This book presents the results of the most complete and updated assessment of cognitive resources of students in Latin America: the Study of Latin American Intelligence (SLATINT). During four years, top researchers of the region used a standardized set of cognitive measures to assess 4,000 students aged between 14 and 15 years from six countries: Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru. The data collected and now analyzed in this volume is a first step to understand the human cognitive capital of the region, a crucial resource for any country today. Intelligence research has shown that the cognitive skills of a population are strongly associated with the school performance of its students and the development of a nation. This makes Intelligence Measurement and School Performance in Latin America a valuable tool both for Latin American researchers and authorities engaged in the improvement of each country's human resources and for psychologists, educators and other social scientists dedicated to the study of the impact of intelligence in the development of nations.

In an evaluation of the strengths and limitations of artificial intelligence in a number of intellectual domains, Wagman draws comparisons with human cognitive ability in those domains, and assesses its role as a theoretical model, as a collaborator, or as a competitor of the human mind. This book distinguishes itself in its structured and detailed account of advancing intellectual developments in the science of artificial intelligence as opposed to a highly technical or vague philosophical treatment of the topic.

Consciousness and the relation between mind and brain are topics of contentious debate, and increasing interest amongst both academics and students of psychology. In this text, Lancaster takes a refreshingly balanced look at consciousness, bringing in approaches from neuroscience, cognitive science, depth psychology, philosophy and mysticism. With a distinctive "transpersonal" orientation, this text will be an invaluable authoritative overview of this subject, integrating scholarship and research from diverse areas.

This second edition of the popular Cognitive Neuroscience of Aging provides up-to-date coverage of the most fundamental topics in this discipline. Like the first edition, this volume accessibly and comprehensively reviews the neural mechanisms of cognitive aging appropriate to both professionals and students in a variety of domains, including psychology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, neurology, and psychiatry. The chapters are organized into three sections. The first section focuses on major questions regarding methodological approaches and experimental design. It includes chapters on structural imaging (MRI, DTI), functional imaging (fMRI), and molecular imaging (dopamine PET, etc), and covers multimodal imaging, longitudinal studies, and the interpretation of imaging findings. The second section concentrates on specific cognitive abilities, including attention and inhibitory control, executive functions, memory, and emotion. The third section turns to domains with health and clinical implications, such as the emergence of cognitive deficits in middle age, the role of genetics, the effects of modulatory variables (hypertension, exercise, cognitive engagement), and the distinction between healthy aging and the effects of dementia and depression. Taken together, the chapters in this volume, written by many of the most eminent scientists as well as young stars in this discipline, provide a unified and comprehensive overview of cognitive neuroscience of aging.

This magistral treatise approaches the integration of psychology through the study of the multiple causes of normal and dysfunctional behavior. Causality is the focal point reviewed across disciplines. Using diverse models, the book approaches unifying psychology as an ongoing project that integrates genetics, experience, evolution, brain, development, change mechanisms, and so on. The book includes in its integration free will, epitomized as freedom in being. It pinpoints the role of the self in causality and the freedom we have in determining our own behavior. The book deals with disturbed behavior, as well, and tackles the DSM-5 approach to mental disorder and the etiology of psychopathology. Young examines all these topics with a critical eye, and gives many innovative ideas and models that will stimulate thinking on the topic of psychology and causality for decades to come. It is truly integrative and original. Among the topics covered: Models and systems of causality of behavior. Nature and nurture: evolution and complexities. Early adversity, fetal programming, and getting under the skin. Free will in psychotherapy: helping people believe. Causality in psychological injury and law: basics and critics. A Neo-Piagetian/Neo-Eriksonian 25-step (sub)stage model. Unifying Causality and Psychology appeals to the disciplines of psychology, psychiatry, epidemiology, philosophy, neuroscience, genetics, law, the social sciences and humanistic fields, in general, and other mental health fields. Its level of writing makes it appropriate for graduate courses, as well as researchers and practitioners.

Graphic displays such as charts, graphs, diagrams, and maps play in important role today in the design and presentation of instructional materials education. There is also a strong need in scientific, technical and administrative fields to visually present facts, laws, principles etc. The increasing use of computer-based learning environments has also become an important field where the visual presentation of information plays a central role. Despite the importance of graphical displays as a means of communication and the fact that research about learning and cognition has advanced rapidly in the past two decades, the comprehension of graphics is still a rather unexplored area.

The comprehension of graphics is not only a stimulating topic in the fields of science and instructional psychology, but also in related disciplines such as semiotics, and artificial intelligence. Research on the comprehension of graphics complements the scientific investigation of cognitive processes in text comprehension, which has contributed much to our understanding of human cognition and learning. Ultimately, a better understanding of the cognitive processes involved in the comprehension of graphics will have an impact not only on cognitive theory, but also on educational practice.

The nativism controversy is not simply to be identified with the debate over "nature vs. nurture." Instead, it concerns two questions of pressing concern to the cognitive scientist, namely, whether human learning is psychologically explicable at all, and, if it is, whether inborn, task-specific learning mechanisms need be postulated in that explanation. Re-examining the nativisms of Chomsky and Fodor in light of this understanding, What's Within? reveals their strengths -- and weaknesses.

Thanks to the enormous progress of neuroscience over the past few decades, we can now monitor the passage of initial stimulations to certain points in the brain. In spite of these findings, however, subjective consciousness still remains an unsolved mystery. This volume exposes neuroscience and cognitive science to philosophical analysis and proposes that we think of our conscious states of mind as a composite phenomenon consisting of three layers: neuronal events, somatic markers, and explicit consciousness. While physics and chemistry can and have been successfully employed to describe the causal relation between the first two layers, the further step to articulate consciousness is purely interpretative and points to the preponderant importance of language.

Language is essential for the transformation of inchoate, not very informative somatic markers and mere moods into full consciousness and appraised emotion. Munz uses literary examples to shift our understanding of the mind away from computational models and to show how eloquence about our states of mind is manufactured rather than caused. He firmly rejects the efforts of both Freud and non-Freudian psychologists to find a scientific explanation for such manufacture and to make a science out of the eloquence of folk psychology. Instead he argues that the many ways eloquence is being manufactured to transform somatic markers into conscious states of mind are best accounted for in terms of Wittgenstein's conception of language games. This volume challenges most current thinking about consciousness and mind and will appeal to philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, and linguists.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a potentially severely debilitating psychiatric diagnosis that may affect up to 2% of the general population. Hallmarks of BPD include impulsivity, emotional instability, and poor self-image, and those with BPD have increased risk for self-harm and suicide. Systems Training for Emotional Predictability and Problem Solving (STEPPS) brings together research findings and information on implementation and best practices for a group treatment program for outpatients with BPD. A five-month long program easily learned and delivered by therapists from a wide range of theoretical orientations, STEPPS combines cognitive behavioral therapy, emotion management and behavioral skills training, and psychoeducation with a systems component that involves professional care providers, family, friends, and significant others of persons with BPD. The book provides a detailed description of the program, reviews the body of evidence supporting its use and implementation, and describes its dissemination worldwide and in different settings. Empirical data show that STEPPS is effective and produces clinically important improvement in mood and behavior, while reducing health care utilization. Unique among programs for BPD, STEPPS has been exhaustively studied in correctional systems (both prisons and community corrections), where it is shown to be as effective as in community settings. This volume will be a valuable guide to those in psychiatry, psychology, social work, nursing, and the counseling professions who treat people with BPD.

This work provides a complete theory of emotional processes, explaining how different emotions are elicited and expressed, and how the emotional range of individuals develops over their lifetime. The author's approach puts emotion in a central role as a complex, patterned, organic reaction to both daily events and long-term efforts on the part of the individual to survive, flourish, and achieve. In his view, emotions cannot be divorced from other functions - whether biological, social, or cognitive - and express the intimate, personal meaning of what individuals experience. As coping and adapting processes, they are seen as part of the ongoing effort to monitor changes, stimuli, and stresses arising from the environment.

What factors affect creativity and the generation of creative images? What factors affect the ability to reinterpret those images? Research described in this book indicates that expectations constrain both of these attributes of creativity. Characteristics of the imagined pattern, such as cohesiveness or its psychological goodness, also affect image generation and reinterpretation. Other evidence indicates that images can be combined mentally to yield new, manipulable composites. Cognitive models encompass the research and extend it to fields as diverse as architecture, music, and problem solving.

Wildly arrogant, stunningly bombastic, and undeniably fascinating. This 1901 work-the masterpiece of an eclectic genius whose life encompassed medical science, mystical transcendence, and prospecting for gold-posits a higher form of sentience that only a few humans have ever achieved, among them Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Dante, William Blake, and the author himself, of course. As Bucke shares his metaphysical experience of the "cosmic consciousness" and offers evidence for the few instances in history of its occurrence ("it may as well be frankly stated at once that the view of the present editor is that Francis Bacon wrote the 'Shakespeare' plays and poems"), the reader may well be moved to throw this bizarre and highly intriguing book furiously across the room... if the reader can put it down at all, that is. Canadian mystic and doctor RICHARD MAURICE BUCKE (1837-1902) was a pioneer in the medical treatment of mental illness; his famous friendship with Walt Whitman was the subject of the 1992 movie Beautiful Dreamers. He also wrote Man's Moral Nature (1879) and an 1883 authorized biography of Whitman.

These papers, with the editors' introductions, aim to illustrate the many ideas, the range of theories, methods and approaches, and the fruits of the cognitive revolution. They are divided into sections on: foundations; learning, memory and cognition; and communications, speech and language.

This book represents the research efforts of individuals whose scientific expertise lies in reflection on what Sartre described as reflective acts. Theory in the cognitive psychology of mental imagery, endeavors not only being able to describe the contents and nature of mental imagery, but also being able to understand the underlying functional cognition. Psychologists need not solely rely on the techniques of introspection, and the last two decades have seen highly creative developments in techniques for eliciting behavioural data to be complemented by introspective reports. This level of sophistication has provided singular insights into the relationship between imagery and other consequential and universal aspects of human cognition: perception, memory, verbal processes and problem solving. The recognition that imagery, despite its ubiquitous nature, differs between individuals both in prevalence and in kind, and the dramatic rise in cognitive science has provided the additional potential for integrating our understanding of cognitive function with our understanding of neuroanatomy and of computer science.All of these relationships, developments and issues are dealt with in detail in this book, by some of the most distinguished authors in imagery research, working at present in both Europe and the U.S.A.

This groundbreaking work explores how children and adults who have been blind since birth can both perceive and draw pictures. John M. Kennedy, a perception psychologist, relates how pictures in raised form can be understood by the blind, and how untrained blind people can make recognizable sketches of objects, situations, and events using new methods for raised-line drawing. According to Kennedy, the ability to draw develops in blind people as it does in the sighted. His book gives detailed descriptions of his work with the blind, includes many pictures by blind children and adults, and provides a new theory of visual and tactile perception - applicable to both the blind and the sighted - to account for his startling findings. Kennedy argues that spatial perception is possible through touch as well as through sight, and that aspects of perspective are found in pictures by the blind. He shows that blind people recognize when pictures of objects are drawn incorrectly. According to Kennedy, the incorrect features are often deliberate attempts to represent properties of objects that cannot be shown in a picture. These metaphors, as Kennedy describes them, can be interpreted by the blind and the sighted in the same way. Kennedy's findings are vitally important for studies in perceptual and cognitive psychology, the philosophy of representation, and education. His conclusions have practical significance as well, offering inspiration and guidelines for those who seek to engineer ways to allow blind and visually impaired people to gain access to information only available in graphs, figures, and pictures.

This book examines emergent literacy as the foundations for language instruction and seeks to relate the work of those doing research on literacy acquisition and those designing programs to facilitate children's literacy development. It bridges theory and practice, looking at both cognitive processes and settings in which children first experience literacy.

With contributions by leading researchers in the field, the book examines emergent literacy in nonliterate homes; oral language supports; parent-child reading; literacy and working class families; literacy from a developmental perspective; parental involvement; and collaborative efforts of teachers and parents. An essential collection for all research and education in the language arts methods area. Will also appeal to educators involved in reading instruction and parent-education.

Difficulties in motor behavior are commonly associated with a variety of disabilities. Early research efforts focused on descriptions of specific groups of people or on evaluations of intervention programs. Only recently have investigators begun to explore questions from a variety of theoretical positions in an attempt to build a more fundamental understanding of the disabled person. The present volume represents views of major methodological issues, current research fronts and selected applied concerns from the perspective of the disabled performer. Authors write from a number of theoretical viewpoints and sketch future research directions in these chapters.

Drawing from a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, architecture and geography, and international contributors, this volume offers both students and scholars with an interest in the interdisciplinary study of childhood a range of ways of thinking spatially about children's lives.

Cognitive style theory suggests that individuals utilize different patterns in acquiring knowledge. This book describes various styles of processing information that are employed by children as they receive new information in various settings--especially in teaching/learning situations. Cognitive style is not an indication of one's level of intelligence, but a description of the unique strategies that learners employ in acquiring new information. This book describes individual differences that have been documented through scholarly investigations of cognitive styles, highlights philosophical and theoretical foundations of cognitive style concepts, and pinpoints implications for classroom practice. Researched concepts are interwoven with current issues such as "affirmative action" and public policy to promote ideas that assist with a better understanding of at-risk learners and troubled youth in general. Currently, the theory of "multiple intelligences" is receiving widespread acceptance. This book suggests that MI theory is merely a reframing of cognitive style theory. The book also details how some children diagnosed as "hyperactive" are improperly labeled.

Motivation: Theory, Neurobiology and Applications is inspired by a question central to health care professionals, teachers, parents, and coaches alike, "How can an individual be motivated to perform a given activity or training?" It presents novel measurements of motivation developed in psychology and economics, recent insights into the neurobiology of motivation, and current research on applications designed to boost motivation in neurorehabilitation, education, and sports. In addition, tactics on how to connect these different research and knowledge fields within a common (theoretical) framework of motivation is discussed. Thus, in short, the book provides an integrative, interdisciplinary, up-to-date accounting on the neurobiology of motivation and how it might be boosted.

This groundbreaking interdisciplinary Handbook showcases the latest intuition research, integrated in a framework that reconciles various views on what intuition is and how it works. The internationally renowned group of contributors presents their findings in five areas. Part I explores different facets of the intuiting process and its outcome, the role of consciousness and affect, and alternate ways of capturing intuition. Part II deals with its function in expertise, strategy, entrepreneurship, and ethics. Part III outlines intuitive decision making in critical occupations, legal profession, medicine, film and wine industry, and teaching. Part IV pushes the boundaries of our current understanding by exploring the possibility of non-local intuition, based on the principles of quantum holography. Part V investigates new techniques for developing intuitive skills. This cutting-edge, comprehensive Handbook will prove essential for academics and research students of social sciences, particularly management, psychology, sociology, entrepreneurship, leadership, team dynamics, HR and training. It will be also an invaluable resource for industry professionals searching for soft-core methods to increase productivity and creativity/innovation, to improve leadership and organizational climate, or to adopt new staff training and development methods. Contributors: A. Antonietti, B.T. Bakken, C. Betsch, R.T. Bradley, L.A. Burke, J.-F. Coget, E. Dane, A. Dijksterhuis, W. Duggan, I.D. Ebert, S. Epstein, A. Glockner, B. Graf, L.K. Gundry, J.R. Guzak, T. Haerem, M.B. Hargrove, C. Harteis, G.P. Hodgkinson, P. Iannello, K.-P. Ittner, J.R. Kickul, G. Klein, C. Kugler, C. Kuhnle, J. Langan-Fox, M. Mason, B. Morgenthaler, J.E. Pretz, D. Radin, G. Roth, E. Sadler-Smith, M. Sinclair, M. Strick, D.E. Tomasino, V. Vranic

This volume combines psycholinguistic experiments with typological investigations in order to provide a comprehensive exploration of the linguistic structure of verb-number agreement in bilingual speakers, with a particular focus on the Turkish language. It takes as its starting point the question of which linguistic structures pose difficulties for bilingual speakers, and then proceeds to evaluate the question by using the interface phenomenon of optional verb number agreement. In doing so, this volume investigates how the bilingual mind handles grammatical structures that demand high processing sources, working towards a processing-based linguistic framework for the bilingual mind. Beginning with a thorough survey of the current research of the interface phenomenon in the bilingual mind, the volume then proceeds to present two separate studies on each linguistic interface type, namely semantics-syntax interface and syntax-pragmatics interface, thus filling a number of gaps in the bilingualism research with regards to the interface phenomenon The results and conclusions of these studies are then integrated with current knowledge and research from the field within a theoretical and processing-based framework in order to explore new psycholinguistic insights for the bilingual mind, specifically the conclusion that the grammar of bilingual speakers is shaped according to cross linguistic tendencies. Ultimately, it provides a unified account and a comprehensive conclu sion regarding the non-native-like patterns in grammar of bilingual speakers. Serving as a fascinating and timely resource, Competing Structures in the Bilingual Mind: An Investigation of Optional Verb Number Agreement will appeal to bilingualism researchers, clinical linguists, cognitive scientists, experimental linguists, and any linguist specializing in Turkic or Altaic languages.