The rational analysis method, first proposed by John R. Anderson, has been enormously influential in helping us understand high-level cognitive processes.
The Probabilistic Mind is a follow-up to the influential and highly cited 'Rational Models of Cognition' (OUP, 1998). It brings together developments in understanding how, and how far, high-level cognitive processes can be understood in rational terms, and particularly using probabilistic Bayesian methods. It synthesizes and evaluates the progress in the past decade, taking into account developments in Bayesian statistics, statistical analysis of the cognitive 'environment' and a variety of theoretical and experimental lines of research. The scope of the book is broad, covering important recent work in reasoning, decision making, categorization, and memory. Including chapters from many of the leading figures in this field,
The Probabilistic Mind will be valuable for psychologists and philosophers interested in cognition.

David Papineau presents a controversial view of human reason, portraying it as a normal part of the natural world, and drawing on the empirical sciences to illuminate its workings. In these six interconnected essays he offers a fresh approach to some long-standing problems. Papineau rejects the contemporary orthodoxy that genuine thought hinges on some species of non-natural normativity. He explores the evolutionary histories of theoretical and practical rationality, indicating ways in which capacities underlying human reasoning have been selected for their biological advantages. He then looks at the connection between decision and probability, explaining how good decisions need to be informed by causal as well as probabilistic facts. Finally he defends the radical view that a satisfactory understanding of decision-making is only possible within a specific interpretation of quantum mechanics. By placing the subject in its scientific context, Papineau shows how human rationality plays an explicable role in the functioning of the natural world.

'If' is one of the most important and interesting words in the English language. It is used to express hypothetical thought - an essential part of human reasoning and decision making. This type of thought occurs wherever there is uncertainty, and uncertainty is everywhere in our lives. The use of conditional terms such as 'if' also distinguishes human intelligence from that of all other animals, permitting a higher level of rationality in human reasoning and decision making. Until now, such conditionals have been the subject of independent study by psychologists and philosophers. In this volume, Jonathan Evans and David Over present a new theoretical approach to understanding hypothetical thought. The book draws on studies from the psychology of judgement and decision making, as well as philosophical logic. A new volume in the acclaimed Oxford Cognitive Science series, 'If' will be an important book for both psychologists and philosophers interested in human reasoning. Advance praise for If: "This book brings together a wealth of work in cognitive psychology and will be valuable to both psychologists and philosophers. There is not, as far as I know, another book which covers this ground." Professor Dorothy Edgington, Dept of Philosophy, University of Oxford "This is a wonderful book. It is excellently written and provides convincing arguments for a new perspective on conditionals." Dr Klaus Oberauer, Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Germany

Written by James R. Flynn of the "Flynn effect" (the sustained and substantial increase in intelligence test scores across the world over many decades), "Intelligence and Human Progress" examines genes and human achievement in all aspects, including what genes allow and forbid in terms of personal life history, the cognitive progress of humanity, the moral progress of humanity, and the cross-fertilization of the two.

This book presents a new method for weighing family influences versus genes in the cognitive abilities of individuals, and counters the arguments of those who dismiss gains in IQ as true cognitive gains. It ranges over topics including: how family can handicap those taking the SAT; new IQ thresholds for occupations that show elite occupations are within reach of the average American; what Pol Pot did to the genetic potential of Cambodia; why dysgenics (the deterioration of human genes over the generations) is important, but no menace for the foreseeable future; and what might derail human intellectual progress.

Researchers in developmental and cognitive psychology, educators, and professionals involved in intelligence testing or psychometrics will benefit from the perspectives offered here. But beyond that, anyone interested in the potential of the human mind will be engaged and challenged by one of the most important contemporary thinkers on the subject.

The new field of experimental philosophy has emerged as the methods of psychological science have been brought to bear on traditional philosophical issues. Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy is the place to go to see outstanding new work in the field. It features papers by philosophers, papers by psychologists, and papers co-authored by people in both disciplines. The series heralds the emergence of a truly interdisciplinary field in which people from different disciplines are working together to address a shared set of questions. The papers in this third volume illustrate the ways in which the field continues to broaden, taking on new methodological approaches and interacting with substantive theories from an ever wider array of disciplines. Some recent research in experimental philosophy is going more deeply into well-established questions in the field, while other strands of research are exploring issues that scarcely appeared in the field even a few years ago. Thus, we see the introduction of new empirical and statistical methods (network analysis), new theoretical approaches (formal semantics), and the development of entirely new interdisciplinary connections (in the emerging field of "experimental jurisprudence").

A history of winning intelligence practices from the Spanish Armada to Cyberwar that offers timeless, practical lessons we ignore at our peril. According to conventional wisdom, strategic surprise and other intelligence failures are both inevitable and ultimately irrelevant because, at least in international politics and war, military muscle matters more than brains. In Decision Advantage, Jennifer E. Sims counters this argument by investigating the history of intelligence through centuries of international conflict, including the 16th Century's Spanish Armada, two US Civil War battles, the hunt for President Lincoln's assassin, and key diplomatic crises before the two World Wars. Sims dives deep into these events to show that the competitive pursuit of intelligence advantage has been a measurable, buildable, and consequential form of power that can help competitors win against otherwise stronger opponents. From these observations, the author develops a general guide to building intelligence readiness, whether for war, diplomacy, or international manhunts. Refuting arguments that intelligence is a sideshow because intentions are unknowable and predictions risky, she redefines success as gaining information advantages over an adversary, prescribes four practical pathways for gaining them, and confirms what seems to be simple common sense: smart competitors know how to learn, and the ones who learn best tend to win. Thinking of intelligence in this way, Sims argues, adds a moral character to an enterprise that is too often mired in excessive secrecy and tyrannical agendas. By "lifting the veil" on international politics, Decision Advantage shows how good intelligence can lessen the likelihood of wars of misperception and folly.

Hofstadter's bestselling collection of brilliant and quirky essays has been reissued to coincide with the paperback release of Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies. "Reading Metamagical Themas is perhaps the closest thing imaginable to taking a voyage through a mind".--San Francisco Chronicle. 124 line drawings.

In the course of their researches for Mental Imagery in the Child (1971), the authors came to appreciate that action may be more conducive to the formation and conservation of images than is mere perception. This raised the problem of memory and its relation to intelligence, which they examine in this title, originally published in English in 1973. Through the analysis primarily of the child's capacity for remembering additive and multiplicative logical structures, and his remembrance of causal and spatial structures, the authors investigate whether memories pursue their own course, regardless of the intelligence or whether, in specified conditions, mnemonic improvements may be due to progress in intelligence. They examine the relationship between the memory's figurative aspects (from perceptive recognition to the memory-image) and its operational aspects (the schemata of the intelligence), and stress the fundamental significance of the mnemonic level known as the 'reconstructive memory'. This was a pioneering work at the time, presenting illuminating conclusions drawn from extensive research, together with a number of constructive ideas which opened up a fresh approach to an important area of educational psychology.

Reason and Inquiry: The Erotetic Theory presents a unified theory of the human capacity for reasoning and decision-making. The erotetic theory accounts for a diverse range of empirically documented fallacies and framing effects. It shows how the same mental processes that yield fallacies can yield what logicians call first-order validity and probabilistic coherence in reasoning, as well as rational decision-making as conceived by economists. The book's central idea is that our minds naturally aim at resolving issues, and if we are sufficiently inquisitive in the process, we can avoid mistakes. The erotetic theory holds that both the successes and the failures of reason are due to this aim. Rationality is secured if we reach what is described by the theory as erotetic equilibrium.

Quickly acquire the knowledge and skills you need to confidently administer, score, and interpret the WAIS(R)-IV

Coauthored by Alan S. Kaufman, who was mentored by David Wechsler--the creator of the Wechsler scales--"Essentials of WAIS"(R)"-IV Assessment," "Second Edition" is thoroughly revised and updated to" "provide beginning and seasoned clinicians with comprehensive step-by-step guidelines for effective use of the WAIS(R)-IV. This invaluable guide provides clinicians with a brand new interpretive process, overhauling its system of profile interpretation to be equally powerful across the "entire" WAIS(R)-IV age range.

Like all the volumes in the "Essentials of Psychological Assessment" series, this book is designed to help busy mental health professionals quickly acquire the basic knowledge and skills they need to make optimal use of a major psychological assessment instrument. Each concise chapter features numerous callout boxes highlighting key concepts, bulleted points, and extensive illustrative material, as well as test questions that help you gauge and reinforce your grasp of the information covered.

The new edition explores timely topics including gender and ethnic differences, as well as the role of the Flynn Effect in capital punishment court cases. Along with an accompanying CD-ROM containing scoring tables and case report material, the "Second Edition" includes information and advice on how to administer Q-interactive(TM)--the new digital version of the test--for administration of the WAIS(R)-IV via iPad(R).

Other titles in the "Essentials of Psychological Assessment "series:

Essentials of Assessment Report Writing

Essentials of WISC(R)-IV Assessment, Second Edition

Essentials of WMS(R)-IV Assessment

Essentials of Cross-Battery Assessment, Third Edition

Essentials of WJ III(TM) Tests of Achievement Assessment

Essentials of WJ III(TM) Cognitive Abilities Assessment, Second Edition

Essentials of Neuropsychological Assessment, Second Edition

Fifteen years ago, psychologist and educator Howard Gardner introduced the idea of multiple intelligences, challenging the presumption that intelligence consists of verbal or analytic abilities only,those intelligences that schools tend to measure. He argued for a broader understanding of the intelligent mind, one that embraces creation in the arts and music, spatial reasoning, and the ability to understand ourselves and others.Today, Gardner's ideas have become widely accepted,indeed, they have changed how we think about intelligence, genius, creativity, and even leadership, and he is widely regarded as one of the most important voices writing on these subjects.Now, in Extraordinary Minds , a book as riveting as it is new, Gardner poses an important question: Is there a set of traits shared by all truly great achievers,those we deem extraordinary,no matter their field or the time period within which they did their important work?In an attempt to answer this question, Gardner first examines how most of us mature into more or less competent adults. He then examines closely four persons who lived unquestionably extraordinary lives,Mozart, Freud, Woolf, and Gandhi,using each as an exemplar of a different kind of extraordinariness: Mozart as the master of a discipline, Freud as the innovative founder of a new discipline, Woolf as the great introspector, and Gandhi as the influencer.What can we learn about ourselves from the experiences of the extraordinary? Interestingly, Gardner finds that an excess of raw power is not the most impressive characteristic shared by superachievers rather, these extraordinary individuals all have had a special talent for identifying their own strengths and weaknesses, for accurately analyzing the events of their own lives, and for converting into future successes those inevitable setbacks that mark every life.Gardner provides answers to a number of provocative questions, among them: How do we explain extraordinary times,Athens in the fifth century B.C., the T'ang Dynasty in the eighth century, Islamic Society in the late Middle Ages, and New York at the middle of the century? What is the relation among genius, creativity, fame, success, and moral extraordinariness? Does extraordinariness make for a happier, more fulfilling life, or does it simply create a special onus?

What is intelligence? The concept crosses and blurs the boundaries between natural and artificial, bridging the human brain and the cybernetic world of AI. In this book, the acclaimed philosopher Catherine Malabou ventures a new approach that emphasizes the intertwined, networked relationships among the biological, the technological, and the symbolic. Malabou traces the modern metamorphoses of intelligence, seeking to understand how neurobiological and neurotechnological advances have transformed our view. She considers three crucial developments: the notion of intelligence as an empirical, genetically based quality measurable by standardized tests; the shift to the epigenetic paradigm, with its emphasis on neural plasticity; and the dawn of artificial intelligence, with its potential to simulate, replicate, and ultimately surpass the workings of the brain. Malabou concludes that a dialogue between human and cybernetic intelligence offers the best if not the only means to build a democratic future. A strikingly original exploration of our changing notions of intelligence and the human and their far-reaching philosophical and political implications, Morphing Intelligence is an essential analysis of the porous border between symbolic and biological life at a time when once-clear distinctions between mind and machine have become uncertain.

A new field of collective intelligence has emerged in the last few years, prompted by a wave of digital technologies that make it possible for organizations and societies to think at large scale. This "bigger mind"--human and machine capabilities working together--has the potential to solve the great challenges of our time. So why do smart technologies not automatically lead to smart results? Gathering insights from diverse fields, including philosophy, computer science, and biology, Big Mind reveals how collective intelligence can guide corporations, governments, universities, and societies to make the most of human brains and digital technologies. Geoff Mulgan explores how collective intelligence has to be consciously organized and orchestrated in order to harness its powers. He looks at recent experiments mobilizing millions of people to solve problems, and at groundbreaking technology like Google Maps and Dove satellites. He also considers why organizations full of smart people and machines can make foolish mistakes--from investment banks losing billions to intelligence agencies misjudging geopolitical events--and shows how to avoid them. Highlighting differences between environments that stimulate intelligence and those that blunt it, Mulgan shows how human and machine intelligence could solve challenges in business, climate change, democracy, and public health. But for that to happen we'll need radically new professions, institutions, and ways of thinking. Informed by the latest work on data, web platforms, and artificial intelligence, Big Mind shows how collective intelligence could help us survive and thrive.

When 'Frames of Mind' was first published in 1984 it was acclaimed as 'a most important contribution to cognitive psychology'. In it Howard Gardner demonstrates that there exist many human 'intelligences', common to all cultures – each with its own patterns of development and brain activity, and each different in kind from the others. These potentials include linguistic, musical, and logical/mathematical capacities, as well as spatial and bodily intelligences, and the ability to arrive at an emotional and mental sense of self and other people. Rather than reducing an individual's potential to a single score on an IQ test, it is the fostering and education of all these intellingences that should be our concern. Gardner's controversial argument has resounding implications for the ways in which we think about intelligence and education.

"For those of us who suspect that intelligence is too complex a phenomenon to be measured by the single number derived from an 'intelligence test', Gardner's book is a refreshing experience and an open door into a whole new way of looking at human beings."
ISAAC ASIMOV

"Gardner makes his theory stick more firmly than any other before him, and I cannot help wondering what the effects of this book will be on the education of this country. What, for instance, might happen to IQ testing? Or to streaming?"
DAILY TELEGRAPH

"Offers a cogent, multi-dimensional answer to the IQ testing fanatics… a real alternative to the blind empiricism of the IQ testers. How refreshing to see it justified in scholarly terms."
OBSERVER

In recent years, a psychological perspective has gained increasing acceptance in the education provided to musicians: teachers, performers, and "creatives" alike. Research in music psychology has revealed how musicians acquire the ability to convey emotional intentions as sounded music, how listeners perceive it as feelings and moods, and how this powerful process relates to social and cultural dynamics. Of course, people who identify as musicians have special interest in these matters. A well-cited volume ever since its initial publication in 2007, Psychology for Musicians is now brought up-to-date in a second edition, particularly in expanding outside the exclusive context of Western formal/academic settings. This new edition draws on insights from recent research in music psychology, combining academic rigor with accessibility to offer readers research-supported ideas that they can readily apply in their musical activities.

This volume is a selection of Broome's recent papers on normativity, rationality, and reasoning. It covers a variety of topics such as the meanings of 'ought', 'reason', and 'reasons'; the fundamental structure of normativity and the metaphysical priority of ought over reasons; the ownership - or agent-relativity - of oughts and reasons; the distinction between rationality and normativity; the notion of rational motivation; what characterizes the human activity of reasoning, and what is the role of normativity within it; the nature of preferences and of reasoning with preferences; and others. These papers extend the work presented in his book Rationality Through Reasoning but there is little overlap between their content and the book's. They develop further some themes and arguments from the book, and answer some questions that the book left unanswered.

'Packed end to end with ways to see the world in new ways' Mike Krieger, cofounder, Instagram 'Designed to spark creativity, help solve problems, foster connection and make our lives better' Gretchen Rubin 'Navigate today's world with agility, resilience and imagination' Lorraine Twohill, CMO, Google What do they teach you at the most prestigious design school in the world? For the first time, you can find out. This highly-visual guide brings to life the philosophies of some of the d.school's most inventive and unconventional minds, including founder David Kelley, Choreographer Aleta Hayes and Google Chief Innovation Evangelist Frederik Pferdt and more. Creative Acts for Curious People is packed with ideas about the art of learning, discovery and leading through creative problem solving. With exercises including: - 'Expert Eyes' to test your observation skills - 'How to Talk to Strangers' to foster understanding - 'Designing Tools for Teams' to build creative leadership Revealing the hidden dynamics of design, and delving inside the minds of the profession's most celebrated thought-leaders, this definitive guide will help you live up to your creative potential.

What if our ability to make decisions was more a matter of chance than a rational process? It has long been recognized that the mind decides, the body obeys. However, as the author of this book argues, in reality it might just be the opposite. The decision-making process is produced by cerebral matter. It is a random phenomenon that results from competing processes within a network whose architecture has changed little since the first vertebrates. This book presents a 'bottom-up' approach to understanding decision making, starting from the fundamental question: what are the basic properties that a neural network of decision making needs to possess? Combining data drawn from phylogeny and physiology, the book provides a general framework for the neurobiology of decision-making in vertebrates, and explains how it evolved from the lamprey to the apes. It also looks at the consequences of such a framework: how it impacts our capacity for reasoning, and considers some aspects of the pathophysiology of higher brain functions. It ends with an open discussion of more philosophical concepts such as the nature of Free-will. Written in a lively and accessible style, the book presents an exciting perspective on understanding decision making.

Our extraordinary capacity to reason and solve problems sets us aside from other animals, but our evolved thinking processes also leave us susceptibile to bias and error. The study of thinking and reasoning goes back to Aristotle, and was one of the first topics to be studied when psychology separated from philosophy. In this Very Short Introduction Jonathan Evans explores cognitive psychological approaches to understanding the nature of thinking and reasoning, problem solving, and decision making. He shows how our problem solving capabilities are hugely dependent on also having the imagination to ask the right questions, and the ability to see things from a completely new perspective. Beginning by considering the approaches of the behaviourists and the Gestalt psychologists, he moves on to modern explorations of thinking, including hypothetical thinking, conditionals, deduction, rationality, and intuition. Covering the role of past learning, IQ, and cognitive biases, Evans also discusses the idea that there may be two different ways of thinking, arising from our evolutionary history. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Puzzle fans have bought more than 650,000 copies of the Mensa Genius Quiz series--the only books that let readers "match wits with Mensa," comparing how well they do against members of the famous high-IQ society. Here, in a giant omnibus edition, are four best-selling titles: "The Mensa Genius Quiz Books 1 & 2," "The Mensa Genius Quiz-A-Day Book," and" The Mensa Genius ABC Book." Here are more than 800 fun mindbenders to exercise every part of your brain--word games, trivia, logic riddles, number challenges, visual puzzles--plus tips on how to improve your thinking skills. All the puzzles have been tested by members of American Mensa, Ltd., and include the percentage of Mensa testers who could solve each one, so that you can score yourself against some of the nation's fittest mental athletes.

If reason is what makes us human, then why do we humans often behave so irrationally? Taking us from desert ants to Aristotle, cognitive psychologists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber explore how our 'flawed superpower' of reason works, how it doesn't, and how it evolved to help us develop as social beings. 'Original and provocative ... likely to have a big impact on our understanding of ourselves' Steven Pinker 'Brilliant, elegant and compelling ... turns reason's weaknesses into strengths, arguing that its supposed flaws are actually design features that work remarkably well ... A timely and necessary book' Julian Baggini, Financial Times 'Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber have solved one of the most important and longstanding puzzles in psychology' Jonathan Haidt 'Reason is more likely to confirm things that we want to be true, or which we already believe. So why does it exist? This book provides the answer' Alex Dean, Prospect

Discover brain training activities, scientific revelations, and tips to help unlock your mind's potential! Packed with cognitive exercises, logic puzzles and mind maps, this brain activity book offers a balanced, clear, colourful and practical guide to keeping your brain fit. Inside the pages of this scientifically based brain fitness programme, you'll find: - Clear visual explanations on how the brain works, how it recalls memories, and how and why it forgets - Practical advice on how to monitor and maintain a healthy brain function - Step-by-step mental exercises and activities to help train your brain - from sudoku to learning a language Packed with expert advice, brain tests, and a range of exercises to stimulate your memory and mental agility, The Brain Fitness Book will equip you with everything you need to keep your brain working to its maximum potential. It includes puzzles, sensory exercises and step-by-step introductions to activities from playing the guitar to beginning yoga and tai chi. Discover how to achieve a brain-healthy lifestyle! This empowering guide highlights the role of quality sleep, a healthy diet and physical exercise to help you look after both your physical and mental well-being. Our mental fitness is just as crucial as our body's, with regular training your brain helps you to be less prone to age-related decline, as well as conquering stress, anxiety, and the risk of depression. The Brain Fitness Book is the perfect gift or purchase for anyone interested in maintaining mental health and cognition.

In every domain of reasoning-from time and space, to mental states and physical illness-humans deploy an exceedingly diverse range of intuitive 'theories' about how the world works. Children from diverse cultures always seem to arrive at a few, common folk theories as they hone their developing brains against roughly similar interactions with people and objects. The result is an impressive panoply of folk notions that the human species uses to explain, predict, and just plain talk about everything from why the sky is blue, to why we catch a cold when we stand out in the rain. Unquestionably, all of this "higher-order" reasoning rests upon a diverse and complex tool-kit of "lower-order" neural and bodily mechanisms, much of which humans share in common with other species (and which, collectively, are quite clever in their right). But this book asks a different question: Are humans alone in trying to make sense of the world by postulating theoretical entities to explain how the world works? Povinelli and his colleagues approach this highly controversial territory by investigating the seemingly prosaic topic whether chimpanzees wield roughly the same commonsense ideas about weight that human do. When it comes to the physical world, they ask if chimpanzees reinterpret a broad range of primary experiences-lifting objects, seeing objects fall or collide, observing the differential effort others exert when they move objects-in terms of a common, causal mechanism which, in our everyday parlance, we refer to as 'weight.' The question is not whether chimpanzees have a theory about weight that's any better or worse than preschool children or Einstein or modern string theorists. The question is whether chimpanzees have any theories at all. And the answer comes in the form of over 30 never-before-published experiments from a decade-long research project involving seven adult chimpanzees and one hundred and twenty preschool children. Povinelli's work encourages us to stand back and adopt a different perspective on even our closest living relatives. Rather than seeing chimpanzees as watered-down versions of ourselves, this book challenges us to see our joint encounter for what it is: a meeting of alien minds.

The study of human intelligence features many points of consensus, but there are also many different perspectives. In this unique book Robert J. Sternberg invites the nineteen most highly cited psychological scientists in the leading textbooks on human intelligence to share their research programs and findings. Each chapter answers a standardized set of questions on the measurement, investigation, and development of intelligence - and the outcome represents a wide range of substantive and methodological emphases including psychometric, cognitive, expertise-based, developmental, neuropsychological, genetic, cultural, systems, and group-difference approaches. This is an exciting and valuable course book for upper-level students to learn from the originators of the key contemporary ideas in intelligence research about how they think about their work and about the field.