Open Education Resources - Psychology

Cognitive science arose in the 1950s when it became apparent that a number of disciplines, including psychology, computer science, linguistics, and philosophy, were fragmenting. Perhaps owing to the field's immediate origins in cybernetics, as well as to the foundational assumption that cognition is information processing, cognitive science initially seemed more unified than psychology. However, as a result of differing interpretations of the foundational assumption and dramatically divergent views of the meaning of the term information processing, three separate schools emerged: classical cognitive science, connectionist cognitive science, and embodied cognitive science. Examples, cases, and research findings taken from the wide range of phenomena studied by cognitive scientists effectively explain and explore the relationship among the three perspectives. Intended to introduce both graduate and senior undergraduate students to the foundations of cognitive science, Mind, Body, World addresses a number of questions currently being asked by those practicing in the field: What are the core assumptions of the three different schools? What are the relationships between these different sets of core assumptions? Is there only one cognitive science, or are there many different cognitive sciences? Giving the schools equal treatment and displaying a broad and deep understanding of the field, Dawson highlights the fundamental tensions and lines of fragmentation that exist among the schools and provides a refreshing and unifying framework for students of cognitive science.

An Introduction to Applied Cognitive Psychology offers a student friendly review of recent research in the application of cognitive methods, theories and models to real-world scenarios. The authors approach cognitive psychology by looking at how people use basic cognitive skills in everyday environments. In this way, they explore how people use their knowledge to influence their behaviour in life, and throw light on the inter-relationships between each part of the cognitive system. The central areas of visual perception, attention, memory, language, thinking, decision making and human performance are covered, as in conventional cognitive textbooks, but they are addressed in terms of practical applications to skill training, expertise and skilled behaviour. Whereas experimental psychology often remains in the laboratory, this books will show undergraduates how the implications and methodological insights of theoretical work can be brought into the real world and vice versa.

Cognitive processes enable us to experience the world around us: to recognise a friendly face in a crowd, to communicate our passions, to recall memories from the past. When these processes stop working, it can turn friends into strangers, render speech impossible, and make history a confusionof truth and lies. Cognitive Psychology, Second Edition unravels these complex ideas, introducing the concepts behind them and looking at how techniques, such as neuroimaging, can provide answers to questions that may at first seem unanswerable.The chapters - covering a broad range of topics, including attention, perception, and neuropsychiatry - are written to inspire students, and come complete with helpful resources, including in-chapter summaries to consolidate learning, 'Activity' boxes to help students engage in the content, and'Research study' boxes to encourage an awareness of scientific method.With chapters written by experts in their fields and edited by professors with a wealth of experience in teaching and learning, Cognitive Psychology, Second Edition is the ideal course companion for all psychology students.The Online Resource Centre to accompany Cognitive Psychology, Second Edition includes:For lecturers:DT Figures from the book available to download.DT A text bank of multiple choice questions.DT Chapters from the Methods Companion to the first edition.For students:DT Software simulations.