply with the product of that comprehension -- what people remember from reading. Presenting the latest theories and research findings from a distinguished group of contributors, Comprehension Processes in Reading is divided into four major sections. Each section, concluding with a commentary chapter, discusses a different aspect of reader understanding or dysfunction such as individual word comprehension, sentence parsing, text comprehension, and comprehension failures and dyslexia .

This textbook is designed to enhance the thinking and writing skills that students need for both academic and occupational success. It helps to prepare students for the verbal portions of the SAT, PSAT, ACT, GED, and GRE and offers tips on how to pass writing tests often required for promotion/graduation and on-the- job writing assignments.

First published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A presentation of current work that systematically explores and articulates the nature, origin and development of reasoning, this volume's primary aim is to describe and examine contemporary theory and research findings on the topic of deductive reasoning. Many contributors believe concepts such as "structure," "competence," and "mental logic" are necessary features for a complete understanding of reasoning. As the book emanates from a Jean Piaget Symposium, his theory of intellectual development as the standard contemporary treatment of deductive reasoning is used as the context in which the contributors elaborate on their own perceptions.

In Volume 3, Eliot R. Smith of Purdue University proposes that social cognition theorists have placed excessive emphasis on the role of schemata, prototypes, and various other types of abstractions. This has affected both the methodologies they use and the type of theories they construct. What has not been adequately appreciated is the storage and retrieval of specific episodes, especially those with idiosyncratic features. This volume s designed as a required text for those studying personality, experimental and consumer psychology, cognitive science, and communications.

This book presents a theory of learning new causal relationships by making use of perceived regularities in the environment, general knowledge of causality, and existing causal knowledge. Integrating ideas from the psychology of causation and machine learning, the author introduces a new learning procedure called theory-driven learning that uses abstract knowledge of causality to guide the induction process.
Known as OCCAM, the system uses theory-driven learning when new experiences conform to common patterns of causal relationships, empirical learning to learn from novel experiences, and explanation-based learning when there is sufficient existing knowledge to explain why a new outcome occurred. Together these learning methods construct a hierarchical organized memory of causal relationships. As such, OCCAM is the first learning system with the ability to acquire, via empirical learning, the background knowledge required for explanation-based learning.
Please note: This program runs on common lisp.

Compiled as a result of the Thirteenth Symposium of the Association for Attention and Performance, this collection focuses on the Symposium's theme: Organization of Action. The book is arranged in sections which provide a comprehensive view of the main issues raised during the meeting. Several aspects of the theme were considered, including: the anatomical and physiological constraints on motor preparation and execution . the influence of control (proprioceptive, cutaneous, visual, oculomotor) signals the contribution of kinematics to the understanding of the underlying mechanisms and the role of cognitive constraints such as attention or learning in goal selection This new volume is of particular interest to professionals and researchers in cognitive psychology, physiology, and neuropsychology as well as those studying motor skills.

This volume critically reviews cognitive models of psychological time in order to clarify and enrich what is known about the temporal aspects of cognitive processes. Concentrating on how adult humans experience, remember, and construct time, chapters survey recent work on such topics as mental representations of time, timing in movement sequences, time and timing in music, and the processing of temporal information. Also included are chapters with a broader perspective, such as the impacts of methodological choices, chronobiology and temporal experience, a comparative approach to time and order, and normal and abnormal temporal perspectives. The book makes current research and theories on the psychology of time more accessible to researchers in cognitive psychology.

The first comprehensive theoretical formulation of the way people use information they receive about their social environments to make judgments and behavioral decisions, this volume focuses on the cognitive processes that underlie the use of social information. These include initial interpretation, the representations used to make inferences, and the transformation of these subjective inferences into overt judgment and behavior. In addition, it specifies the role of affect and emotion in information processing, and the role of self-knowledge at different stages of processing. The theoretical model presented here is the first to provide a conceptual integration of existing theory and research in all phases of social information processing. It not only accounts for the major portion of existing research findings, but permits several hypotheses to be generated concerning phenomena that have not yet been empirically investigated. Although focused here on the processing of information about people and events, the formulation proposed has implications for other domains such as personnel appraisal, political decision making, and consumer behavior.

This unique two-volume set provides detailed coverage of contemporary learning theory. Uniting leading experts in modern behavioral theory, these texts give students a complete view of the field. Volume I details the complexities of Pavlovian conditioning and describes the current status of traditional learning theories. Volume II discusses several important facets of instrumental conditioning and presents comprehensive coverage of the role of inheritance on learning. A strong and complete base of knowledge concerning learning theories, these volumes are ideal reference sources for advanced students and professionals in experimental psychology, learning and learning theory, and comparative physiology.

The contributors to this collection focus on the cognitive processes that take place during the initial acquisition of information about others (on-line processes) rather than later when memory processes begin playing a dominant role (memory-based processes). Utilizing the methods and concepts of social cognition, the book illustrates how the study of on-line cognition can further our understanding of person perception. "On-Line Cognition in Person Perception" also examines the special cognitive dynamics that are associated with such processes within the domain of social perception.

This volume compares and contrasts contemporary theories of cognition, modes of perception, and learning from cross-cultural perspectives. The participants were asked to consider and assess the question of whether people from different cultures think differently. Moreover, they were asked to consider whether the same approaches to teaching and development of thinking will work in all cultures as well as they do in Western, literate societies.

Uniting scientists who study music, child language, human psychoacoustics, and animal acoustical communication, this volume examines research on the perception of complex sounds. The contributors' papers focus on finding a common principle from the comparison of the processing of complex acoustic signals. This volume emphasizes the "comparative" and the "complex" in auditory perception. Topics covered range from communication systems in mice, birds, and primates to the perception and processing of language and music by humans.

Using the case study of "Eddie" as his framework, Professor Miller challenges the prevailing notion that musical savants are essentially phenomenal tape recorders and deals with the issue of "idiot savants" in a detailed, empirical investigation. Through "Eddie" the author discusses, in specific and in general, topics including the background and historical context of musical savants; other cases; data regarding the nature of the skills exhibited and the associated developmental deficits; and descriptions of a series of experiments used to define Eddie's talent. Finally, the author considers more general issues raised by savant behavior, particularly functions served by savant behavior, theories regarding its etiology, and its role in general development.

Uniting scientists who study music, child language, human psychoacoustics, and animal acoustical communication, this volume examines research on the perception of complex sounds. The contributors' papers focus on finding a common principle from the comparison of the processing of complex acoustic signals. This volume emphasizes the "comparative" and the "complex" in auditory perception. Topics covered range from communication systems in mice, birds, and primates to the perception and processing of language and music by humans.

Researching Creativity in Second Language Acquisition explains the links between creativity and second language learning and how to propel the research of creativity as an individual difference in second language acquisition forward at multiple levels. It features an array of sample research questions and methods for student and professional researchers, ranging from simple projects that can be executed from start to finish in 15 weeks all the way to multi-year project guidelines for more advanced scholars with additional time and resources. It also features in-class and out-of-class activity suggestions that will reinforce concepts in fun and creative ways. Using this book as a guide will save researchers time and effort in designing and executing their next projects as well as save instructors time in class planning. This book will be an invaluable resource to students and researchers of SLA, applied linguistics, TESOL, and psychology.

This book responds to recent debates on cultural participation and the relevancy of music composed today with the first large-scale audience experience study on contemporary classical music. Through analysing how existing audience members experience live contemporary classical music, this book seeks to make data-informed contributions to future discussions on audience diversity and accessibility. The author takes a multidimensional view of audience experience, looking at how sociodemographic factors and the frames of social context and concert format shape aesthetic responses and experiences in the concert hall. The book presents quantitative and qualitative audience data collected at twelve concerts in ten different European countries, analysing general trends alongside case studies. It also offers the first large-scale comparisons between the concert experiences and tastes of contemporary classical and classical music audiences. Contemporary classical music is critically discussed as a 'high art subculture' rife with contradictions and conflicts around its cultural value. This book sheds light on how audiences negotiate the tensions between experimentalism and accessibility that currently define this genre. It provides insights relevant to academics from audience research in the performing arts and from musicology, as well as to institutions, practitioners, and artists.

Linguistic Morphology is a unique collection of cutting-edge research in the psycholinguistics of morphology, offering a comprehensive overview of this interdisciplinary field. This book brings together world-leading experts from linguisics, experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience to examine morphology research from different disciplines. It provides an overview of how the brain deals with complex words; examining how they are easier to read, how they affect our brain dynamics and eye movements, how they mould the acquisition of language and literacy, and how they inform computational models of the linguistic brain. Chapters discuss topics ranging from subconscious visual identification to the high-level processing of sentences, how children make their first steps with complex words through to how proficient adults make lexical identification in less than 40 milliseconds. As a state-of-the-art resource in morphology research, this book will be highly relevant reading for students and researchers of linguistics, psychology and cognitive neuroscience. It will also act as a one-stop shop for experts in the field.

Examining the Psychological Foundations of Science and Morality is a progressive text that explores the relationship between psychology, science and morality, to address fundamental questions about the foundations of psychological research and its relevance for the development of these disciplines. Supported by original empirical evidence, the book analyses the relationship of folk psychology to rational knowledge, outlining an original theory that connects psychology and natural sciences through the mind which creates a psychological foundation for scientific knowledge and morality. It argues that science and religion have a common psychological core of subjective experience, which diversifies into knowledge, beliefs and morality. The book considers how subjective space and time are converted into physical space and time, and how subjective 'sense of causation' is shaped into physical causality and human communication. Further, it explores the mind as a complex system of contrasting realities, with the main function being existence attribution (EXON). The chapters delve into a range of topics including theoretical analysis of consciousness, the internal self, unexplainable phenomena, analysis of empirical research into causality, morality and the mind. The book will be of great interest to postgraduate and upper-level undergraduate students studying foundations of psychology, consciousness, philosophy of science, morality, as well as professionals who deal with influence on mass consciousness or are interested in the link between human psychology, scientific knowledge and morality.