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Books > Social sciences > Psychology > Philosophy & theory of psychology > Cognitive theory

How To Think - Understanding the Way We Decide, Remember and Make Sense of the World (Paperback): John Paul Minda How To Think - Understanding the Way We Decide, Remember and Make Sense of the World (Paperback)
John Paul Minda
R438 R400 Discovery Miles 4 000 Save R38 (9%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

This book will get you thinking about thinking. We understand more about the brain than ever before and we also have more tools than ever before to help us think. This book will show you how your brain works, how your mind works, why we all make certain mistakes in thinking and why that's not always a bad thing. In order to understand how people behave, you need to understand how people think. And if you want to understand how people think, you need to have a basic understanding of cognitive psychology, cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience. This book explains cognition and the links between the brain, the mind and behaviour in a clear and straightforward way. Through interesting case studies and research examples, Minda shows how the brain is involved in mental activity, how memory works, how language affects thought, how good (and bad) decisions are made, and why we make predictable errors in our thinking. With practical applications for everyday life, this a book that helps us become better thinkers, better learners and better problem-solvers. In the current era of big data, algorithms and AI, Minda argues that knowing about how humans think-how you think-is more important than ever before.

Cognitive Poetics - An Introduction (Hardcover, 2nd edition): Peter Stockwell Cognitive Poetics - An Introduction (Hardcover, 2nd edition)
Peter Stockwell
R4,495 Discovery Miles 44 950 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

A pioneering text in its first edition, this revised publication of Cognitive Poetics offers a rigorous and principled approach to literary reading and analysis. The second edition of this seminal text features: * updated theory, frameworks, and examples throughout, including new explanations of literary meaning, the power of reading, literary force, and emotion; * extended examples of literary texts from Old English to contemporary literature, covering genres including religious, realist, romantic, science fictional, and surrealist texts, and encompassing poetry, prose, and drama; * new chapters on the mind-modelling of character, the building of text-worlds, the feeling of immersion and ambience, and the resonant power of emotion in literature; * fully updated and accessible accounts of Cognitive Grammar, deictic shifts, prototypicality, conceptual framing, and metaphor in literary reading. Encouraging the reader to adopt a fresh approach to understanding literature and literary analyses, each chapter introduces a different framework within cognitive poetics and relates it to a literary text. Accessibly written and reader-focused, the book invites further explorations either individually or within a classroom setting. This thoroughly revised edition of Cognitive Poetics includes an expanded further reading section and updated explorations and discussion points, making it essential reading for students on literary theory and stylistics courses, as well as a fundamental tool for those studying critical theory, linguistics, and literary studies.

Trying Not to Try - Ancient China, Modern Science, and the Power of Spontaneity (Paperback): Edward Slingerland Trying Not to Try - Ancient China, Modern Science, and the Power of Spontaneity (Paperback)
Edward Slingerland
R390 R365 Discovery Miles 3 650 Save R25 (6%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days

A deeply original exploration of the power of spontaneity--an ancient Chinese ideal that cognitive scientists are only now beginning to understand--and why it is so essential to our well-being
Why is it always hard to fall asleep the night before an important meeting? Or be charming and relaxed on a first date? What "is" it about a politician who seems wooden or a comedian whose jokes fall flat or an athlete who chokes? In all of these cases, striving seems to backfire.
In "Trying Not To Try, "Edward Slingerland explains why we find spontaneity so elusive, and shows how early Chinese thought points the way to happier, more authentic lives. We've long been told that the way to achieve our goals is through careful reasoning and conscious effort. But recent research suggests that many aspects of a satisfying life, like happiness and spontaneity, are best pursued indirectly. The early Chinese philosophers knew this, and they wrote extensively about an effortless way of being in the world, which they called "wu-wei" (ooo-way). They believed it was the source of all success in life, and they developed various strategies for getting it and hanging on to it.
With clarity and wit, Slingerland introduces us to these thinkers and the marvelous characters in their texts, from the butcher whose blade glides effortlessly through an ox to the wood carver who sees his sculpture simply emerge from a solid block. Slingerland uncovers a direct line from "wu-wei" to the Force in Star Wars, explains why "wu-wei" is more powerful than flow, and tells us what it all means for getting a date. He also shows how new research reveals what's happening in the brain when we're in a state of "wu-wei"--why it makes us happy and effective and trustworthy, and how it might have even made civilization possible.
Through stories of mythical creatures and drunken cart riders, jazz musicians and Japanese motorcycle gangs, Slingerland effortlessly blends Eastern thought and cutting-edge science to show us how we can live more fulfilling lives. "Trying Not To Try" is mind-expanding and deeply pleasurable, the perfect antidote to our striving modern culture.

"From the Hardcover edition."

The Bilingual Brain - And What It Tells Us about the Science of Language (Paperback): Albert Costa The Bilingual Brain - And What It Tells Us about the Science of Language (Paperback)
Albert Costa
R275 R257 Discovery Miles 2 570 Save R18 (7%) Ships in 5 - 7 working days

'Fascinating. . . This engaging book explores just how multiple languages are acquired and sorted out by the brain. . . Costa's work derives from a great fund of knowledge, considerable curiosity and solidly scientific spirit' Philip Hensher Spectator The definitive study of bilingualism and the human brain from a leading neuropsychologist Over half of the world's population is bilingual and yet few of us understand how this extraordinary, complex ability really works. How do two languages co-exist in the same brain? What are the advantages and challenges of being bilingual? How do we learn - and forget - a language? In the first study of its kind, leading expert Albert Costa shares twenty years of experience to explore the science of language. Looking at studies and examples from Canada to France to South Korea, The Bilingual Brain investigates the significant impact of bilingualism on daily life from infancy to old age. It reveals, among other things, how babies differentiate between two languages just hours after birth, how accent affects the way in which we perceive others and even why bilinguals are better at conflict resolution. Drawing on cutting-edge neuro-linguistic research from his own laboratory in Barcelona as well from centres across the world, and his own bilingual family, Costa offers an absorbing examination of the intricacies and impact of an extraordinary skill. Highly engaging and hugely informative,The Bilingual Brain leaves us all with a sense of wonder at how language works. Translated by John W. Schwieter

Collaborative Remembering - Theories, Research, and Applications (Hardcover): Michelle L. Meade, Celia B. Harris, Penny Van... Collaborative Remembering - Theories, Research, and Applications (Hardcover)
Michelle L. Meade, Celia B. Harris, Penny Van Bergen, John Sutton, Amanda J. Barnier
R3,190 Discovery Miles 31 900 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

We remember in social contexts. We reminisce about the past together, collaborate to remember shared experiences, and, even when we are alone, we remember in the context of our communities and cultures. Taking an interdisciplinary approach throughout, this text comprehensively covers collaborative remembering across the fields of developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, social psychology, discourse processing, philosophy, neuropsychology, design, and media studies. It highlights points of overlap and contrast across the many disciplinary perspectives and, with its sections on 'Approaches of Collaborative Remembering' and 'Applications of Collaborative Remembering', also connects basic and applied research. Written with late-stage undergraduates and early-stage graduates in mind, the book is also a valuable tool for memory specialists and academics in the fields of psychology, cognitive science and philosophy who are interested in collaborative memory research.

Brain and Mind (Hardcover): David A. Oakley Brain and Mind (Hardcover)
David A. Oakley
R4,488 Discovery Miles 44 880 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The relationship between brain and mind is one of the most baffling problems in science but potentially one of the most interesting. First published in 1985, this collection of original essays traces the development of mind in animals and human beings from its origins in the evolution of larger brains with a capacity for creating mental models of the environment. Examples are given of the way in which the brain may use this increased capacity to represent both the physical and social worlds, and the authors suggest that this type of mental activity might underly what human beings recognize in themselves as 'awareness' or 'consciousness'. Brain and Mind brings together much of the latest research and provides a useful framework for the study of this increasingly important subject. The contributors are experts in a wide range of disciplines and draw their conclusions from a broad base of clinical and experimental evidence. Students of psychology, zoology, anatomy, medicine and philosophy, as well as anyone who has wondered about their own mind and its relation to the brain, will find this a fascinating and stimulating source.

Imagining the Cognitive Science of Religion - Magic Bullets, Complex Theories, Experimental Adventures (Paperback): E. Thomas... Imagining the Cognitive Science of Religion - Magic Bullets, Complex Theories, Experimental Adventures (Paperback)
E. Thomas Lawson
R693 Discovery Miles 6 930 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Uniting Thomas Lawson's essays on the cognitive science of religion, this volume explores theoretical issues in the study of cultural phenomena such as religion, the role of imagination, and the experiments that emerge from these theories. The book begins with Lawson's influential essay “Towards a Cognitive Science of Religion,” which was the first to employ the phrase, and has since become widely adopted in many different disciplines. It signals to scholars in the humanities that the cognitive revolution has finally reached them and serves to introduce them to the world of science. The rest of the book focuses on theoretical issues in the study of cultural phenomena and describes experiments by scholars working on the connections between cognition and culture. Described as "the grandfather of the cognitive science of religion," Lawson offers a unique perspective on the development of the field and the principles that underlie it, which will be relevant to both newcomers and established scholars.

The Oxford Handbook of Hypo-egoic Phenomena (Hardcover): Kirk Warren Brown, Mark Leary The Oxford Handbook of Hypo-egoic Phenomena (Hardcover)
Kirk Warren Brown, Mark Leary
R5,459 Discovery Miles 54 590 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Egoicism, a mindset that places primary focus upon oneself, appears to be rampant in contemporary Western cultures as commercial advertisements, popular books, song lyrics, and mobile software applications consistently promote self-interest. Although a focus on oneself has adaptive value for physical preservation, decision making, and planning, researchers have begun to address the psychological, interpersonal, and broader societal costs of excessive egoicism. In an increasingly crowded and interdependent world, there is a pressing need for investigation of alternatives to a "me and mine first" mindset. For centuries, scholars, spiritual leaders, and social activists have advocated a "hypo-egoic" way of being that is characterized by less self-concern in favor of a more inclusive, "we first" mode of functioning. In recent years, investigations of hypo-egoic functioning have been taken up by philosophers, cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, and psychologists. Edited by Kirk Warren Brown and Mark Leary, The Oxford Handbook of Hypo-egoic Phenomena brings together these vital lines of inquiry, distilling current knowledge about hypo-egoicism into a single source book. The authors of each chapter have conducted high-quality research and written authoritatively about topics that involve hypo-egoicism, all together providing an authoritative account of theory, research, and applications of hypo-egoic functioning. Part I of the book offers theoretical perspectives from philosophy and several major branches of psychology to inform our understanding of the nature of hypo-egoicism and its expressions in various domains of life. Part II presents psychological research findings regarding particular psychological phenomena in which hypo-egoicism is a prominent feature, demonstrating the implications of hypo-egoicism for well-being, emotion regulation, adaptive decision-making, positive social relations, and other markers of human well-being. Each chapter reviews the research literature regarding a particular hypo-egoic phenomenon and offers constructive criticism of the current limits of the research and important agendas for future investigation. Thus, this Handbook offers the most comprehensive and thoughtful analyses of hypo-egoicism to date.

Cognitive Science and the New Testament - A New Approach to Early Christian Research (Hardcover): Istvan Czachesz Cognitive Science and the New Testament - A New Approach to Early Christian Research (Hardcover)
Istvan Czachesz
R3,014 Discovery Miles 30 140 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Over the last few decades, our knowledge of how the human mind and brain works increased dramatically. The field of cognitive science enables us to understand religious traditions, rituals, and visionary experiences in novel ways. This has implications for the study of the New Testament and early Christianity. How people in the ancient Mediterranean world remembered sayings and stories, what they experienced when participating in rituals, how they thought about magic and miracle, and how they felt and reasoned about moral questions-all of that can be now better understood with the help of insights from cognitive science. Istvan Czachesz argues that the field of New Testament Studies witnesses the beginning of a cognitive turn. He surveys relevant developments in the Cognitive Science of Religion and explores the field of cognitive and behavioral sciences in search of opportunities of gaining new insights about biblical materials. Czachesz presents some methodological tools and initial steps, together with a large number of examples of applying the cognitive approach to the New Testament and related ancient literature.

Cognitive Discourse Analysis - An Introduction (Hardcover): Thora Tenbrink Cognitive Discourse Analysis - An Introduction (Hardcover)
Thora Tenbrink
R2,928 Discovery Miles 29 280 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Analysing language data systematically and looking closely at how people formulate their thoughts can reveal astonishing insights about the human mind. Without presupposing specific subject knowledge, this book gently introduces its readers to theoretical insights as well as practical principles for systematic linguistic analysis from a cognitive perspective. Drawing on Thora Tenbrink's twenty years' experience in both linguistics and cognitive science, this book offers theoretical guidance and practical advice for doing cognitive discourse analysis. It covers areas of analysis as diverse as attention, perspective, granularity, certainty, inference, transformation, communication, and cognitive strategies, using inspiring examples from many different projects. Simple techniques and tools are used to allow readers new to the subject easy ways to apply the methods, without the need for complex technologies, whilst the cross-disciplinary approach can be applied to a diverse range of research purposes and contexts in which language and thought play a role.

Theory of Human Action (Hardcover): Alvin I. Goldman Theory of Human Action (Hardcover)
Alvin I. Goldman
R2,802 Discovery Miles 28 020 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

This book articulates an original scheme for the conceptualization of action. Beginning with a new approach to the individuation of acts, it delineates the relationships between basic and non-basic acts and uses these relationships in the definition of ability and intentional action. The author exhibits the central role of wants and beliefs in the causation of acts and in the analysis of the concept of action. Professor Goldman suggests answers to fundamental questions about acts, and develops a set of ideas and principles that can be used in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, ethics, and other fields, including the behavioral sciences. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Renaissance Extended Mind (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2015): Miranda Anderson The Renaissance Extended Mind (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2015)
Miranda Anderson
R2,848 Discovery Miles 28 480 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The Renaissance Extended Mind explores the parallels and contrasts between current philosophical notions of the mind as extended across brain, body and world, and analogous notions in literary, philosophical, and scientific texts circulating between the fifteenth century and early-seventeenth century.

Exploring Robotic Minds - Actions, Symbols, and Consciousness as Self-Organizing Dynamic Phenomena (Hardcover): Jun Tani Exploring Robotic Minds - Actions, Symbols, and Consciousness as Self-Organizing Dynamic Phenomena (Hardcover)
Jun Tani
R2,484 Discovery Miles 24 840 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In Exploring Robotic Minds: Actions, Symbols, and Consciousness as Self-Organizing Dynamic Phenomena, Jun Tani sets out to answer an essential and tantalizing question: How do our minds work? By providing an overview of his "synthetic neurorobotics" project, Tani reveals how symbols and concepts that represent the world can emerge in a neurodynamic structure-iterative interactions between the top-down subjective view, which proactively acts on the world, and the bottom-up recognition of the resultant perceptual reality. He argues that nontrivial problems of consciousness and free will could be addressed through structural understanding of such iterative, conflicting interactions between the top-down and the bottom-up pathways. A wide range of readers will enjoy this wonderful journey of the mind and will follow the author on interdisciplinary discussions that span neuroscience, dynamical systems theories, robotics, and phenomenology. The book also includes many figures, as well as a link to videos of Tani's exciting robotic experiments.

The Conscious Brain - How Attention Engenders Experience (Paperback): Jesse J Prinz The Conscious Brain - How Attention Engenders Experience (Paperback)
Jesse J Prinz
R1,351 Discovery Miles 13 510 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The problem of consciousness continues to be a subject of great debate in cognitive science. Synthesizing decades of research, The Conscious Brain advances a new theory of the psychological and neurophysiological correlates of conscious experience. Prinz's account of consciousness makes two main claims: first consciousness always arises at a particular stage of perceptual processing, the intermediate level, and, second, consciousness depends on attention. Attention changes the flow of information allowing perceptual information to access memory systems. Neurobiologically, this change in flow depends on synchronized neural firing. Neural synchrony is also implicated in the unity of consciousness and in the temporal duration of experience. Prinz also explores the limits of consciousness. We have no direct experience of our thoughts, no experience of motor commands, and no experience of a conscious self. All consciousness is perceptual, and it functions to make perceptual information available to systems that allows for flexible behavior. Prinz concludes by discussing prevailing philosophical puzzles. He provides a neuroscientifically grounded response to the leading argument for dualism, and argues that materialists need not choose between functional and neurobiological approaches, but can instead combine these into neurofunctional response to the mind-body problem. The Conscious Brain brings neuroscientific evidence to bear on enduring philosophical questions, while also surveying, challenging, and extending philosophical and scientific theories of consciousness. All readers interested in the nature of consciousness will find Prinz's work of great interest.

What Makes Us Smart - The Computational Logic of Human Cognition (Paperback): Samuel Gershman What Makes Us Smart - The Computational Logic of Human Cognition (Paperback)
Samuel Gershman
R1,081 Discovery Miles 10 810 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

How a computational framework can account for the successes and failures of human cognition At the heart of human intelligence rests a fundamental puzzle: How are we incredibly smart and stupid at the same time? No existing machine can match the power and flexibility of human perception, language, and reasoning. Yet, we routinely commit errors that reveal the failures of our thought processes. What Makes Us Smart makes sense of this paradox by arguing that our cognitive errors are not haphazard. Rather, they are the inevitable consequences of a brain optimized for efficient inference and decision making within the constraints of time, energy, and memory-in other words, data and resource limitations. Framing human intelligence in terms of these constraints, Samuel Gershman shows how a deeper computational logic underpins the "stupid" errors of human cognition. Embarking on a journey across psychology, neuroscience, computer science, linguistics, and economics, Gershman presents unifying principles that govern human intelligence. First, inductive bias: any system that makes inferences based on limited data must constrain its hypotheses in some way before observing data. Second, approximation bias: any system that makes inferences and decisions with limited resources must make approximations. Applying these principles to a range of computational errors made by humans, Gershman demonstrates that intelligent systems designed to meet these constraints yield characteristically human errors. Examining how humans make intelligent and maladaptive decisions, What Makes Us Smart delves into the successes and failures of cognition.

The Brain's Representational Power - On Consciousness and the Integration of Modalities (Hardcover): Cyriel M.A. Pennartz The Brain's Representational Power - On Consciousness and the Integration of Modalities (Hardcover)
Cyriel M.A. Pennartz
R1,458 Discovery Miles 14 580 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

A neuroscientifically informed theory arguing that the core of qualitative conscious experience arises from the integration of sensory and cognitive modalities. Although science has made considerable progress in discovering the neural basis of cognitive processes, how consciousness arises remains elusive. In this book, Cyriel Pennartz analyzes which aspects of conscious experience can be peeled away to access its core: the "hardest" aspect, the relationship between brain processes and the subjective, qualitative nature of consciousness. Pennartz traces the problem back to its historical roots in the foundations of neuroscience and connects early ideas on sensory processing to contemporary computational neuroscience. What can we learn from neural network models, and where do they fall short in bridging the gap between neural processes and conscious experience? Do neural models of cognition resemble inanimate systems, and how can this help us define requirements for conscious processing in the brain? These questions underlie Pennartz's examination of the brain's anatomy and neurophysiology. The perspective of his account is not limited to visual perception but broadened to include other sensory modalities and their integration. Formulating a representational theory of the neural basis of consciousness, Pennartz outlines properties that complex structures must express to process information consciously. This theoretical framework is constructed using empirical findings from neuropsychology and neuroscience as well as such theoretical arguments as the Cuneiform Room and the Wall Street Banker. Positing that qualitative experience is a multimodal and multilevel phenomenon at its very roots, Pennartz places this body of theory in the wider context of mind-brain philosophy, examining implications for our thinking about animal and robot consciousness.

Conscious Mind, Resonant Brain - How Each Brain Makes a Mind (Hardcover): Stephen Grossberg Conscious Mind, Resonant Brain - How Each Brain Makes a Mind (Hardcover)
Stephen Grossberg
R1,035 Discovery Miles 10 350 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

How does your mind work? How does your brain give rise to your mind? These are questions that all of us have wondered about at some point in our lives, if only because everything that we know is experienced in our minds. They are also very hard questions to answer. After all, how can a mind understand itself? How can you understand something as complex as the tool that is being used to understand it? This book provides an introductory and self-contained description of some of the exciting answers to these questions that modern theories of mind and brain have recently proposed. Stephen Grossberg is broadly acknowledged to be the most important pioneer and current research leader who has, for the past 50 years, modelled how brains give rise to minds, notably how neural circuits in multiple brain regions interact together to generate psychological functions. This research has led to a unified understanding of how, where, and why our brains can consciously see, hear, feel, and know about the world, and effectively plan and act within it. The work embodies revolutionary Principia of Mind that clarify how autonomous adaptive intelligence is achieved. It provides mechanistic explanations of multiple mental disorders, including symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, autism, amnesia, and sleep disorders; biological bases of morality and religion, including why our brains are biased towards the good so that values are not purely relative; perplexing aspects of the human condition, including why many decisions are irrational and self-defeating despite evolution's selection of adaptive behaviors; and solutions to large-scale problems in machine learning, technology, and Artificial Intelligence that provide a blueprint for autonomously intelligent algorithms and robots. Because brains embody a universal developmental code, unifying insights also emerge about shared laws that are found in all living cellular tissues, from the most primitive to the most advanced, notably how the laws governing networks of interacting cells support developmental and learning processes in all species. The fundamental brain design principles of complementarity, uncertainty, and resonance that Grossberg has discovered also reflect laws of the physical world with which our brains ceaselessly interact, and which enable our brains to incrementally learn to understand those laws, thereby enabling humans to understand the world scientifically. Accessibly written, and lavishly illustrated, Conscious Mind/Resonant Brain is the magnum opus of one of the most influential scientists of the past 50 years, and will appeal to a broad readership across the sciences and humanities.

Language Down the Garden Path - The Cognitive and Biological Basis for Linguistic Structures (Paperback): Montserrat Sanz,... Language Down the Garden Path - The Cognitive and Biological Basis for Linguistic Structures (Paperback)
Montserrat Sanz, Itziar Laka, Michael K. Tanenhaus
R1,267 Discovery Miles 12 670 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Thomas G. Bever's now iconic sentence, The horse raced past the barn fell, first appeared in his 1970 paper "The Cognitive Basis of Linguistic Structures". This 'garden path sentence', so-called because of the way it leads the reader or listener down the wrong parsing path, helped spawn the entire subfield of sentence processing. It has become the most often quoted element of a paper which spanned a wealth of research into the relationship between the grammatical system and language processing. Language Down the garden Path traces the lines of research that grew out of Bever's classic paper. Leading scientists review over 40 years of debates on the factors at play in language comprehension, production, and acquisition (the role of prediction, grammar, working memory, prosody, abstractness, syntax, and semantics mapping); the current status of universals and narrow syntax; and virtually every topic relevant in psycholinguistics since 1970. Written in an accessible and engaging style, the book will appeal to all those interested in understanding the questions that shaped, and are still shaping, this field and the ways in which linguists, cognitive scientists, psychologists, and neuroscientists are seeking to answer them.

How Can the Human Mind Occur in the Physical Universe? (Hardcover): John R. Anderson How Can the Human Mind Occur in the Physical Universe? (Hardcover)
John R. Anderson
R2,012 Discovery Miles 20 120 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

"The question for me is how can the human mind occur in the physical universe. We now know that the world is governed by physics. We now understand the way biology nestles comfortably within that. The issue is how will the mind do that as well."--Allen Newell, December 4, 1991, Carnegie Mellon University
The argument John Anderson gives in this book was inspired by the passage above, from the last lecture by one of the pioneers of cognitive science. Newell describes what, for him, is the pivotal question of scientific inquiry, and Anderson gives an answer that is emerging from the study of brain and behavior.
Humans share the same basic cognitive architecture with all primates, but they have evolved abilities to exercise abstract control over cognition and process more complex relational patterns. The human cognitive architecture consists of a set of largely independent modules associated with different brain regions. In this book, Anderson discusses in detail how these various modules can combine to produce behaviors as varied as driving a car and solving an algebraic equation, but focuses principally on two of the modules: the declarative and procedural. The declarative module involves a memory system that, moment by moment, attempts to give each person the most appropriate possible window into his or her past. The procedural module involves a central system that strives to develop a set of productions that will enable the most adaptive response from any state of the modules. Newell argued that the answer to his question must take the form of a cognitive architecture, and Anderson organizes his answer around the ACT-R architecture, but broadens it by bringing in research fromall areas of cognitive science, including how recent work in brain imaging maps onto the cognitive architecture.

The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Minimalism (Hardcover): Cedric Boeckx The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Minimalism (Hardcover)
Cedric Boeckx
R4,217 Discovery Miles 42 170 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This Handbook provides a complete assessment of the current achievements and challenges of the Minimalist Program. Established 15 years ago by Noam Chomsky with the aim of making all statements about language as simple and general as possible, linguistic minimalism is now at the centre of efforts to understand how the human language faculty operates in the mind and manifests itself in languages. In this book leading researchers from all over the world explore the origins of the program, the course of its sometimes highly technical research, and its connections with other disciplines, such as parallel developments in fields such as developmental biology, cognitive science, computational science, and philosophy of mind. The authors examine every aspect of the enterprise, show how each part relates to the whole, and set out current methodological and theoretical issues and proposals. The various chapters in this book trace the development of minimalist ideas in linguistics, highlight their significance and distinctive character, and relate minimalist research and aims to those in parallel fields. They focus on core aspects in syntax, including feature, case, phrase structure, derivations, and representations, and on interface issues within the grammar. They also take minimalism outside the domain of grammar to consider its role in closely related biolinguistic projects, including the evolution of mind and language and the relation between language and thought. The handbook is designed and written to meet the needs of students and scholars in linguistics and cognitive science at graduate level and above, as well as to provide a guide to the field for researchers other disciplines.

Minds and Gods - The Cognitive Foundations of Religion (Paperback): Todd Tremlin Minds and Gods - The Cognitive Foundations of Religion (Paperback)
Todd Tremlin
R1,101 Discovery Miles 11 010 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Around the world and throughout history, in cultures as diverse as ancient Mesopotamia and modern America, human beings have been compelled by belief in gods and developed complex religions around them. But why? What makes belief in supernatural beings so widespread? And why are the gods of so many different people so similar in nature? This provocative book explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas by looking through the lens of science at the common structures and functions of human thought.
The first general introduction to the "cognitive science of religion," Minds and Gods presents the major themes, theories, and thinkers involved in this revolutionary new approach to human religiosity. Arguing that we cannot understand what we think until we first understand how we think, the book sets out to study the evolutionary forces that modeled the modern human mind and continue to shape our ideas and actions today. Todd Tremlin details many of the adapted features of the brain -- illustrating their operation with examples of everyday human behavior -- and shows how mental endowments inherited from our ancestral past lead many people to naturally entertain religious ideas. In short, belief in gods and the social formation of religion have their genesis in biology, in powerful cognitive processes that all humans share.
In the course of illuminating the nature of religion, this book also sheds light on human nature: why we think we do the things we do and how the reasons for these things are so often hidden from view. This discussion ranges broadly across recent scientific findings in areas such as paleoanthropology, primate studies, evolutionary psychology, early brain development, and cultural transmission. While these subjects are complex, the story is told here in a conversational style that is engaging, jargon free, and accessible to all readers. With Minds and Gods, Tremlin offers a roadmap to a fascinating and growing field of study, one that is sure to generate interest and debate and provide readers with a better understanding of themselves and their beliefs.

Thinking Off Your Feet - How Empirical Psychology Vindicates Armchair Philosophy (Hardcover): Michael Strevens Thinking Off Your Feet - How Empirical Psychology Vindicates Armchair Philosophy (Hardcover)
Michael Strevens
R1,311 Discovery Miles 13 110 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

Many philosophers believe they can gain knowledge about the world from the comfort of their armchairs, simply by reflecting on the nature of things. But how can the mind arrive at substantive knowledge of the world without seeking its input? Michael Strevens proposes an original defense of the armchair pursuit of philosophical knowledge, focusing on "the method of cases," in which judgments about category membership-Does this count as causation? Does that count as the right action to take?-are used to test philosophical hypotheses about such matters as causality, moral responsibility, and beauty. Strevens argues that the method of cases is capable of producing reliable, substantial knowledge. His strategy is to compare concepts of philosophical things to concepts of natural kinds, such as water. Philosophical concepts, like natural kind concepts, do not contain the answers to philosophers' questions; armchair philosophy therefore cannot be conceptual analysis. But just as natural kind concepts provide a viable starting point for exploring the nature of the material world, so philosophical concepts are capable of launching and sustaining fruitful inquiry into philosophical matters, using the method of cases. Agonizing about unusual "edge cases," Strevens shows, can play a leading role in such discoveries. Thinking Off Your Feet seeks to reshape current debates about the nature of philosophical thinking and the methodological implications of experimental philosophy, to make significant contributions to the cognitive science of concepts, and to restore philosophy to its traditional position as an essential part of the human quest for knowledge.

A Science of Decision Making - The Legacy of Ward Edwards (Hardcover): Jie W. Weiss, David J Weiss A Science of Decision Making - The Legacy of Ward Edwards (Hardcover)
Jie W. Weiss, David J Weiss
R2,290 Discovery Miles 22 900 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Ward Edwards is well known as the father of behavioral decision making. In his 1954 Psychological Bulletin paper on decision making, he brought psychological ideas into what had been the province of economists. His influence in this realm is so pervasive that the Nobel committee was able to trace a direct path from Edwards's work to Daniel Kahneman's 2002 Prize for prospect theory. In a 1963 Psychological Review paper, Edwards brought Bayesian statistics to the attention of psychologists, who have continued to proliferate Bayesian ideas, underscoring the importance of the perspective. In a 1962 IEEE paper, Edwards foresaw how the world of intelligence gathering and analysis could by transformed by systems in which humans provided (subjective) probabilities and machines provided computational power. He also showed, in a 1986 book written with Detlof von Winterfeldt, how multiattribute utility analysis could help real-world decision makers generate satisfactory solutions to complex problems.
In this book, 29 of Ward Edwards's most important published papers are reprinted, a selection that spans six decades, allowing the reader to see how this strikingly creative thinker generated many of the ideas that are now core beliefs among current researchers. It is perhaps less well known that Edwards continued to make substantial contributions during the years after his retirement. Illness reduced his public appearances, but he continued his incisive thinking behind the scenes. At the time of his passing, he was involved in several projects, and seven new papers from these projects were completed for this book by his last set of collaborators.
Edwards's papers are a treat to read. His prose is the model of elegant simplicity, yet full of style and wit. With each paper, the editors have included a short introduction that presents Edwards's reflections on the content or impact of the older papers, or describes the creation of the new ones. Obituaries written by former students and colleagues flesh out the human side of this remarkable scholar.

Cognitive Grammar - A Basic Introduction (Paperback): Ronald Langacker Cognitive Grammar - A Basic Introduction (Paperback)
Ronald Langacker
R1,744 Discovery Miles 17 440 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This book fills a long standing need for a basic introduction to Cognitive Grammar that is current, authoritative, comprehensive, and approachable. It presents a synthesis that draws together and refines the descriptive and theoretical notions developed in this framework over the course of three decades. In a unified manner, it accommodates both the conceptual and the social-interactive basis of linguistic structure, as well as the need for both functional explanation and explicit structural description. Starting with the fundamentals, essential aspects of the theory are systematically laid out with concrete illustrations and careful discussion of their rationale. Among the topics surveyed are conceptual semantics, grammatical classes, grammatical constructions, the lexicon-grammar continuum characterized as assemblies of symbolic structures (form-meaning pairings), and the usage-based account of productivity, restrictions, and well-formedness. The theory's central claim - that grammar is inherently meaningful - is thereby shown to be viable. The framework is further elucidated through application to nominal structure, clause structure, and complex sentences. These are examined in broad perspective, with exemplification from English and numerous other languages. In line with the theory's general principles, they are discussed not only in terms of their structural characterization, but also their conceptual value and functional motivation. Other matters explored include discourse, the temporal dimension of language structure, and what grammar reveals about cognitive processes and the construction of our mental world.

Big Mind - How Collective Intelligence Can Change Our World (Paperback): Geoff Mulgan Big Mind - How Collective Intelligence Can Change Our World (Paperback)
Geoff Mulgan
R694 Discovery Miles 6 940 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

How collective intelligence can transform business, government, and our everyday lives A new field of collective intelligence has emerged in recent years, prompted by digital technologies that make it possible to think at large scale. This "bigger mind"-human and machine capabilities working together-could potentially solve the great challenges of our time. Gathering insights from the latest work on data, web platforms, and artificial intelligence, Big Mind reveals how the power of collective intelligence could help organizations and societies to survive and thrive.

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