Luciano Floridi presents a book that will set the agenda for the philosophy of information. PI is the philosophical field concerned with (1) the critical investigation of the conceptual nature and basic principles of information, including its dynamics, utilisation, and sciences, and (2) the elaboration and application of information-theoretic and computational methodologies to philosophical problems. This book lays down, for the first time, the conceptual foundations for this new area of research. It does so systematically, by pursuing three goals. Its metatheoretical goal is to describe what the philosophy of information is, its problems, approaches, and methods. Its introductory goal is to help the reader to gain a better grasp of the complex and multifarious nature of the various concepts and phenomena related to information. Its analytic goal is to answer several key theoretical questions of great philosophical interest, arising from the investigation of semantic information.

This Monograph formulates a comprehensive theoretical system that integrates information processing, individual differences, and developmental approaches to the study of the mind. Supporting this system is a longitudinal study that explores relations among information processing efficiency, working memory, and thinking of children 8 to 16 years of age. Results demonstrate that how efficiently one processes information is the main factor underlying the development of working memory. Working memory itself is the main factor underlying individual differences in thinking. Moreover, the study revealed the existence of alternative development pathways. For some cognitive development proceeds at a fast and stable rate; for other the rate is fast and unstable; and for others it is slow and stable. These individual differences in the development depend upon the dynamic combination of the conditions of processing efficiency, working memory, and thinking.

This book shows how language can be used strategically to manipulate beliefs.From Machiavelli to P. T. Barnum to Donald Trump, many have perfected the art of strategically using language to gain the upper hand, set a tone, change the subject, or influence people's beliefs and behaviors. Language--both words themselves and rhetorical tactics such as metaphor, irony, slang, and humor--can effectively manipulate the minds of the listener. In this book, Marcel Danesi, a renowned linguistic anthropologist and semiotician, looks at language that is used not to present arguments logically or rationally, but to "move" audiences in order to gain their confidence and build consensus. He demonstrates that through language techniques communicators can not only sway opinions but also shape listeners' very perception of reality. He assesses how the communicative environment in which the art of the lie unfolds--such as on social media or in emotionally-charged gatherings--impacts the results.Danesi also investigates why lies are often accepted as valid. Artful lying fits in with an Internet society that is largely disinterested in what is true and what is false and in which attention is often given to speech that is entertaining or persuasive. Have we become immune to lies because of a social media discourse shaped by untruths? In an electronic age where facts are deemed irrelevant and conspiracies are accorded as much credibility as truths, this book discusses the implications of lying and language for the future of belief, ethics, and American democracy itself.

Cognitive Analytic Therapy and Later Life highlights that any attempt to work psychotherapeutically with older people must take into account the effects of working within a context of institutional ageism. It explores the specialist skills required when working with older people, covering: the delayed effects of early trauma; narcissism and the re-emergence of borderline traits and dissociative states; the emergence of treatment resistant depression and anxiety; the use of the Cognitive Analytic Therapy model to challenge the child centred paradigm of psychoanalytic theory. Clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, nurses, social workers, and occupational therapists alike will find this an illuminating and thought provoking book.

Cognitive Analytic Therapy and Later Life highlights that any attempt to work psychotherapeutically with older people must take into account the effects of working within a context of institutional ageism. It explores the specialist skills required when working with older people, covering: * the delayed effects of early trauma * narcissism and the re-emergence of borderline traits and dissociative states * the emergence of treatment resistant depression and anxiety * the use of the cognitive analytic therapy model to challenge the child centred paradigm of psychoanalytic theory. Clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, nurses, social workers, and occupational therapists alike will find this an illuminating and thought provoking book.

Designed for educators, researchers, practitioners, or anyone interested in maximizing human potential, Motivation for Learning and Performance outlines 50 key motivation principles based on the latest scientific evidence from the disciplines of psychology, education, business, athletics, and neurology. Using a highly applied and conversational style, the book is designed to inform the reader about how to diagnosis, analyze, and mediate learning and performance challenges influenced by motivation. The book features chapters on the biopsychology of motivation, how motivation changes across the lifespan, and the important influence of culture on motivated behavior. Three chapters are devoted to practical strategies and the implementation of motivational change. Special sections are included on enhancing motivation at work, in the classroom, in competitive environments, and during online education. Hoffman employs the innovative approach of using his interviews with "real" people including many notable personalities across diverse cultures and disciplines to illustrate motivated behavior. For example, readers will learn what motivated the colossal investment fraud masterminded by Bernie Madoff, the intimate thoughts of former NFL superstar Nick Lowery when he missed a field goal, and the joys and tribulations of Emmy-nominated "Curb your Enthusiasm" actress Cheryl Hines. The book provides a practical, applied, and multi-disciplinary resource for anyone interested in motivation and performance, but especially for university students at the graduate or undergraduate level studying education, psychology, business, leadership, hospitality, sports management, or military science. Additionally, the writing style and eclectic nature of the text will appeal to readers of non-fiction who can use the book to gain self-awareness to enhance performance of themselves or others.

This special issue collects enhanced and extended versions of papers that were presented at the Symposium on Spatial Vagueness, Uncertainty, and Granularity held in October 2001. The contributions examine fundamental problems in the analysis of spatial vagueness and uncertainty, and the editors hope this selection stimulates further investigation in this growing subfield of the theory of spatial information.

In this Monograph, knowledge acquisition is examined as a process involving the coordination of existing theories with new evidence. Central to the present work is the claim that strategies of knowledge acquisition may vary significantly across (as well as within) individuals and can be conceptualized within a developmental framework.

This book provides a thrilling description of preliterate children's developing ideas about writing and numerals, and it illustrates well the many ways in which cultural artifacts influence the mind and vice versa. Remarkably, children treat writing and numerals as distinct even before they have received any formal training on the topic, and well before they learn how to use writing to represent messages and numerals to represent quantities.
In this revolutionary new book, Liliana Tolchinsky argues that preliterate children's experiences with writing and numerals play an essential and previously unsuspected role in children's subsequent development. In this view, learning notations, such as writing is not just a matter of acquiring new instruments for communicating existing knowledge. Rather, there is a continual interaction between children's understanding of the features of a notational system and their understanding of the corresponding domain of knowledge. The acquisition of an alphabetic writing system transforms children's view of language, and the acquisition of a formal system of enumeration transforms children's understanding of numbers.
Written in an engaging narrative style, and richly illustrated with historical examples, case studies, and charming descriptions of children's behavior, this book is aimed not only at cognitive scientists, but also at educators, parents, and anyone interested in how children develop in a cultural context.

Appropriate as a textbook for graduate courses, "The Evolution and Function of Cognition" provides a systematic and progressively inclusive integration of the facts and principles of cognitive psychology. It includes contributions of information processing and reaction, and emphasizes historical continuity. In addition, the book shows how evolutionary psychology fits in with the mainstream of thought in psychological theory.
"The Evolution and Function of Cognition" will benefit scholars and researchers interested in the general topics of evolutionary psychology and cognitive science.

This book provides a thrilling description of preliterate children's developing ideas about writing and numerals, and it illustrates well the many ways in which cultural artifacts influence the mind and vice versa. Remarkably, children treat writing and numerals as distinct even before they have received any formal training on the topic, and well before they learn how to use writing to represent messages and numerals to represent quantities.

In this revolutionary new book, Liliana Tolchinsky argues that preliterate children's experiences with writing and numerals play an essential and previously unsuspected role in children's subsequent development. In this view, learning notations, such as writing is not just a matter of acquiring new instruments for communicating existing knowledge. Rather, there is a continual interaction between children's understanding of the features of a notational system and their understanding of the corresponding domain of knowledge. The acquisition of an alphabetic writing system transforms children's view of language, and the acquisition of a formal system of enumeration transforms children's understanding of numbers.

Written in an engaging narrative style, and richly illustrated with historical examples, case studies, and charming descriptions of children's behavior, this book is aimed not only at cognitive scientists, but also at educators, parents, and anyone interested in how children develop in a cultural context.

What is thought and how does one come to study and understand it? How does the mind work? Does cognitive science explain all the mysteries of the brain? This collection of fourteen original essays from some of the top sociologists in the country, including Eviatar Zerubavel, Diane Vaughan, Paul Dimaggio and Gary Alan Fine, among others, opens a dialogue between cognitive science and cultural sociology, encouraging a new network of scientific collaboration and stimulating new lines of social scientific research.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203904702

Previous experimental research has suggested that chimpanzees may understand some of the epitemological aspects of visual perception, such as how the perceptual act of seeing can have internal mental consequences for an individual's state of knowledge. Other research suggests that chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates may understand visual perception at a simpler level; that is, they may at least understand seeing as a mental event that subjectively anchors organisms to the external world. However, these results are ambiguous and are open to several interpretations. In this Monograph, we report the results of 15 studies that were conducted with chimpanzees and preschool children to explore their knowledge about visual perception.

Infant Development is written by British and North American infancy researchers. The Chapters are organised along conventional lines in sections which cover perceptual, cognitive and social development, relating new findings on infant perception to both old and new accounts of cognitive development. Links are also drawn between these topics and the development of social interaction and language. Attention is given to both traditional approaches such as Piagetian theory, and more recent approaches such as direct perception and dynamic systems theory. There is also a chapter devoted to interpreting infant development from a psychoanalytic perspective

eBook available with sample pages: 0203800893

Cognitive therapy (CT), developed by Aaron Beck in the US in the 1960s, is a structured, time-limited, problem-focused and research-based system of psychotherapy which seeks to identify, examine and modify clients? maladaptive thinking found in psychological disorders such as depression and anxiety. The vast literature on CT can appear overwhelming to those interested in practising this therapy. To address this issue, this book serves as an introduction to CT and demonstrates this approach in action. In this book, the reader will find: Key Features of CT theory and practice examinedPresentation of a case example from assessment to treatment and termination of therapyWays to elicit and tackle negative automatic thoughts and underlying beliefsImportant points to consider in the design, negotiation and review of homework assignmentsTypical client and therapist difficulties in therapy addressed

This groundbreaking work rethinks the relationship between psychology, cognitive neuroscience and anthropology and offers a new way of understanding the human condition.

What is thought and how does one come to study and understand it? How does the mind work? Does cognitive science explain all the mysteries of the brain? This collection of fourteen original essays from some of the top sociologists in the country, including Eviatar Zerubavel, Diane Vaughan, Paul Dimaggio and Gary Alan Fine, among others, opens a dialogue between cognitive science and cultural sociology, encouraging a new network of scientific collaboration and stimulating new lines of social scientific research. Rather than considering thought as just an individual act, Culture in Mind considers it in a social and cultural context. Provocatively, this suggests that our thoughts do not function in a vacuum: our minds are not alone. Covering such diverse topics as the nature of evil, the process of storytelling, defining mental illness, and the conceptualizing of the premature baby, these essays offer fresh insights into the functioning of the mind. Leaving the MRI behind, Culture in Mind will uncover the mysteries of how we think.

Contents:
R.H. Logie, M. Denis, Preface: Imagery, Language and Visuo-spatial Thinking: E Pluribus Unum. D. Pearson, R. De Beni, C. Cornoldi, The Generation, Maintenance, and Transformation of Visuo-spatial Mental Images. T. Vecchi, L.H. Phillips, C. Cornoldi, Individual Differences in Visuo-spatial Working Memory. J. Engelkamp, H.D. Zimmer, M. de Vega, Pictures in Memory: The Role of Visual-imaginal Information. O.H. Turnbull, M. Denis, E. Mellet, O. Ghaëm, D.P. Carey, The Processing of Visuo- spatial Information: Neuropsychological and Neuroimaging Investigations. M. de Vega, M. Cocude, M. Denis, M.J. Rodrigo, H.D. Zimmer, The Interface between Language and Visuo-spatial Representations. M. Denis, M.-P. Daniel, S. Fontaine, F. Pazzaglia, Language, Spatial Cognition, and Navigation. R.H. Logie, J. Engelkamp, D. Dehn, S. Rudkin, Actions, Mental Actions, and Working Memory.

This text covers topical areas in the mind-body problem. It shows how the problem has changed from the earlier theories of reduction to the dominant empirical cases for materialism. The author puts forward the argument that most positions are overdrawn, and that most hard-line views about materialism and dualism are unfounded. The various debates surrounding the mind-body problem, including visual experience, consciousness, content and reason, reliabilism and the problem of zombies and ghosts are also analyzed. The book should appeal to those interested in epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and cognitive science

"Organizational Cognition" is a collection of chapters written by scholars from around the world. The editors outline the history of two approaches to the study of cognition in organizations, the computational approach and the interpretive approach. The chapters represent some of the most cutting-edge research on organizational cognition, covering research that spans many levels of analysis. Much of the work in the book demonstrates how computational and interpretive approaches can be combined in a way that provides greater insight into cognitive processes in and among organizations. The editors conclude by elaborating the likely boundary conditions of each approach and how they can be combined for a more complete understanding of cognition in organizations.

Approaching the topic from a social psychological viewpoint, this book provides a forum for some currently active theorists to provide concise descriptions of their models in a way that addresses four of the most central issues in the field: How does affect influence memory, judgment, information processing, and creativity? Each presentation includes a concise description of the theory's underlying assumptions, an application of these assumptions to the four central issues, and some answers to questions posed by the other theorists.
Thus, in one volume, the reader is presented with a single authoritative source for current theories of affect and information processing and is given a chance to "listen in" on a conversation among the theorists in the form of questions and answers related to each theory. Students and researchers alike will benefit from the clarity and brevity of this volume.

Approaching the topic from a social psychological viewpoint, this book provides a forum for some currently active theorists to provide concise descriptions of their models in a way that addresses four of the most central issues in the field: How does affect influence memory, judgment, information processing, and creativity? Each presentation includes a concise description of the theory's underlying assumptions, an application of these assumptions to the four central issues, and some answers to questions posed by the other theorists.
Thus, in one volume, the reader is presented with a single authoritative source for current theories of affect and information processing and is given a chance to "listen in" on a conversation among the theorists in the form of questions and answers related to each theory. Students and researchers alike will benefit from the clarity and brevity of this volume.

Spotting a face in a crowd is so easy, you take it for granted. But how you do it is one of science's great mysteries. Vision is involved in nearly a third of everything a brain does and explaining how it works reveals more than just how we see. It also tells us how the brain processes information - how it perceives, learns and remembers. In We Know It When We See It, pioneering neuroscientist Richard Masland covers everything from what happens when light hits your retina, to the increasingly sophisticated nerve nets that turn that light into knowledge, to what a computer algorithm must be able to do before it can truly be called 'intelligent'. It is a profound yet accessible investigation into how our bodies make sense of the world.

Matters of Mind examines the mind-body problem. It offers a chapter by chapter analysis of debates surrounding the problem, including visual experience, consciousness and the problem of Zombies and Ghosts. It will prove invaluable for those interested in epistemology, philosophy of mind and cognitive science.

Since the publication of the first edition of "Computers as Cognitive Tools" in 1993, rapid changes have taken place in the uses of technology for educational purposes and in the theories underlying such uses. Changes in perspectives on thinking and learning are guiding the instructional design of computer-based learning environments.
"Computers as Cognitive Tools, Volume II: No More Walls" provides examples of state-of-the-art technology-based research in the field of education and training. These examples are theory-driven and reflect the learning paradigms that are currently in use in cognitive science. The learning theories, which consider the nature of individual learning, as well as how knowledge is constructed in social situations, include information processing, constructivism, and situativity. Contributors to this volume demonstrate some variability in their choice of guiding learning paradigms. This allows readers the opportunity to examine how such paradigms are operationalized and validated.
An array of instructional and assessment approaches are described, along with new techniques for automating the design and assessment process. New considerations are offered as possibilities for examining learning in distributed situations. A multitude of subject matter areas are covered, including scientific reasoning and inquiry in biology, physics, medicine, electricity, teacher education, programming, and hypermedia composition in the social sciences and ecology.
This volume reconsiders the initial camp analogy posited in 1993 edition of "Computers as Cognitive Tools," and presents a mechanism for breaking camp to find new summits.