Explanation and Cognition


Book Description

These essays address basic questions about explanation: how do explanatory capacities develop, are there kinds of explanation do explanations correspond to domains of knowledge, why do we seek explanations, and how central are causes to explanation?




Neurocognitive Mechanisms


Book Description

Gualtiero Piccinini presents a systematic and rigorous philosophical defence of the computational theory of cognition. His view posits that cognition involves neural computation within multilevel neurocognitive mechanisms, and includes novel ideas about ontology, functions, neural representation, neural computation, and consciousness.




Efficient Cognition


Book Description

An argument that representational decision making is more cognitively efficient, allowing an organism to adjust more easily to changes in the environment. Many organisms (including humans) make decisions by relying on mental representations. Not simply a reaction triggered by perception, representational decision making employs high-level, non-perceptual mental states with content to manage interactions with the environment. A person making a decision based on mental representations, for example, takes a step back from her perceptions at the time to assess the nature of the world she lives in. But why would organisms rely on representational decision making, and what evolutionary benefits does this reliance provide to the decision maker? In Efficient Cognition, Armin Schulz argues that representational decision making can be more cognitively efficient than non-representational decision making. Specifically, he shows that a key driver in the evolution of representational decision making is that mental representations can enable an organism to save cognitive resources and adjust more efficiently to changed environments. After laying out the foundations of his argument—clarifying the central questions, the characterization of representational decision making, and the relevance of an evidential form of evolutionary psychology—Schulz presents his account of the evolution of representational decision making and critically considers some of the existing accounts of the subject. He then applies his account to three open questions concerning the nature of representational decision making: the extendedness of decision making, and when we should expect cognition to extend into the environment; the specialization of decision making and the use of simple heuristics; and the psychological sources of altruistic behaviors.




Handbook of Cognitive Science


Book Description

The Handbook of Cognitive Science provides an overview of recent developments in cognition research, relying upon non-classical approaches. Cognition is explained as the continuous interplay between brain, body, and environment, without relying on classical notions of computations and representation to explain cognition. The handbook serves as a valuable companion for readers interested in foundational aspects of cognitive science, and neuroscience and the philosophy of mind. The handbook begins with an introduction to embodied cognitive science, and then breaks up the chapters into separate sections on conceptual issues, formal approaches, embodiment in perception and action, embodiment from an artificial perspective, embodied meaning, and emotion and consciousness. Contributors to the book represent research overviews from around the globe including the US, UK, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, France, Sweden, and the Netherlands.




Developmental Psychology: The Growth of Mind and Behavior


Book Description

Frank Keil 's Developmental Psychology represents his vision of how psychology should be taught and is based on nearly four decades of teaching a lecture course in developmental psychology and conducting developmental research. With a cohesive narrative, clear art program, and carefully crafted pedagogy, the book guides students through material that is as rich as it is intriguing. Keil 's narrative reflects his passion for engaging students ' intellectual curiosity with an analytical approach that explores the big questions, links theory with evidence, and treats developmental psychology as a science. Developmental Psychology invites readers to celebrate the beauty and to understand the depth of psychological development.




Handbook of Psychoeducational Assessment


Book Description

The Handbook of Psychoeducational Assessment is a practical guide for educational and psychological professionals using norm-referenced tests in the ability, achievement, and behavioral assessment of children. Written by key individuals involved in the construction and evolution of the most widely used tests, this book provides critical information on the nature and scope of commonly used tests, their reliability and validity, administration, scoring and interpretation, and on how the tests may differ and complement each other in their utility with specific populations. Part 1 of the Handbook of Psychoeducational Assessment focuses on ability assessment and the use of full battery intelligence tests as well as brief scales and short forms. Part 2 discusses achievement and the expanded role of psychologists in consultation with educators. Part 3 covers behavior assessment with special attention given to discussion of which tests are most suitable for assessing specific behavioral problems such as ADHD, anxiety, and depression. The final section recognizes the importance of context and person sensitive assessment practices, discussing cross-cultural assessment, neuropsychological assessment, and the usefulness of dynamic assessment for program planning and intervention delivery. Key Features: - Covers the most commonly used and newest assessment instruments - Describes the nature, scope, reliability, and validity of each test - Discusses the administration, scoring, and interpretation of tests - Provides empirical findings on patterns of performance with tested populations - Includes case studies to highlight the utility of specific tests for specific populations - Illustrates new developments in instrumentation and unique features - Covers the most commonly used and newest assessment instruments - Describes the nature, scope, reliability, and validity of each test - Discusses the administration, scoring, and interpretation of tests - Provides empirical findings on patterns of performance with tested populations - Includes case studies to highlight the utility of specific tests for specific populations - Illustrates new developments in instrumentation and unique features




The Nature of Cognition


Book Description

This book is the first to introduce the study of cognition in terms of the major conceptual themes that underlie virtually all the substantive topics.




Alternatives to Cognition


Book Description

In this provocative book, Christina Lee takes a consciously critical approach to the apparently unchallenged principle that conscious thought is the cause of all human behavior. Without becoming polemical or destructive, she reconsiders a wide range of issues in mainstream American and European social psychology. Suitable for an international audience, the book deals with issues in mainstream American and European social psychology. It assumes some familiarity with contemporary social and applied psychology, and would be appropriate as a text or supplementary reading for senior undergraduate and postgraduate courses in social psychology and psychological theory, although it is also written with an academic research audience in mind. While it is written largely for psychologists, it would also be of interest to academics from other social-science disciplines with a general interest in explanations of individual social behavior.




Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition


Book Description

What happens when we think? How do people make judgments? While different theories abound—and are heatedly debated—most are based on an algorithmic model of how the brain works. Howard Margolis builds a fascinating case for a theory that thinking is based on recognizing patterns and that this process is intrinsically a-logical. Margolis gives a Darwinian account of how pattern recognition evolved to reach human cognitive abilities. Illusions of judgment—standard anomalies where people consistently misjudge or misperceive what is logically implied or really present—are often used in cognitive science to explore the workings of the cognitive process. The explanations given for these anomalous results have generally explained only the anomaly under study and nothing more. Margolis provides a provocative and systematic analysis of these illusions, which explains why such anomalies exist and recur. Offering empirical applications of his theory, Margolis turns to historical cases to show how an individual's cognitive repertoire—the available cognitive patterns and their relation to cues—changes or resists changes over time. Here he focuses on the change in worldview occasioned by the Copernican discovery: not only how an individual might come to see things in a radically new way, but how it is possible for that new view to spread and become the dominant one. A reanalysis of the trial of Galileo focuses on social cognition and its interactions with politics. In challenging the prevailing paradigm for understanding how the human mind works, Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition is certain to stimulate fruitful debate.




Cognition and Intractability


Book Description

Provides an accessible introduction to computational complexity analysis and its application to questions of intractability in cognitive science.