Although the ability to retain, process, and project prior experience onto future situations is indispensable, the human mind also possesses the ability to override experience and adapt to changing circumstances. Cognitive scientist Stellan Ohlsson analyzes three types of deep, non-monotonic cognitive change: creative insight, adaptation of cognitive skills by learning from errors, and conversion from one belief to another, incompatible belief. For each topic, Ohlsson summarizes past research, re-formulates the relevant research questions, and proposes information-processing mechanisms that answer those questions. The three theories are based on the principles of redistribution of activation, specialization of practical knowledge, and re-subsumption of declarative information. Ohlsson develops the implications of those mechanisms by scaling their effects with respect to time, complexity, and social interaction. The book ends with a unified theory of non-monotonic cognitive change that captures the abstract properties that the three types of change share.

How you can enrich your life by becoming a more skillful and engaged reader of literature We are what we read, according to Robert DiYanni. Reading may delight us or move us; we may read for instruction or inspiration. But more than this, in reading we discover ourselves. We gain access to the lives of others, explore the limitless possibilities of human existence, develop our understanding of the world around us, and find respite from the hectic demands of everyday life. In You Are What You Read, DiYanni provides a practical guide that shows how we can increase the benefits and pleasures of literature by becoming more skillful and engaged readers. DiYanni suggests that we attend first to what authors say and the way in which they say it, rather than rushing to decide what they mean. He considers the various forms of literature, from the essay to the novel, the short story to the poem, demonstrating rewarding approaches to each in sample readings of classic works. Through a series of illuminating oppositions, he explores the paradoxical pleasures of reading: solitary versus social reading, submitting to or resisting the author, reading inwardly or outwardly, and more. DiYanni closes with nine recommended reading practices, thoughts on the different experiences of print and digital reading, and advice on what to read and why. Written in a clear, inviting, and natural style, You Are What You Read is an essential guide for all who want to enrich their reading-and their life.

In the past 20 years, neuroimaging has provided us with a wealth of data regarding human memory. However, to what extent can neuroimaging constrain, support or falsify psychological theories of memory? To what degree is research on the biological bases of memory actually guided by psychological theory?
In looking at the close interaction between neuroimaging research and psychological theories of human memory, this book presents a state-of-the-art exploration of imaging research on human memory, along with accounts of the significance of these findings with regard to fundamental psychological questions. The book starts with a summary of some of the conceptual problems we face in understanding neuroimaging data. It then looks at the four areas of human memory research that have been most intensively studied with modern brain imaging tools - Learning and consolidation, Working memory control processes and storage, Long-term memory representations, and Retrieval control processes. Throughout, the book shows how brain imaging methods, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG), can help us increase our knowledge of how human memory is organized, how memory representations are stored, consolidated and retrieved, and how access to memory contents is controlled. With all chapters written by leading researchers in the field, the book will be essential for all those interested in the psychology and neuroscience of memory.

The cognitive and neural sciences have been on the brink of a paradigm shift for over a decade now. The traditional information-processing framework in psychology, with its computer metaphor of the mind, is still considered to be the mainstream approach. However, the dynamical-systems perspective on mental activity is now receiving a more rigorous treatment, allowing it to move beyond the trendy buzzwords that have become associated with it. The Continuity of Mind will help to galvanize the forces of dynamical systems theory, cognitive and computational neuroscience, connectionism, and ecological psychology that are needed to complete this paradigm shift.
In this book, Michael Spivey lays bare the fact that comprehending a spoken sentence, understanding a visual scene, or just thinking about the day's events involves the coalescing of different neuronal activation patterns over time, i.e., a continuous state-space trajectory that flirts with a series of point attractors. As a result, the brain cannot help but spend most of its time instantiating patterns of activity that are in between identifiable mental states rather than in them. When this scenario is combined with the fact that most cognitive processes are richly embedded in their environmental context in real time, the state space (in which brief visitations of attractor basins are your 'thoughts') suddenly encompasses not just neuronal dimensions, but extends to biomechanical and environmental dimensions as well. As a result, your moment-by-moment experience of the world around you, even right now, can be described as a continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional state space that comprises diverse mental states.
Spivey has organized The Continuity of Mind to present a systematic overview of how perception, cognition, and action are partially overlapping segments of one continuous mental flow, rather than three distinct mental systems. As a result, the apparent partitions that were once thought to separate mental constructs inevitably turn out, upon closer inspection, to be fuzzy graded transitions. The initial chapters provide first-hand demonstrations of the 'gray areas' in mental activity that happen in between discretely labeled mental events, as well as geometric visualizations of attractors in state space that make the dynamical-systems framework seem less mathematically abstract. The middle chapters present scores of behavioral and neurophysiological studies that portray the continuous temporal dynamics inherent in categorization, language comprehension, visual perception, as well as attention, action, and reasoning. The final chapters discuss what the mind itself must look like if its activity is continuous in time and its contents are distributed in state space. The Continuity of Mind is essential reading for those in the cognitive and neural sciences who want to see where the Dynamical Cognition movement is taking us.

While Experiential Learning has been one of the most influential methods in the education and development of managers and management students, it has also been one of the most misunderstood. This Handbook offers the reader a comprehensive picture of current thinking on experiential learning; ideas and examples of experiential learning in practice; and it emphasises the importance of experiential learning to the future of management education.
Contributors include:
Chris Argyris, Joseph Champoux, D. Christopher Kayes, Ruth Colquhoun, John Coopey, Nelarine Cornelius, Elizabeth L. Creese,
Gordon Dehler, Andrea Ellinger, Meretta Elliott, Silvia Gherardi, Jeff Gold, Steve G. Green, Kurt Heppard, Anne Herbert, Robin Holt, Martin J. Hornyak, Paula Hyde, Tusse Sidenius Jensen, Sandra Jones, Anna Kayes, Kirsi Korpiaho, Tracy Lamping, Tony Lingham, Enrico Maria Piras, Sallyanne Miller, Amar Mistry, Dale Murray, Jean Neumann, Barbara Poggio, Keijo Rasanen, Peter Reason, Michael Reynolds, Bente Rugaard Thorsen, Burkard Sievers, Stephen Smith, Sari Stenfors, Antonio Strati, Elaine Swan, Jane Thompson, Richard Thorpe, Kiran Trehan, Russ Vince, Jane Rohde Voight, Tony Watson, and Ann Welsh.

This is a systematic presentation of the parametric approach to child language. Linguistic theory seeks to specify the range of grammars permitted by the human language faculty and thereby to specify the child's "hypothesis space" during language acquisition. Theories of language variation have central implications for the study of child language, and vice versa. Yet the acquisitional predictions of such theories are seldom tested against attested data. This book aims to redress this neglect. It considers the nature of the information the child must acquire according to the various linguistic theories. In doing so it sets out in detail the practical aspects of acquisitional research, addresses the challenges of working with children of different ages, and shows how the resulting data can be used to test theories of grammatical variation. Particular topics examined in depth include the acquisition of syllable structure, empty categories, and wh-movement. The data sets on which the book draws are freely available to students and researchers via a website maintained by the author.
The book is written for scholars and students of child language acquisition in linguistics, psychology, and cognitive science. It will be a valuable reference for researchers in child language acquisition in all fields.

We live in a world in which inconsistency is the rule rather than the exception and this is particularly true with regard to rewards and frustrations. In some cases, rewards and frustrative nonrewards appear to occur randomly for what seems to be the same behavior; in others a sequence of rewards is suddenly followed by nonrewards, or there are large rewards followed by small rewards. Sometimes we are rewarded for responding quickly, other times for responding slowly. The important common factor in these and other cases is frustration, how we learn about it and how we respond to it. Without our awareness, our long-term dispositions are shaped from infancy and early childhood by inconsistency of reward and by our reactions to discrepancy, and they are marked by changes in arousal, suppression, persistence and regression. The explanatory domain of Frustration Theory includes an area of experimental research that has evolved over some forty years. Although most of the work is with animals, it constitutes an animal model of many of the myriad human manifestations of nonreward, thwarting of purpose, and reactions to physical and emotional insult that are regarded as frustrations. This book, by the originator of the theory and the first book to be devoted solely to Frustration Theory, gives a detailed account of the theory and its ramifications and it examines the relationship between frustration symptoms and the limbic system that is thought to be the region of the brain responsible for generating these symptoms.

The concept of 'communities of practice' (Lave and Wenger 1991, Wenger 1998) has become an influential one in education, management, and social sciences in recent years. This book consists of a series of studies by linguists and educational researchers, examining and developing aspects of the concept which have remained relatively unexplored. Framings provided by theories of language-in-use, literacy practices, and discourse extend the concept, bringing to light issues around conflict, power, and the significance of the broader social context which have been overlooked. Chapters assess the relationship between communities of practice and other theories including literacy studies, critical language studies, the ethnography of communication, socio-cultural activity theory, and sociological theories of risk. Domains of empirical research reported include schools, police stations, adult basic education, higher education, and multilingual settings. The book highlights the need to incorporate thinking around language-in-use, power and conflict, and social context into communities of practice.

For years now, learning has been at the heart of research within cognitive psychology. How do we acquire new knowledge and new skills? Are the principles underlying skill acquisition unique to learning, or similar to those underlying other behaviours? Is the mental system essentially modular, or is the mental system a simple product of experience, a product that, inevitably, reflects the shape of the external world with all of its specialisms and similarities? This new books takes the view that learning is a major influence on the nature of the processes and representations that fill our minds. Throughout, the authors review and consider the psychological research areas of skill acquisition and lexical representation to illustrate the effects that practice can have on cognitive phenomena. They also draw parallels between theories in physical and biological domains to not only propose a new theory of mental function but also demonstrate that the mind is subject to the same natural laws as the physical world. In so doing Speelman and Kirsner present a new perspective on Psychology--one that identifies universal principles underlying all behaviours and one which contrasts markedly from our current focus on highly specific behaviours. Accessibly written, Beyond the Learning Curve is a thought provoking and challenging new text for students and researchers in the cognitive sciences.

Developmental and Educational Psychology for Teachers brings together a range of evidence drawn from psychology to answer a number of critical educational questions, from basic questions of readiness - for example, when is a child ready for school, through to more complex matters, such as how does a teacher understand and promote good peer relationships in their classroom? The answers to these and other questions discussed draw here on the interplay between a teachers' craft expertise and their knowledge of evidence and theory from developmental and educational psychology. Presenting a range of classic theories and contemporary research to help readers understand what the key issues are for teachers and other professionals, this book aides informed educational decisions in situations such as: inclusion, ability grouping, sex differences, developing creativity, home and peer influences on learning, and developing effective learners. Teachers in early years, primary and secondary settings are routinely faced with questions regarding the development of children. This not only relates to the planning and delivery of lessons, but also to the mental and physical wellbeing of the children and adolescents that they teach. The pedagogical features of this book are accessible and clearly presented, including focus questions that direct the reader's attention to key issues, activity posts that point the reader to meaningful and relevant research and show the practical applications of material covered, and extension material that gives depth to many of the topics covered. This book aims to inform the practice of both in-service and trainee teachers, addressing issues that are relevant to their practice. With no other detailed and accessible text presenting this evidence and theory specifically for an audience of practicing and trainee teachers currently on the market, this book will be of essential reading to practicing and trainee teachers for early years, primary and secondary education and other related educational contexts such as educational psychologists, counsellors, paediatric and child doctors and nurses.

The intellectual distance between education and cognitive neuroscience will be significantly shortened for all who read about the contributions of cognitive neuroscience to teaching and learning initiatives. This book integrates the ideas of the major theorists and focuses on the six significant domains of neuroscience (experience, attention, perception, knowledge, acquisition, memory, and retrieval) relationships to information processing. Explanatory vignettes are inserted throughout the text to provide practical examples of how learners acquire, organize, and use knowledge.

Expertise, Pedagogy and Practice takes as its focus recent work on situated and embodied cognition, the concepts of expertise, skill and practice, and contemporary pedagogical theory. This work has made important steps towards overcoming traditional intellectualist and individualist models of cognition, group interaction and learning, but has in turn generated a number of important questions about the shape of a model that emphasizes learning and interaction as situated and embodied. Bringing together philosophers, cognitive scientists and education theorists, the collection asks and explores a variety of different questions. Can a group learn? Is expertise distributed? How can we make sense of a normative dimension of expertise or skill? How situation-specific is expertise? How can groups shape or generate expert practice? Through these lenses, this collection advances a more experientially holistic approach to the characterisation and growth of human expertise. This book was originally published as a special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory.

This study examines how learning and cognitive change are fostered by online communities. The chapters provide a basis for thinking about the dynamics of Internet community building. They consider the role of the self or individual as a participant in virtual community, and the design and refinement of technology as the conduit for extending and enhancing the possibilities of community building in cyberspace. The volume will interest educators, psychologists, sociologists, and researchers in human-computer interaction.

This study examines how learning and cognitive change are fostered by online communities. The chapters provide a basis for thinking about the dynamics of Internet community building. They consider the role of the self or individual as a participant in virtual community, and the design and refinement of technology as the conduit for extending and enhancing the possibilities of community building in cyberspace. The volume will interest educators, psychologists, sociologists, and researchers in human-computer interaction.

The goal of this book is to present and evaluate the concept of dynamic testing. Unlike "static" tests such as the SAT or IQ tests, it emphasizes learning potential rather than past learning accomplishments. This book is unique in its wide-ranging review of virtually all approaches to dynamic testing. It also suggests alternatives to the typical kinds of tests given in the United States--tests that often seem to stifle rather than encourage the development of human potential.

Social anthropologist Jean Lave and computer scientist Etienne Wenger’s seminal Situated Learning helped change the fields of cognitive science and pedagogy by approaching learning from a novel angle. Traditionally, theories of learning and education had focused on processes of cognition – the mental processes of knowledge formation that occur within an individual. Lave and Wenger chose to look at learning not as an individual process, but a social one.

As so often with the creative thinking process, a small, simple shift in emphasis was all that was required to show things in an entirely different light. What Situated Learning illustrated – and emphasized – was that learning is dependent on its social situation. Even though the most effective way to learn is through interaction with experts and peers in a community organized around a common interest, the traditional cognitive learning model failed to account for the way in which learners interact with their ‘community of practice.’ The new hypothesis that Lave and Wenger developed was that learning can be seen as a continuously evolving set of relationships situated within a social context. This allowed Lave and Wenger to place discussions of apprenticeship and workplace learning on a new footing – and led in turn to the book’s impressive impact in business and management scholarship.

Humans are extraordinary creatures, with the unique ability among animals to imitate and so copy from one another ideas, habits, skills, behaviours, inventions, songs, and stories. These are all memes, a term first coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene. Memes, like genes, are replicators, and this enthralling book is an investigation of whether this link between genes and memes can lead to important discoveries about the nature of the inner self. Susan Blackmore makes a compelling case for the theory that the inner self is merely an illusion created by the memes for the sake of replication.

Roger Schank's influential book, Dynamic Memory, described how computers could learn based upon what was known about how people learn. Since that book's publication in 1982, Dr Schank has turned his focus from artificial intelligence to human intelligence. Dynamic Memory Revisited contains the theory of learning presented in the original book, extending it to provide principles for teaching and learning. It includes Dr Schank's important theory of case-based reasoning and assesses the role of stories in human memory. In addition, it covers his ideas on non-conscious learning, indexing, and the cognitive structures that underlie learning by doing. Dynamic Memory Revisited is crucial reading for all who are concerned with education and school reform. It draws attention to how effective learning takes place and provides instruction for developing software that truly helps students learn.

Roger Schank's influential book, Dynamic Memory, described how computers could learn based upon what was known about how people learn. Since that book's publication in 1982, Dr Schank has turned his focus from artificial intelligence to human intelligence. Dynamic Memory Revisited contains the theory of learning presented in the original book, extending it to provide principles for teaching and learning. It includes Dr Schank's important theory of case-based reasoning and assesses the role of stories in human memory. In addition, it covers his ideas on non-conscious learning, indexing, and the cognitive structures that underlie learning by doing. Dynamic Memory Revisited is crucial reading for all who are concerned with education and school reform. It draws attention to how effective learning takes place and provides instruction for developing software that truly helps students learn.