One of the most active fields of educational research in recent years has been the investigation of problem-solving performance. Two opposing views of current research -- one suggesting that there are more differences than similarities within different domains, and the other stating that there is great similarity -- lead to a variety of questions:
* Is problem solving a single construct?
* Are there aspects of problem-solving performance that are similar across a variety of content domains?
* What problem-solving skills learned within one context can be expected to transfer to other domains?
The purpose of this book is to serve as the basis for the productive exchange of information that will help to answer these questions -- by drawing together preliminary theoretical understandings, sparking debate and disagreement, raising new questions and directions, and perhaps developing new world views.

The concept of affordances is being increasingly used in fields beyond ecological psychology to reveal previously unexplored interdisciplinary relationships. These fields include engineering, robotics, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, urban theory, architecture, computer science, and much more. As the concept is adapted for its relational meaning between an agent and the environment, or object, the meaning of the term has changed to fit the customs of the adapting field. This book maps the different shades of the term and brings insights into how it is operationalized by providing short accessible essays regardless of background. Each contribution addresses big questions around this topic such as the application of the concept on ongoing research, how to measure or identify affordances, as well as other reflective questions about the future of affordances in the field. The book is envisioned to be read by non-experts, students, and researchers from several disciplines, and fills the need for summarization across disciplines. As the many adaptations flourished from the same psychological concept, this book also aims to function as a catalyst and motivation for reinterpreting the concepts for new directions. Compared to existing books, this book aims not to span the vertical dimension of field by taking a deep dive into a niche-field-instead, this book aims to have a wide horizontal span highlighting a common concept shared by an increasing number of fields, namely affordances. As such, this book takes a different approach by attempting to summarize the different emerging applications and definitions of the concept, and make them accessible to non-experts, students, and researchers regardless of background and level.

"If a child falls victim to a crime, or becomes witness to it, they may well be questioned by the police. Perhaps even tasked with selecting a suspect from a line-up. But how reliable can a child be under such strenuous circumstances? In this book, Dr. Ben Cotterill explores practices and influences that can increase or decrease the accuracy of children's testimonies. Memory mechanisms and general developmental factors behind the capability of child witnesses are outlined, demonstrating their ability to describe or identify. Factors that affect jurors' perception of said children are also looked into in detail.There have been many instances in which poor interviewing practices with children led to false imprisonments. Said occurrences demonstrate how both situational factors and individual differences can potentially compromise children's eyewitness performance. Based upon what we now understand, can recommendations be made, so that, in a court of law, innocence is the key to achieving justice?

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

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

This is a very unusual book. It brings to the English speaking reader a masterpiece written some 50 years ago by one of the greatest minds of the 20th century--Nicholai Aleksandrovich Bernstein--considered the founder of many contemporary fields of science such as biomechanics, motor control, and physiology of activity. Divided into two parts, this volume's first section is a translation of the Russian book On Dexterity and Its Development. It presents, in a very reader-friendly style, Bernstein's major ideas related to the development and control of voluntary movements in general, and to the notion of dexterity, in particular. Although very few scientific works remain interesting to the reader 50 years after they were written, this volume--now available for the first time in English--is a rare exception to this rule. His ideas are certainly not obsolete. Actually, we are just starting to grasp the depth and breadth of his thinking, especially his analysis of the complex notion of dexterity. The second section provides both a historical and a contemporary perspective on Bernstein's ideas. The original work was directed at a wide audience ranging from specialists in biomechanics and motor behavior, to coaches, neurologists, physical therapists, athletes, and even inquisitive college and high school students. The chapters contributed by contemporary scientists mirror Bernstein's style and present new findings in the areas of biomechanics, motor control, and motor development in a way that would be both understandable to non-specialists in these areas, and informative for professionals working in different areas related to human movement. All those interested in the origins and mechanisms of the production of voluntary movements, irrespective of their educational and professional background, will find this book valuable. In addition, the unique history and composition of this text will make it helpful and attractive to historians and philosophers of science.

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

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

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

How do people make decisions when time is limited, information unreliable, and the future uncertain? Based on the work of Nobel laureate Herbert Simon and with the help of colleagues around the world, the Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC) Group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin has developed a research program on simple heuristics, also known as fast and frugal heuristics. In the social sciences, heuristics have been believed to be generally inferior to complex methods for inference, or even irrational. Although this may be true in 'small worlds' where everything is known for certain, we show that in the actual world in which we live, full of uncertainties and surprises, heuristics are indispensable and often more accurate than complex methods. Contrary to a deeply entrenched belief, complex problems do not necessitate complex computations. Less can be more. Simple heuristics exploit the information structure of the environment, and thus embody ecological rather than logical rationality. Simon (1999) applauded this new program as a 'revolution in cognitive science, striking a great blow for sanity in the approach to human rationality.' By providing a fresh look at how the mind works as well as the nature of rationality, the simple heuristics program has stimulated a large body of research, led to fascinating applications in diverse fields from law to medicine to business to sports, and instigated controversial debates in psychology, philosophy, and economics. In a single volume, the present reader compiles key articles that have been published in journals across many disciplines. These articles present theory, real-world applications, and a sample of the large number of existing experimental studies that provide evidence for people's adaptive use of heuristics.

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

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

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

This volume honors Solomon Asch, a pioneer in social psychology whose experiments in this field are considered classic. Asch has made important contributions to the fields of memory, learning and thinking, and perception along with extending Gestalt theories to social psychology research.
Former students and colleagues honor Asch with essays that either expand on his research or describe original research on new topics of related interest. An interesting and informative text for faculty and researchers in the fields of cognition and perception as well as social, experimental, and personality psychology.

Despite all our highly publicized efforts to improve our schools, the United States is still falling behind. We recently ranked 15th in the world in reading, math, and science. Clearly, more needs to be done. In The Learning Brain, Torkel Klingberg urges us to use the insights of neuroscience to improve the education of our children. The key to improving education lies in understanding how the brain works: that is where learning takes place, after all. The book focuses in particular on "working memory"--our ability to concentrate and to keep relevant information in our head while ignoring distractions (a topic the author covered in The Overflowing Brain). Research shows enormous variation in working memory among children, with some ten-year-olds performing at the level of a fourteen-year old, others at that of a six-year old. More important, children with high working memory have better math and reading skills, while children with poor working memory consistently underperform. Interestingly, teachers tend to perceive children with poor working memory as dreamy or unfocused, not recognizing that these children have a memory problem. But what can we do for these children? For one, we can train working memory. The Learning Brain provides a variety of different techniques and scientific insights that may just teach us how to improve our children's working memory. Klingberg also discusses how stress can impair working memory (skydivers tested just before a jump showed a 30% drop in working memory) and how aerobic exercise can actually modify the brain's nerve cells and improve classroom performance. Torkel Klingberg is one of the world's leading cognitive neuroscientists, but in this book he wears his erudition lightly, writing with simplicity and good humor as he shows us how to give our children the best chance to learn and grow.

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

Since its development thirty-five years ago, the practice of cognitive therapy has been extended well beyond the treatment of depression. It is now effectively used with substance abuse, marital conflict, sexual dysfunction, panic disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders, paranoid delusional disorders, and a variety of other affective, anxiety, and personality disorders. Each chapter in this volume presents state-of-the-art treatment by one of the field's leading practitioners, demonstrating interventions in rich clinical detail for the therapist interested in why the method works and how to apply it. We also see how other theoretical orientations are integrated into the cognitive framework. "One cannot help but be impressed with the ability of these clinicians to adapt the cognitive therapy model to the needs of individual patients," comments the founder of the model, Aaron Beck, who called Robert Leahy's earlier book, Cognitive Therapy: Basic Principles and Applications, "a treasure trove for clinicians, scholars, and researchers."

Some years ago we, the editors of this volume, found out about each other's deeply rooted interest in the concept of time, the usage of time, and the effects of shortage of time on human thought and behavior. Since then we have fostered the idea of bringing together different perspectives in this area. We are now, there fore, very content that our idea has materialized in the present volume. There is both anecdotal and empirical evidence to suggest that time con straints may affect behavior. Managers and other professional decision makers frequently identify time pressure as a major constraint on their behavior (Isen berg, 1984). Chamberlain and Zika (1990) provide empirical support for this view, showing that complaints of insufficient time are the most frequently report ed everyday minor stressors or hassles for all groups of people except the elderly. Similarly, studies in occupational settings have identified time pressure as one of the central components of workload (Derrich, 1988; O'Donnel & Eggemeier, 1986)."

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

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

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

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

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

Volume five continues to mark the significant advances made in the psychology of human intelligence, problem solving, and thinking abilities. Papers contributed by leaders in the field reflect a diversity of perspectives and approaches to the human intelligence. Subjects discussed include: * genetic and environmental contributions to information-processing abilities * development of children's conceptions of intelligence * skill acquisition as a bridge between intelligence and motivation * information-processing abilities underlying intelligence * costs of expertise and their relation to intelligence * the nature of abstract thought