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.

For the past forty years, the ideas and findings of George Mandler -- and George Mandler himself -- have been highly influential throughout the field of experimental psychology. Not only has he helped to advance the study of cognition and emotion in many ways, but he also offered assistance and encouragement to numerous young researchers who may expand on the knowledge acquired thus far. The editors of this festschrift feel that one of the greatest strengths of Mandler's work is the blend of European theorizing and American empiricism. This volume contains contributions from friends and colleagues who have been influenced in one way or another by this accomplished psychologist.

This pertinent book assists occupational therapists and other health care providers in developing up-to-date psychogeriatric programs and understanding details of treating the cognitively impaired elderly. There exists a significant demand for occupational therapy in psychogeriatrics now. As the elderly population increases, especially elderly requiring rehabilitative care, the need for occupational therapy in psychogeriatrics will increase markably. Evaluation and Treatment of the Psychogeriatric Patient emphasizes the expertise of leading psychogeriatric occupational therapists, focusing on transitional programming, treating cognitive deficits, and recognizing the malignant cultural myths which continue to disenfranchise and denigrate the elderly.Appropriate diagnosis and management of the elderly population is vital to their ability to function independently. Through detailed, operationally useful descriptions of current geriatric day care hospitals and psychogeriatric transitional programs, this book will be an invaluable aid for social workers, nurses, geriatric counselors, and physical therapists. These helping professionals will be better equipped to develop up-to-date psychogeriatric programs and will better understand the details involved in treating the mentally impaired elderly.

The theory of information integration provides a unified, general approach to the three disciplines of cognitive, social, and developmental psychology. Each of these volumes illustrates how the concepts and methods of this experimentally-grounded theory may be productively applied to core problems in one of these three disciplines.

Based on decades of established research findings in cognitive and developmental psychology, this volume explores and integrates the leading scientific advances into infancy and brain-memory linkages as well as autobiographical and strategic memory. In addition, given that the predominantly classic research on memory development has recently been complemented by more cutting-edge applied research (e.g., eyewitness memory, memory development in educational contexts) in recent years, this volume also provides in-depth and up-to-date coverage of these emerging areas of study.

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

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.

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 .

The chapters in this new book span the range of reading processes from early visual analysis to semantic influences on word identification, thus providing a state-of-the-art summary of current work and offering important contributions to prospective reading research.
"Basic Processes in Reading" examines both future plans and past accomplishments in the world of word identification research. Three chapters provide a futuristic view taking a parallel distributed processing approach to semantic priming, phonology, and the identification of old words and the learning of new words. Reviews on eye movements in reading and semantic priming on word identification provide a retrospective summary of work on these issues as well as solid pointers for future investigations.
Other chapters provide new demonstrations of the importance of phonological contributions to word identification, of interactive processes in the identification of handwritten words, and a re-evaluation ofthe processes involved in the neuropsychological syndrome described as "letter-by-letter" reading.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Fear and ignorance have run rampant throughout human history, stifling creativity and unleashing unspeakable cruelty. Those sinister mythical dragons that often stood in the path of truth and knowledge seem to return century after century as each new generation succumbs to its own insecurities, misled by those who would feed off the fear of others. With great savoir vivre Robert E. Wheeler guides us through the twists and turns of our many and varied foibles, all the while aiming the clear light of reason on the root causes of human misery. His compassion and insight, humor and lively command of the language combine to explore a gallery of "rancid ascetics"; "gloating sadists"; "pontificating hierophants"; "saints, gnomes, and rogues"; "spurious religiosity"; "swaggering unreason"; "oratorical hokum"; and "mystical ballyhoo"; as well as the "whiplash of mass emotion" and the "torrential madness of hysteria-dominated crowds" to arrive at a "fuller, richer, and more abundant life" in which we will "no longer tolerate the coexistence of natural affluence and spiritual squalor". No longer blinded by fear, which undermines our reason, we can recover from our "allergic reaction to truth", turn away from magic - that "shuddering attempt to master a terrifying universe" - and stop behaving like "screaming moppets that want someone to pluck the moon from the sky for them". Guided by Wheeler's firm grasp of cultural history and modern psychology, Dragons for Sale exposes the roots of such mental maladies as witchcraft and its persecution, asceticism and unbridled hedonism, the crusades and millenarianism, nazism's monumental conceit, and the tactics of McCarthyism, as well as the more mundaneconsequences of belief in nostrum vendors and bogus messiahs. Books once regarded as the well-springs of wisdom - e.g., the Sibylline books and the Malleus Maleficarum (the witch hunter's handbook) - are discussed and assessed, uncovering the origins of our sexual misconceptions as readers examine the "seamier side of the Age of Reason" and learn how many beliefs act as "psychological toxins". When we realize that not even the learned have a monopoly on truth and that our collective anxieties should not be allowed to undermine our reason, only then may we realize our unparalleled potential for growing into healthy, fulfilled human beings.

Something instructive occurred in the process of entitling the present collection. Both editor and publisher sought a simple and succinct rubric for the various pieces of work. But they rapidly and reluctantly reached the consensus that, by either intellectual or marketing criteria, the inser tion of the adjective "psychological" to qualify the noun "development" was a communicative necessity. Much to the chagrin of the develop mental psychologist, the term development still connotes-to the world at large as well as the general community of publishers, librarians, and computer archivists-the modernization of nation states. Inside and outside the university, I find that, when asked, "What are you in terested in?" I am not at liberty to reply, "The concept of development," without being absorbed immediately into a discussion of Third World studies. The approach of the present volume should be taken as an exhortation to psychologists to take the genealogy of "development'' seriously. The history of the discipline is not so different from the histo ry of the word and, as we shall discover, the concern with developmen tal progress cannot easily be separated from the urge for dominion. This volume presents a selection from the recent critical scholarship on psychological development. The emphasis is on rethinking the field of developmental psychology at the level of theory."

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.

In this book, Christine Tappolet offers readers a thorough, wide-ranging, and highly accessible introduction to the philosophy of emotions. It covers recent interdisciplinary debates on the nature of emotions as well as standard theories of emotions, such as feeling theories, motivational theories, and evaluative theories. The book includes discussions of the alleged irrationality of emotions, and looks into the question of whether emotions could not, in some cases, contribute positively to theoretical and practical rationality. In addition, the role of emotions in the theory of virtues and the theory of values receives a detailed treatment. Finally, the book turns to the question of how we can regulate and even educate our emotions by engaging with music and with narrative art. The overall picture of emotions that emerges is one that does justice to the central role that emotions play in our lives, conceiving of emotions as crucial to our grasp of values. As an opinionated introduction, the book doesn't pretend to be neutral but aims to engage readers in contemporary debates. Each chapter closes with questions for further discussion and suggestions for further reading. Key Features: Written for advanced undergraduates, suitable as the main text in a philosophy of emotion course or as a complement to a set of primary readings Includes useful features for student readers like introductions, study questions, and suggestions for further reading in each chapter Considers whether emotions interfere with our reasoning or whether they can, in some cases, help us to be more rational Argues against basic emotion theory and social constructionism that emotions are both shaped by biological forces and social forces Discusses a variety of subjectivist and objectivist approaches, which share the assumption that emotions and values are closely connected.

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.

These collected essays from leading figures in cognitive psychology represent the latest research and thinking in the field. The volume is organized around four Endelian themes: encoding and retrieval processes in memory; the neuropsychology of memory; classificatory systems for memory; and consciousness, emotion, and memory.