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Books > Social sciences > Psychology > Experimental psychology
This book addresses the richness and depth of our intimate relationships and especially those moments when we come to see ourselves and the other person in a new way. In such moments we realize that however much we are influenced by heredity and upbringing, we are also agents with the capacity for openness and transcendence.
Mitchell S. Green presents a systematic philosophical study of self-expression - a pervasive phenomenon of the everyday life of humans and other species, which has received scant attention in its own right. He explores the ways in which self-expression reveals our states of thought, feeling, and experience, and he defends striking new theses concerning a wide range of fascinating topics: our ability to perceive emotion in others, artistic expression, empathy, expressive language, meaning, facial expression, and speech acts. He draws on insights from evolutionary game theory, ethology, the philosophy of language, social psychology, pragmatics, aesthetics, and neuroscience to present a stimulating and accessible interdisciplinary work.
People sometimes remember events that never happened. These illusory or false memories have important practical implications in various aspects of everyday life, and also have significant theoretical implications for cognitive and neuropsychological models of memory. Cognitive psychologists and neuropsychologists have long been aware of false recognition, confabulation, and related kinds of memory distortions, but during the past several years research on these topics has increased rapidly. In recognition of this emerging domain of interest, this special issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology is devoted to the cognitive neuropsychology of false memories. Edited by Daniel L. Schacter, the special issue features experimental and theoretical contributions from leading cognitive psychologists, neuropsychologists, and neurologists that explore such issues as false recognition after frontal lobe damage, the nature of confabulation, amnesia and false memories, physiological correlates of memory illusions, memory distortions in normal and abnormal aging, and computational models of true and false memories.
While many books have discussed methodological advances in nonlinear dynamical systems theory (NDS), this volume is unique in its focus on NDS s role in the development of psychological theory. After an introductory chapter covering the fundamentals of chaos, complexity, and other nonlinear dynamics, subsequent chapters provide in-depth coverage of each of the specific topic areas in psychology. A concluding chapter takes stock of the field as a whole, evaluating important challenges for the immediate future. The chapters are written by experts in the use of NDS in each of their respective areas, including biological, cognitive, developmental, social, organizational, and clinical psychology. Each chapter provides an in-depth examination of theoretical foundations and specific applications and a review of relevant methods. This edited collection represents the state of the art in NDS science across the disciplines of psychology."
Our ability to map and intervene in the structure of the human
brain is proceeding at a very quick rate. Advances in psychiatry,
neurology, and neurosurgery have given us fresh insights into the
neurobiological basis of human thought and behavior. Technologies
like MRI and PET scans can detect early signs of psychiatric
disorders before they manifest symptoms. Electrical and magnetic
stimulation of the brain can non-invasively relieve symptoms of
obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and other conditions
resistant to treatment, while implanting neuro-electrodes can help
patients with Parkinsons and other motor control-related diseases.
New drugs can help regenerate neuronal connections otherwise
disrupted by schizophrenia and similar diseases.
It is plausible that evolution could have created the human
skeleton, but it is hard to believe that it created the human mind.
Yet, in six or seven million years evolution came up with Homo
sapiens, a creature unlike anything the world had ever known. The
mental gap between man and ape is immense, and yet evolution
bridged that gap in so short a space of time. Since the brain is
the organ of the mind, it is natural to assume that during the
evolution of our hominid ancestors there were changes in the brain
that can account for this gap. This book is a search for those
changes.
Discovered little more than a decade ago, optogenetics - a revolutionary technique combining genetic and optical methods to observe and control the function of neurons - is now a widely used research tool. Optogenetics-driven research has led to insights into Parkinson's disease and other neurological and psychiatric disorders. With contributions from leaders and innovators from both academia and industry, this volume explores the discovery and application of optogenetics, from the basic science to its potential clinical use. Chapters cover a range of optogenetics applications, including for brain circuits, plasticity, memory, learning, sleep, vision and neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases. Providing authoritative coverage of the huge potential that optogenetics research carries, this is an ideal resource for researchers and graduate students, as well as for those working in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries and in a clinical setting.
Although best known for experimental methods, social psychology also has a strong tradition of measurement. This volume seeks to highlight this tradition by introducing readers to measurement strategies that help drive social psychological research and theory development. The books opens with an analysis of the measurement technique that dominates most of the social sciences, self-report. Chapter 1 presents a conceptual framework for interpreting the data generated from self-report, which it uses to provide practical advice on writing strong and structured self-report items. From there, attention is drawn to the many other innovative measurement and data-collection techniques that have helped expand the range of theories social psychologists test. Chapters 2 through 6 introduce techniques designed to measure the internal psychological states of individual respondents, with strategies that can stand alone or complement anything obtained via self-report. Included are chapters on implicit, elicitation, and diary approaches to collecting response data from participants, as well as neurological and psychobiological approaches to inferring underlying mechanisms. The remaining chapters introduce creative data-collection techniques, focusing particular attention on the rich forms of data humans often leave behind. Included are chapters on textual analysis, archival analysis, geocoding, and social media harvesting. The many methods covered in this book complement one another, such that the full volume provides researchers with a powerful toolset to help them better explore what is "social" about human behavior.
Language development remains one of the most hotly debated topics in the cognitive sciences. In recent years we have seen contributions to the debate from researchers in psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and philosophy, though there have been surprisingly few interdisciplinary attempts at unifying the various theories. In Language and the Learning Curve, a leading researcher in the field offers a radical new view of language development. Drawing on formal linguistic theory (the Minimalist Program, Dependency Grammars), cognitive psychology (skill learning) computational linguistics (Zipf curves), and Complexity Theory (networks), it takes the view that syntactic development is a simple process and that syntax can be learned just like any other cognitive or motor skill. In a thought provoking and accessible style, it develops a learning theory of the acquisition of syntax that builds on the contribution of the different source theories in a detailed and explicit manner. Each chapter starts by laying the relevant theoretical background, before examining empirical data on child language acquisition. The result is a bold new theory of the acquisition of syntax, unusual in its combination of Chomskian linguistics and learning theory. Language and the Learning Curve is an important new work that challenges many of our usual assumptions about syntactic development.
This book presents a lively and accessible way to use the ancient figure of Socrates to teach modern psychology that avoids the didactic lecture and sterile textbook. In the online age, is a living teacher even needed? What can college students learn face-to-face from a teacher they cannot learn anywhere else? The answer is what most teachers already seek to do: help students think critically, clearly define concepts, logically reason from premises to conclusions, engage in thoughtful and persuasive communication, and actively engage the franchise of democratic citizenship. But achieving these outcomes requires an intimate, interpersonal learning community. This book presents a plan for using the ancient figure of Socrates and his Method to realize humane learning outcomes in the context of psychology.
""The best general introduction to positive psychology
available." "Dr Ilona Boniwell is recognized as Europe's leading researcher,
innovator and thinker in the expanding world of positive
psychology. "Positive Psychology in a Nutshell" offers something
for everyone with an interest in discovering how to live optimally.
This brilliant little book is packed with scientific evidence
identifying the key ingredients that help to create a happy life.
Read it and learn how to change yours for the better." " ""Positive Psychology in a Nutshell "is a little gem of a
book, beautifully and engagingly written, and having the marks of a
cogent teacher who has mastered the contemporary structure, bounds
and outreach of her field. This is a 'must read', and a welcome
antidote for all those engaged in the caring professions." "As good an introduction to positive psychology as you can read.
A must-read book for all those involved in the education and health
industries." ""Positive Psychology in a Nutshell" is a comprehensive, user
friendly, thoughtful introduction and critique of the field. Simply
put, it is the best overview out there that can be read in a couple
of sittings. Those with no psychology background find it
fascinating and informative; those with serious credentials find it
to be a credible overview and critique of the field." "In a nutshell, I could scarcely put down this intelligent,
balanced and irresistible introduction to positive psychology
" ""It is very readable, seductively so, and is no doubt as good
an introduction to the subject as you can get ... Emotional
wellbeing is complex and there are useful insights here to shore up
the flabby phrases tossed around by politicians ... There are some
parts of this book I will use and anyone who wants to find out
about positive psychology should start here." When you hear the words 'positive psychology' or 'the science of well-being', do you wonder what it's all about? 'What makes us fulfilled?' and 'Is happiness necessary for a good life?' Discover the latest thinking on the topics of happiness, flow, optimism, motivation, character strengths and love, and learn how to apply it to your life. Ilona Boniwell presents an engaging overview of the science of optimal functioning and well-being, which combines real readability with a broad academic base applied to day-to-day life. Now fully updated and enhanced with new material on how to: Change your mindset Practice mindfulness Develop better resilience Enhance your well-being at work Adopt positive leadership Introducing positive psychology in a friendly, straightforward way, this international bestseller is peppered with many simple tools and tips for daily living that will help you love your life.
How does our knowledge of the language on the one hand, and of the
context on the other, permit us to understand what we are told, to
resolve ambiguities, to grasp both explicit and implicit content,
to appreciate metaphor and irony? These issues have been studied in
two disciplines: linguistic pragmatics and psycholinguistics, with
only limited interactions between the two. This volume lays down
the basis for a new field: "Experimental Pragmatics." Contributions
review pioneering work and present novel ways of articulating
theories and experimental methods in the area.
For years now, learning has been at the heart of research within cognitive psychology. How do we acquire new knowledge and new skills? Are the principles underlying skill acquisition unique to learning, or similar to those underlying other behaviours? Is the mental system essentially modular, or is the mental system a simple product of experience, a product that, inevitably, reflects the shape of the external world with all of its specialisms and similarities? This new book takes the view that learning is a major influence on the nature of the processes and representations that fill our minds. Throughout, the authors review and consider the areas of skill acquisition and lexical representation to illustrate the effects that practice can have on cognitive processes. They also draw parallels between theories in physical and biological domains to propose not only a new theory of mental function but also demonstrate that the mind is essentially subject to the same natural laws as the physical world. In so doing Speelman and Kirsner present a new perspective on psychology - one that identifies universal principles underlying all behaviours and one which contrasts markedly from our current focus on highly specific behaviours. Accessibly written, Beyond the Learning Curve is a thought provoking and challenging new text for students and researchers in the cognitive sciences.
Gain a better understanding of human behavior by exploring thought experiments in Shakespearean plays and the historical roots of experimental psychology within early modern literature. This book combines scientific psychology with English literature to discuss thought experiments in selected Shakespeare plays and examine the central role of thought experiments in the natural sciences. Thought experiments are essential for progress in scientific research. Indeed, Albert Einstein and a number of other leading scientists relied almost exclusively on thought experiments. Thought experiments also play a pivotal role in English literature, particularly in Shakespeare plays. By focussing on thought experiments and experimental psychology's place within early modern English literature, the volume establishes a more wholistic approach to understanding human behavior.
From an early age, humans know a surprising amount about basic physical principles, such as gravity, force, mass, and shape. We can see this in the way that young children play, and manipulate objects around them. The same behaviour has long been observed in primates - chimpanzees have been shown to possess a remarkable ability to make and use simple tools. But what does this tell us about their inner mental state - do they therefore share the same understanding to that of a young child? Do they understand the simple, underlying physical principles involved? Though some people would say that they do, this book reports groundbreaking research that questions whether this really is the case. Folk Physics for Apes challenges the assumptions so often made about apes. It offers us a rare glimpse into the workings of another mind, examining how apes perceive and understand the physical world - an understanding that appears to be both similar to, and yet profoundly different from our own. The book will have broad appeal to evolutionary psychologists, developmental psychologists, and those interested in the sub-disciplines of cognitive science (philosophy, anthropology). The book additionally offers for developmental psychologists some valuable new non-verbal techniques for assessing causal understanding in young children.
The conviction that physical fitness and regular exercise are essential to mental health is by no means new. Such a belief is integral to the philosophy of the ancient Chinese art of Tai Chi, as well as the Indian discipline of Yoga. Similarly, in the West, the roots of such thinking can be traced back more than two thousand years to the Golden Age Greeks for whom daily, vigorous exercise was considered indispensable to both the physical and mental well-being of young and old alike. Nevertheless, the link between exercise and mental health and psychological processes in general has only recently come to be considered a legitimate area of scientific research - a fact attested to by the recent formation of a Division of Exercise and Sport Psychology by the American Psychological Association. Bringing together contributions by specialists in the three increasingly convergent disciplines of health psychology, physical education, and exercise physiology, this book examines the state-of-the-art theory and practice in the exciting new field of exercise psychology. Organized into three sections covering history and theory, research approaches and findings, and applications, Exercise Psychology offers a balanced presentation of the various orientations and methodologies of each related discipline. In this sense, Exercise Psychology is the first truly interdisciplinary work in the field. Among key topics covered in the methodology section are the various approaches to measurement and analysis of the link between physical activity and psychological states; how best to review the research literature from a variety of diverse subspecialties; and the underlying rationale and practical implementationof meta-analysis. Chapters in the applications section offer an up-to-date summary of important practical advances in such areas as the use of aerobic exercise to slow down cognitive decline with age; the advantages of regular physical activity for the psychological welfare of growing children; the use of aerobic exercise in the rehabilitation of psychological disorders and substance abuse, and more. Timely, comprehensive, and authoritative, Exercise Psychology is an indispensable tool for clinical, physiological, developmental and educational psychologists, health physiologists, clinical social workers, physicians, and all other mental and physical health professionals.
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.
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.
Herbst-/Winterdepressionen werden bereits seit der Antike beschrieben, und ebenso lang ist der Einfluss des Lichtes auf die seelische Gesundheit bekannt. Neuere systematische Untersuchungen der Herbst-/Winterdepression und der Lichttherapie haben jedoch erst seit etwa 20 Jahren Eingang in die Medizin und in psychiatrische Therapieformen gefunden. Es zeigte sich, dass die Lichttherapie bei den Herbst-/Winterdepressionen und deren subsyndromaler Form als Therapie der ersten Wahl eingesetzt werden kann, und dass die biologischen Veranderungen bei den Herbst-/Winterdepressionen ahnlich wie bei den nicht-saisonal gebundenen Depressionen vorhanden sind, eventuell in einer milderen Auspragung. In diesem Handbuch werden sowohl die Diagnostik der Herbst-/Winterdepression als auch die Praxis der Lichttherapie vom theoretischen und vor allem praktischen Gesichtspunkt international bekannter Forscher, vorwiegend aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum, bearbeitet."
Understanding classification is a major challenge for formulating theories of both human cognition and artificial intelligence. Classification is a human mental activity which covers such diverse things as forming concepts, categorizing medical patients, recognising an acquaintance, or discriminating phonetic components of a language. This book considers both previous theories and new research and comes up with a new core model which it proposes as the basis of all forms of classification. Two versions of this model are developed, one based on symbol-processing, and one on connectionist architecture, and it is suggested that modules of each type of model coexist in the human cognitive system, competing for control of behavioural output.
The realm of auditory cognition is beginning to affirm itself as a new research orientation. Until now, no volume has existed that covers in a didactic fashion the whole range of subjects in this domain. To rectify this situation a special tutorial workshop organized by the French Acoustical Society was held at IRCAM, the music research institute founded by Pierre Boulez. Specialists in perceptual organization, memory, attention, music psychology, neurospsychology, and developmental psychology were invited from Europe and North America. The chapters of this book present the materials from their lectures. The book will be useful to advanced students in the cognitive sciences and scientists specializing in many fields as well as in auditory psychology.
The Quantification of Human Defence is to be welcomed both for its scientific merit, and as an example of international collaboration and cooperation between psychologists, psychiatrists and clinicians from many countries. The problems surrounding the analysis and assessment of psychological coping are complex, particularly with responses such as defence where many processes are not immediately accessible to conscious awareness. It is widely recognised that without reliable and quantifiable measures, little progress can be made towards understanding the role of psychological defence in human experience. The multifacet nature of defence, and the relevance of experimental and clinical psychology, psychometrics, psychodynamics, psychiatry and psychophysiology, renders it particularly resistant to investigation by a single research group. It was with these issues in mind that an interdisciplinary collaborative initiative was formulated through the Concerted Action on Quantification of Parameters for the Study of Breakdown in Human Adaptation. The Concerted Action, which is part of the Commission of the European Community's Medical and Health Research Programme, was set up in 1983 with the aim of stimulating international collaborative research into problems of quantification of stress and adaptation. More than 70 university departments and research institutions from the European Community and other European countries have participated in the programme, tackling a wide variety of topics ranging from basic biological regulatory processes to measurements in psychosocial epidemiology.
Transformational Chairwork: Using Psychotherapeutic Dialogues in Clinical Practice is an exposition of the art and science of Chairwork. It is also a practical handbook for using the Chairwork method effectively with a wide range of clinical problems. Originally created by Dr. Jacob Moreno in the 1950s and then further developed by Dr. Fritz Perls in the 1960s, Chairwork has been embraced and re-envisioned by therapists from cognitive, behavioral, existential, Jungian, experiential, psychodynamic, and integrative perspectives. Transformational Chairwork builds on this rich and creative legacy and provides a model that is both integrative and trans-theoretical. The book familiarizes clinicians with essential dialogue strategies and empowers them to create therapeutic encounters and re-enactments. Chairwork interventions can be broadly organized along the lines of external and internal dialogues. The external dialogues can be used to help patients work though grief and loss, heal from interpersonal abuse and trauma, manage difficult relationships, and develop and strengthen their assertive voice. The internal dialogues in turn focus on resolving inner conflicts, combatting the negative impact of the inner critic and the experience of self-hatred, working with dreams and nightmares, and expanding the self through polarity work. Using both internal and external strategies, this book explores how Chairwork dialogues can be a powerful intervention when working with addictions, social oppression, medical issues, and psychosis. This is done through the use of compelling clinical examples and scripts that can be read, studied, and enacted. Chairwork's central emphasis is helping patients express each of their voices as distinctly and as forcefully as possible. The book concludes with a review of the deepening technique-the strategies that therapists can use to help facilitate clarity and existential ownership.
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.
Ranging from behavioral to molecular levels of analysis, this informative study presents the results of recent research into the biochemistry and neural mechanisms of imprinting. Horn discusses some of the difficulties that researchers have encountered in analyzing the neural basis of memory and describes ways in which these difficulties have been overcome through the analysis of memories underlying habituation and imprinting. He also considers the biochemical consequences of imprinting and its cerebral localization, and examines the relationships between human and animal memory. |
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