Reason and Nature investigates the norms of reason--the standards which contribute to determining whether beliefs, inferences, and actions are rational. Nine philosophers and two psychologists discuss what kinds of things these norms are, how they can be situated within the natural world, and what role they play in the psychological explanation of belief and action. Current work in the theory of rationality is subject to very diverse influences ranging from experimental and theoretical psychology, through philosophy of logic and language, to metaethics and the theory of practical reasoning; this range is well represented here.

Connectionist Models of Learning, Development and Evolution comprises a selection of papers presented at the Sixth Neural Computation and Psychology Workshop - the only international workshop devoted to connectionist models of psychological phenomena.With a main theme of neural network modelling in the areas of evolution, learning, and development, the papers are organized into six sections:The neural basis of cognitionDevelopment and category learningImplicit learningSocial cognition EvolutionSemanticsCovering artificial intelligence, mathematics, psychology, neurobiology, and philosophy, it will be an invaluable reference work for researchers and students working on connectionist modelling in computer science and psychology, or in any area related to cognitive science.

John Campbell investigates how consciousness of the world explains our ability to think about the world. So your ability to think about objects you can see depends on your capacity for conscious visual attention to those things. Reference and Consciousness illuminates classical problems about thought, reference, and experience by looking at the underlying psychological mechanisms on which conscious attention depends. It is an original and stimulating contribution to philosophy and to cognitive science.

What explains our ability to refer to the objects we perceive? John Cambell argues that our capacity for reference is explained by our capacity to attend selectively to the objects of which we are aware; that this capacity for conscious attention to a perceived object is what provides us with our knowledge of reference. When someone makes a reference to a perceived object, your knowledge of which thing they are talking about is constituted by your consciously attending to the relevant object. Campbell articulates the connections between these three concepts: reference, attention, and consciousness. He looks at the metaphysical conception of the environment demanded by such an account, and at the demands imposed on our conception of consciousness by the point that consciousness of objects is what explains our capacity to think about them. He argues that empirical work on the binding problem can illuminate our grasp of the way in which we have knowledge of reference, supplied by conscious attention to the relevant object.
Reference and Consciousness illuminates fundamental problems about thought, reference, and experience by looking at the underlying psychological mechanisms on which conscious attention depends. It is an original and stimulating contribution to philosophy and cognitive science.

This book provides both a review of the literature and a theoretical framework for understanding the development of visual attention from infancy through early childhood. Taking a functional approach to the topic, the authors discuss the development of the selective and state-related aspects of attention, as well as the emergence of higher-level controls. They also explore the individual differences in these facets of attention, and consider the possible origins of early deficits in attention, which has obvious implications for children with developmental disorders such as attention-deficit hyperactive disorder. These findings will be invaluable to developmental, cognitive, and clinical psychologists and psychiatrists.

Psychological studies of touch and blindness have been fraught with controversy. Within this field there remains an important theoretical divide. Many researchers have taken a cognitive approach to the study of touch and blindness, relating these to higher order processes, such as memory and concept formation. Others adopt a theoretical perspective, arguing that it not necessary to consider the 'internal representation' of the stimuli, when investigating touch - thus people make use of information from the physical biomechanical properties of their limbs as they assess the physical properties of objects. In addition, psychologists differ in the relative importance they place on the modality of sensory stimulation for subsequent perceptual experiences. Some psychologists argue that touch can do many of the things that are accomplished by vision, and claim that the mode of sensory stimulation is not critically important for perception, arguing that much information can be obtained through non-visual modalities. Others suggest that there are important consequences of a lack of visual experience, arguing for the importance of multiple forms of sensory input for conceptual development. New to the Debates in Psychology series, Touch, Representation, and Blindness brings together the leading investigators in these areas, each presenting the evidence for their side of the debate. An introductory chapter sets the theoretical and historical stage for the debate, and a concluding chapter draws together the different views and ideas set forth by the contributors, summarizing and resolving the discussion.

Judgments Under Stress presents a new and exciting approach to understanding the effects of stressful conditions on judgment and decision making -- a topic so important it was addressed in a Congressional Hearing in 1988. Consisting mainly of two parts, the book synthesizes a vast body of cognitive psychology research into an innovative theoretical framework. Part I provides the reader with background in regards to judgment under stress while Part II discusses a new approach to studying it. Author Kenneth Hammond extends his examination from the effects of stress on professional judgments to its effects on moral and political judgments, working out a conceptual framework wholly within a psychological context. The book also includes discussions on sleep deprivation, fatigue, noise, heat, shock, and time pressure. In addition to laboratory experiments, Hammond looks at real life historical events such as Iran Flight 655 and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Judgments Under Stress provides a shrewd analysis of the effects of stress on human rationale, making it ideal for professional psychologists as well as for those interested in political science and social policy.

Starting at the Beginning: Laying the Foundation for Lifelong Mental Health coincides with the 24th International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (IACAPAPA) Congress in Singapore, June 2020. This book examines the determinates of individual differences in children and young people, along with the origins of maladjustment and psychiatric disorders. It addresses the ways in which interventions and mental health services can be developed and shaped to address individual differences among children. Additional topics include environmental hazards and mental health and cultural psychiatry as a basic science for addressing mental health disparities. Chapters dive deeper into anxiety disorders in infants, gaming disorder, the pitfalls of treatment in OCD, and ADHD developmental neuropsychiatry. Another targeted section focuses on policies for child and adolescent mental health, including a review of mental health services in China, Oceania and East Asia.

This book constitutes, together with its compagnion LNCS 1607, the refereed proceedings of the International Work-Conference on Artificial and Natural Neural Networks, IWANN'99, held in Alicante, Spain in June 1999.
The 89 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. This volume is devoted to foundational issues of neural computation and tools for neural modeling. The papers are organized in parts on neural modeling: biophysical and structural models; plasticity phenomena: maturing, learning, and memory; and artificial intelligence and cognitive neuroscience.

Is Ebonics really a dialect or simply bad English? Do women and men speak differently? Will computers ever really learn human language? Does offensive language harm children? These are only a few of the issues surrounding language that crop up every day. Most of us have very definite opinions on these questions one way or another. Yet as linguists Donna Jo Napoli and Vera Lee-Schoenfeld point out in this short and thoroughly readable volume, many of our most deeply held ideas about the nature of language and its role in our lives are either misconceived or influenced by myths and stereotypes.
Language Matters provides a highly informative tour of the world of language, examining these and other vexing and controversial language-related questions. Throughout, Napoli and Lee-Schoenfeld encourage and lead the reader to use common-sense and everyday experience rather than preconceived notions or technical linguistic expertise. Both their questions and their conclusions are surprising, sometimes provocative, and always entertaining.
This thoroughly revised second edition updates the book with a new co-author, and includes new chapters on language and power, language extinction, and what it is linguists actually do. Language Matters is sure to engage both general readers and students of language and linguistics at any level.

As we move around in our environment, and interact with it, many of the most important problems we face involve the processing of spatial information. We have to be able to navigate by perceiving and remembering the locations and orientations of the objects around us relative to ourself; we have to sense and act upon these objects; and we need to move through space to position ourselves in favourable locations or to avoid dangerous ones. While this appears so simple that we don't even think about it, the difficulty of solving these problems has been shown in the repeated failure of artificial systems to perform these kinds of tasks efficiently. In contrast, humans and other animals routinely overcome these problems every single day. This book examines some of the neural substrates and mechanisms that support these remarkable abilities. The hippocampus and the parietal cortex have been implicated in various core spatial behaviours, such as the ability to localise an object and navigate to it. Damage to these areas in humans and animals leads to impairment of these spatial functions. This collection of papers, written by internationally recognized experts in the field, reviews the evidence that each area is involved in spatial cognition, examines the mechanisms underlying the generation of spatial behaviours, and considers the relative roles of the parietal and hippocampal areas, including how each interacts with the other. The papers integrate a wide range of theoretical and experimental approaches, and touch on broader issues relating to memory and imagery. As such, this book represents the state of the art of current research into the neural basis of spatial cognition. It should be of interest to anyone - researchers or graduate students - working in the areas of cognitive neuroscience, neuroanatomy, neuropsychology, and cognition generally.

This book brings together and assesses past and present research on information processing, and formulates a new general model of this entire system. Throughout his discussion, Cowan emphasizes that memory and attention cannot be considered independently and presents new research in psychophysiology, visual perception, cognitive development, and individual differences to support his thesis. This book offers both a review of the literature and a new model, and it will appeal to both the student and the professional interested in memory, attention, and cognitive psychology.

This splendid volume reviews a productive period of research aimed at connecting brain and mind through the use of scalp- recorded brain potentials to chart the temporal course of information processing in the human brain .... The book that Rugg, Coles, and their collaborators have produced can serve both as a summary of where we have been and as a pointer of the way ahead." M Posner Event-related potential (ERP) methodology has long been used in neuroscience to measure electrical activity in the brain. It has become clear, however, that it can be a powerful took in studying and illuminating central psychological issues relating to attention, information, processing, dynamics, memory, and language. Linking this technology to newer imaging techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), it becomes possible to build up a spatial and temporal picture of the brain during the performance of high-level skills. This volume provides strong evidence that cognitive psychology can benefit from the use of brain electrical activity, and will be of great interest to neuroscientists and psychologists alike.

The purpose of this contribution to the Counterpoints series is to compare and contrast different conceptions of working memory. This is one of the most important notions to have informed cognitive psychology over the last 20 years or so, and yet it has been used in a wide variety of ways. This, in part, is undoubtedly because contemporary usage of the phrase `working memory, encapsulates various themes that have appeared at different points in the history of research into human memory and cognition. This book presents three dominant views of working memory.

Implicit knowledge, a term coined by Reber in 1965, is acquired independent of conscious attempts to learn, and generally without the capacity to communicate what has been acquired. One of the core assumptions of this argument is that implicit learning is a fundamental process, one that lies at the very heart of the adaptive behavioural repertoire of every complex organism. This is a highly readable account of the cognitive unconscious, focusing in particular on the problem of implicit learning.

The study of metaphor is now firmly established as a central topic within cognitive science and the humanities. We marvel at the creative dexterity of gifted speakers and writers for their special talents in both thinking about certain ideas in new ways, and communicating these thoughts in vivid, poetic forms. Yet metaphors may not only be special communicative devices, but a fundamental part of everyday cognition in the form of 'conceptual metaphors'. An enormous body of empirical evidence from cognitive linguistics and related disciplines has emerged detailing how conceptual metaphors underlie significant aspects of language, thought, cultural and expressive action. Despite its influence and popularity, there have been major criticisms of conceptual metaphor. This book offers an evaluation of the arguments and empirical evidence for and against conceptual metaphors, much of which scholars on both sides of the wars fail to properly acknowledge.

This book is a biophysically grounded comparative survey of how animals detect light and image in their world. Included are discussions of photoreceptors, light emitters, and eyes. The book centres on the kinds of optical systems that have evolved, beginning with unicellular organisms that detect and respond to light. The book details how these systems developed into more advanced and complex designs for imaging. Wolken's book will appeal to biologists, bioengineers and researchers working in the area of visual optics.

"We are a people who do not want to keep much of the past in our heads," Lillian Hellman once wrote. "It is considered unhealthy in America to remember mistakes, neurotic to think about them, psychotic to dwell upon them." Yet who in their lifetime has never regretted a lost love, a missed opportunity, a path not taken? Indeed, regret is perhaps a universal experience, but while poets and novelists have long explored its complexities, very little has been written from a scholarly perspective that examines this emotion. Now, in Regret, Janet Landman takes a lively and perceptive look at this multifaceted phenomenon.
Much as Anthony Storr did in his best-selling Solitude, Landman here provides an insightful anatomy of an emotion, ranging far and wide to illuminate the nature of regret--what it is, how it changes you, how you experience it. She draws on a breathtaking variety of sources, ranging from psychology, economics, philosophy, and anthropology, to classic works of literature. We learn what people regret most--lack of education comes first, followed by employment, marriage, and children--and how regret differs from other emotions, such as remorse, disappointment, sadness, or guilt. In one of the most fascinating sections, Landman examines four "worldviews" of regret--the Romantic, the Tragic, the Comic, and the Ironic--as exemplified in four major novels: Great Expectations, Notes From Underground, The Ambassadors, and Mrs. Dalloway. In Dostoevsky, for instance, regret is a "poison of unfulfilled desires turned inward," destructive, incurable. Though it is common to regard regret as painful and destructive--being "stuck in the past" or "ruled by emotions"--Landman reveals some surprising benefits. At best regret is a dynamic changing process--one can transcend regret, and thus transform the self. In Anne Tyler's Breathing Lessons, for example, we witness how the characters Ira and Maggie Moran find themselves ready to move forward in their relationship only after they have accepted life's limits and losses without resignation or despair.
"It is a good thing," Landman writes, "that the human mind is not limited by what actually exists, but works in such a way that it draws comparisons between what happens and what might have happened. It is in this ability to imagine alternatives, and the capacity to care about the particularities of experience, that we accomplish the task of becoming fully human." For anyone who has ever questioned, experienced, or avoided regret, here is a provocative and challenging look at this enduring emotion.

Traditional theories of associative learning have found no place for the possibility that an individual's perception of events might change as a result of experience. Evidence for the reality of perceptual learning has come from procedures unlike those studied by learning theorists. The work reviewed in this book shows that learned changes in perceptual organization can in fact be demonstrated, even in experiments using procedures (such as conditioning and simple discrimination learning) which form the basis of associative theories. These results come from procedures that have been the focus of detailed theoretical and empirical analysis; and from this analysis emerges an outline of the mechanisms responsible. Some of these are associative, others require the addition of nonassociative mechanisms to the traditional theory. The result is an extended version of associative theory which, it is argued, will be relevant not only to the experimental procedures discussed in this book but to the entire range of instances of perceptual learning. For psychologists interested in the basic mechanisms of conditioning, perception, and learning, this volume provides an up-to-date, critical review of the field.

This work presents a systematic analysis of the psychological phenomena associated with the concept of mental representations-also referred to as cognitive or internal representations. A major restatement of a theory the author first developed in his 1971 book (Imagery and Verbal Processes), Mental Representation covers phenomena from the earlier period that remain relevant today but emphasizes cognitive problems and paradigms that have since emerged more fully. The author proposes that performance in memory and other cognitive tasks is mediated not only by linguistic processes but also by a distinct nonverbal imagery model of thought as well. He discusses the philosophy of science associated with the dual coding approach, emphasizing the advantages of empiricism in the study of cognitive phenomena and showing that the fundamentals of the theory have stood up well to empirical challenges over the years. An important contribution to the understanding of form and function of human knowledge, this book will be of interest to students and researchers in cognitive psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, and philosophy.

How does the brain function in communion with the body to create complex thought and emotion? Mind Embodied: The Evolutionary Origins of Complex Cognitive Abilities in Modern Humans begins with an investigation of the embodied basis of complex cognitive abilities and sets out a theory of their evolutionary and developmental origins, their autochthonous beginnings in other species, their appearance at the margins of humankind, and their culmination in a panoply of highly elaborated abilities and skills in present-day hominins. This book explores and examines music, aesthetic movement, the visual arts, creative abilities, language and communication, sociality, narrative and conceptual thought, the beginnings of artificial intelligence augmentation, and even the finesse and tastes of an oenophile.

Theatrocracy is a book about the power of the theatre, how it can affect the people who experience it, and the societies within which it is embedded. It takes as its model the earliest theatrical form we possess complete plays from, the classical Greek theatre of the fifth century BCE, and offers a new approach to understanding how ancient drama operated in performance and became such an influential social, cultural, and political force, inspiring and being influenced by revolutionary developments in political engagement and citizen discourse. Key performative elements of Greek theatre are analyzed from the perspective of the cognitive sciences as embodied, live, enacted events, with new approaches to narrative, space, masks, movement, music, words, emotions, and empathy. This groundbreaking study combines research from the fields of the affective sciences - the study of human emotions - including cognitive theory, neuroscience, psychology, artificial intelligence, psychiatry, and cognitive archaeology, with classical, theatre, and performance studies. This book revisits what Plato found so unsettling about drama - its ability to produce a theatrocracy, a "government" of spectators - and argues that this was not a negative but an essential element of Athenian theatre. It shows that Athenian drama provided a place of alterity where audiences were exposed to different viewpoints and radical perspectives. This perspective was, and is, vital in a freethinking democratic society where people are expected to vote on matters of state. In order to achieve this goal, the theatre offered a dissociative and absorbing experience that enhanced emotionality, deepened understanding, and promoted empathy. There was, and still is, an urgent imperative for theatre.

Bodies and Other Objects is written for students, scholars and anyone with an interest in embodied cognition - the claim that the human mind cannot be understood without regard for the actions and capacities of the body. The impulse to write this book was a dissatisfaction with the inconsistent, and often shallow, use of the term 'embodied cognition'. This text attempts to reframe cognitive science with a unified theory of embodied cognition in which sensorimotor elements provide the basis for cognition, including symbolic exchanges that arise within a society of agents. It draws ideas and evidence from experimental psychology, neuroscience, philosophy and anthropology in reaching the conclusion that human cognition is best understood as the means by which exchanges within a constantly evolving network of skilful bodies and objects are regulated so as to further human interests.

'A gripping new drama in science ... if you want to understand how the concept of life is changing, read this' Professor Andrew Briggs, University of Oxford When Darwin set out to explain the origin of species, he made no attempt to answer the deeper question: what is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question. Life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. And yet, huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery. So can life be explained by known physics and chemistry, or do we need something fundamentally new? In this penetrating and wide-ranging new analysis, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name, a domain where computing, chemistry, quantum physics and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity with the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and even to illuminate the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe. From life's murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine is a breath-taking journey across the landscape of physics, biology, logic and computing. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window on the secret of life itself.