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In this study, Don Ross explores the relationship of economics to other branches of behavioral science, asking, in the course of his analysis, under what interpretation economics is a sound empirical science. The book explores the relationships between economic theory and the theoretical foundations of related disciplines that are relevant to the day-to-day work of economics—the cognitive and behavioral sciences. It asks whether the increasingly sophisticated techniques of microeconomic analysis have revealed any deep empirical regularities—whether technical improvement represents improvement in any other sense. Casting Daniel Dennett and Kenneth Binmore as its intellectual heroes, the book proposes a comprehensive model of economic theory that, Ross argues, does not supplant but recovers the core neoclassical insights and counters the caricaturish conception of neoclassicism so derided by advocates of behavioral or evolutionary economics.

Because he approaches his topic from the viewpoint of the philosophy of science, Ross devotes one chapter to the philosophical theory and terminology on which his argument depends and another to related philosophical issues. Two chapters provide the theoretical background in economics, one covering developments in neoclassical microeconomics and the other treating behavioral and experimental economics and evolutionary game theory. The three chapters at the heart of the argument then apply theses from the philosophy of cognitive science to foundational problems for economic theory. In these chapters economists will find a genuinely new way of thinking about the implications of cognitive science for economics and cognitive scientists will find in economic behavior a new testing site for the explanations of cognitive science. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An exploration of the fundamental blocks of economic science. Big subject, over-academic treatment.
Don Ross explores the tangled and much-argued relationship between economic theory and cognitive science and manages the feat of creating a cohesive perspective. Ever since the 1970s and the psychology experiments of Kahnemann & Tversky (which went on to win a Nobel Prize in economics - Kahnemann confessed he'd never in his life so much as studied Economics 101) the precepts of economics, based on the "rational man" have been under attack and the philosophical basis has been questioned. Is economics the product of atomised individual actions - or a social construct?

What Don Ross does here is stand back and look at the fundamentals of economic theory, and attempts to cohesively tie things together. Is there a neat fit between the way humans tick and the way markets tick?

The authority (and humour) of Ross' voice elevates this book above the sometimes shrill pop-marketplace of ideas, and this volume, all 450 pages of it, really sets out to establish a new milestone in economics: knocking down old theories and assumptions, and building out of this rubble a new platform.

I don't think it succeeds. I feel Ross would have achieved a lot more if he had used a wider research scope. For the most part Ross' book is a meta-analysis of the work of other economic theorists including Philip Mirowski, Paul Samuelson and the author's own hero Daniel Dennett, and it really could have benefitted, if the author had incorporated, with little additional effort, more insights from the rapidly evolving ground of Cognitive Science. A shame, because the title of the book, and the subheading, promises this. As it turns out Ross doesn't appear comfortable delving into the realities of the human mind, and he prefers to wander back to the Departments of Economics and Philosophy where he clearly feels at ease.

My second criticism is that he has produced some very, very heavy reading. Ross has some awful writing habits that could have done with a firm editor. So I blame the publisher as much as Don Ross. A good editor would surely have pulled out these things:

- Strange metaphors (Tarzan anyone?) that distract rather than illuminate.
- Constant use of acronyms (RPT, OISF, EGT...) which effectively encode rather than clarify the meaning of his long sentences.
- Academic jargon. Example: "Eliminativism." This books is aimed squarely at his peers rather than at the intelligent public. The old My Fair Lady song "Why can't the English learn to Speak?" came to mind. "Why can't intelligent academics learn to communicate?"

My guess is that Ross has been inspired by Dennett's own writing style, which is damned lively, but this author hasn't quite pulled it off.

So I have very mixed views on this book. Even so, it deserves wider reading in the finance sector where the quants too often ignore the realities and irregularities of the humans who make up the market. But fasten your seatbelts. This is not an easy read. ... Read more

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This guide to the teaching of design presents ways in which recent and established aspects of cognitive science can be utilized by teachers. Teaching and learning aids, as well as exercises are included. The book can be used across a wide age-range and with any size of group. ... Read more

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All normal human beings alive in the last fifty thousand years appear to have possessed, in Mark Turner's phrase, "irrepressibly artful minds." Cognitively modern minds produced a staggering list of behavioral singularities--science, religion, mathematics, language, advanced tool use, decorative dress, dance, culture, art--that seems to indicate a mysterious and unexplained discontinuity between us and all other living things. This brute fact gives rise to some tantalizing questions: How did the artful mind emerge? What are the basic mental operations that make art possible for us now, and how do they operate? These are the questions that occupy the distinguished contributors to this volume, which emerged from a year-long Getty-funded research project hosted by the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. These scholars bring to bear a range of disciplinary and cross-disciplinary perspectives on the relationship between art (broadly conceived), the mind, and the brain. Together they hope to provide directions for a new field of research that can play a significant role in answering the great riddle of human singularity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A huge disappointment
This should have been a magnificent book. It boasts contributions from fourteen eminent writers scattered across a wide range of disciplines: anthropology, cognitive science, linguistics, neurobiology, music, sociology, art history, and literature. They approach the problem of artistic creativity from every different angle. This is the kind of interdisciplinary approach that often yields impressive insights.

But this book failed to grab me. I wasn't surprised that a few of the chapters sputtered out in dense verbosity; the diversity of authors and approaches guarantees that some just won't click for any given reader. My disappointment stems from the uniform failure of the material to tackle the problem. There are some stellar authors in this book, writers such as George Lakoff, Merlin Donald, and Terrence Deacon, whose other works I have enjoyed and learned much from. But in this book, their work never rises to the level of their other works.

The book comes in six parts, each comprised of several chapters:

Art and Evolution
Art and Emotion
Art and the Way We Think
Art, Meaning, and Form
Art and Sacred Belief
Art and Ambiguity

These are exciting topics, and I expected to read penetrating analyses that shed light on the unique role of art in human cognition. But instead, most of the material has a vague, tentative feel to it. The two chapters on art and evolution say almost nothing about how art appears to have developed in human cognition. At the very least, I expected a discussion of the explosion of artistic expression marked by the first cave paintings. But in fact the cave paintings attracted only a few discursive mentions in the book. Nor is there any discussion of the role of art in hunter-gatherer societies, sexual selection factors that might have affected the development of artistic thinking, or anything from evolutionary biology.

There are a few interesting discussions of the role of mirror neurons in artistic development, but the authors did not offer anything specific about the relationship between mirror neurons and artistic thinking; most of this discussion was tentative.

There was plenty of conventional analysis of art, such as a long discussion of the geometric structure behind several paintings, but this kind of discussion has been around for a long time and I found nothing of particular interest in it.

This book was the result of a year-long research project at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, which brought together these authors for an intensive collaboration. The effort should have produced an explosion of fascinating ideas. But, despite all reasonable expectations, the end result is a dud. ... Read more

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Biomedicine has become one of the best-modeled domains from several perspectives - artificial intelligence, psychology, and the social sciences; yet few studies have combined these points of view. In this book, the interdisciplinary strengths of cognitive science offer fresh insights into biomedical problem solving.Cognitive Science in Medicine presents current research that focuses on issues and results in applying techniques from cognitive science to problems in biomedicine. It includes material by researchers who have worked in both areas and is unique in linking models of physician knowledge with models of physician behavior.David Evans discusses issues of cognitive science in medicine in his introduction; and in a chapter with Cindy Gadd and Harry Pople, deals with the problem of managing coherence and context in medical problem-solving discourse. Vimla Patel, Evans, and Guy Groen provide experimental data that illuminates the role of biomedical knowledge in clinical reasoning; and Patel, Evans, and David Kaufman offer a cognitive science framework for analysis of clinical interviews.Other contributors and subjects include Clark Glymour on the empirical and representational issues in cognitive and medical science; Alan Lesgold on multilevel models of expertise; Arthur Elstein, James Dodd, and Gerald B. Holzman on the analysis of estrogen replacement decisions among residents; Kenneth R. Hammond, Elizabeth Frederick, Nichole Robillard, and Doreen Victor on the features of the student-teacher dialog in medicine; Naomi Rodolitz and William J. Clancey on tutoring for strategic knowledge; Paul J. Feltovich, Rand J. Spiro, and Richard L. Coulson on the foundations of misunderstanding in established medical knowledge; John K. Vries, Evans, and Peretz Shoval on the development of semantic networks for medical information retrieval; and John Bruer, with a preface on the implications of cognitive-scientific studies for medical education.David A. Evans is Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University and Vimla L. Patel is Associate Professor of Medicine and Educational Psychology at McGill University. A Bradford Book. ... Read more

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This volume in the Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science series concerns metarepresentation: the construction and use of representations that represent other representations. Metarepresentations are ubiquitous among human beings, whenever we think or talk about mental states or linguistic acts, or theorize about the mind or language. This volume collects previously unpublished studies on the subject by an interdisciplinary group of contributors, including Daniel Dennett, Alvin Goldman, Keith Lehrer, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby. ... Read more

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Hubert L. Dreyfus's engagement with other thinkers has always been driven by his desire to understand certain basic questions about ourselves and our world. The philosophers on whom his teaching and research have focused are those whose work seems to him to make a difference to the world. The essays in this volume reflect this desire to "make a difference"--not just in the world of academic philosophy, but in the broader world.Dreyfus has helped to create a culture of reflection--of questioning the deep premises that inform and shape work in artificial intelligence and cognitive science. He has also been the primary introducer and interpreter of Martin Heidegger's work to the world of information technology. The essays in this volume represent the fruitful application of deep philosophical analysis to the concerns of our modern technological world.The sections are Coping and Intentionality; Computers and Cognitive Science; and "Applied Heidegger." In addition to cognitive science and artificial intelligence, topics include everyday skills, religion, business practices, and medical care. The book concludes with Dreyfus's responses to the essays.Contributors: Daniel Andler, Patricia Benner, Albert Borgmann, Harry Collins, George Downing, Fernando Flores, Sean Kelly, Joseph Rouse, Theodore R. Schatzki, John Searle, Robert C. Solomon, Charles Spinosa, David Stern, Charles Taylor, Terry Winograd, Mark Wrathall. ... Read more

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An Invitation to Cognitive Science provides a point of entry into the vast realm of cognitive science by treating in depth examples of issues and theories from many subfields. The first three volumes of the series cover Language, Visual Cognition, and Thinking.Volume 4, Methods, Models, and Conceptual Issues, expands the series in new directions. The chapters span many areas of cognitive science--including artificial intelligence, neural network models, animal cognition, signal detection theory, computational models, reaction-time methods, and cognitive neuroscience. The volume also offers introductions to several general methods and theoretical approaches for analyzing the mind, and shows how some of these approaches are applied in the development of quantitative models.Rather than general and inevitably superficial surveys of areas, the contributors present "case studies"--detailed accounts of one or two achievements within an area. The goal is to tell a good story, challenging the reader to embark on an intellectual adventure.Daniel N. Osherson, general editor ... Read more

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This new text introduces students to the concepts, methods and findings fundamental to the science of mind.It is the first genuine textbook introduction to cognitive science, and in presenting a comprehensive account of the discipline, it encourages critical thinking by presenting alternative views. Throughout the text students are introduced to case studies and particular points of contention in the field, and also invited to explore issues further through discussion and self-assessment questions.Chapters also include learning objectives, summaries and reading lists.

The textbook grounds theoretical issues by reference to a concrete scenario throughout each chapter: a family conversing over breakfast. The opening chapter discusses the emergence and nature of Cognitive Science and introduces the topics of succeeding chapters in the context of the scenario. The next two chapters describe work at the heart of the discipline: the nature of mental computation and the architecture of the mind. No single text can hope to cover the diversity and breadth of research and so succeeding chapters are exemplars of the discipline. A chapter on how we perceive objects and faces and one on how we speak and perceive speech is followed by a chapter on how we read. In each case the student is led through the computational questions. The following three chapters concern the nature of language and language use. The first focuses on the structure of sentences, the second on meaning and collaborative processes in conversation and the third on the question of how communicative competence develops. How we learn, remember and solve problems is the focus of the next two chapters and a variety of computational approaches are surveyed and considered. How we act in the world on the basis of our knowledge is considered in the final chapters. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

a good teaching text
This is a good text for a course.Cognitive Science does have some intellectual unity, though it also includes work from a very large number of disciplines.This book manages to capture both some of the uniqueness of the discipline and its spread.

This book is poorly written and poorly produced. Avoid.
David Green is a lecturer at University College London, where I study. He recommends his textbook - and only his textbook - for his cognitive science undergraduate course. If you're actually being taught by him, then this book may have its advantages - he tends to teach a lot of his lectures straight out of it. If you're studying cognitive psychology in any other context, though, I'd advise that you avoid this book.

It's poorly conceived and shoddily put together, giving only limited coverage of a complex and significant field. Major themes are left out or underdeveloped, and frequently important theoretical standpoints are glossed over without reference to key works. Green tends to put forward only the side of an argument which he agrees with - frequently completely failing to mention the alternatives. This, combined with only minimal guidelines for further reading, make it almost impossible to use this book as a resource guiding further study.

Ironically, considering that one of Green's specialities is in the cognitive processes of language and communication, this book is so badly written as to be almost incomprehensible. The language used is awkward, strung with non sequiturs, and frustratingly littered with unexplained and undefined jargon.
This is aggravated by weak general presentation. The book is entirely black-and-white, with few diagrams, and those that are present tending to be cramped and confused. The attempts to cross-reference material within the text also fails miserably.

The one positive thing I can say about this textbook is that it's relatively cheap. However, it's also of very little use. I'd strongly urge you to consider the alternatives - for example, Eysenck & Keane's 'Cognitive Psychology: a student's handbook' (I've been using the 1995 3rd edition), which covers most of the same information (and quite a lot which Green's book ignores), in much more detail and in a far more readable style. ... Read more

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The Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science contains a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the main ideas and methods currently used at the intersection of phenomenology and the neuro- and cognitive sciences. The idea that phenomenology, in the European continental tradition, has something to offer to the cognitive sciences is a relatively recent development in our attempt to understand the mind. Here in one volume the leading researchers in this area address the central topics that define the intersection between phenomenological studies and the cognitive sciences. They address questions about methodology, the analysis of perception, memory, imagination, attention, emotion, intersubjectivity, the role of the body and language, and they explore a variety of pathologies that throw light on our everyday experiences. The authors draw on the classical works of phenomenologists such as Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Gurwitsch, and Sartre, but they also push the traditional lines of phenomenology to new boundaries, mapping out new terrain in connection with the empirical science of the mind and body. These essays are revelatory for both phenomenologists who want to understand what cognitive science can contribute to an understanding of experience, and for scientists who want to understand how they can use phenomenology in their empirical studies.

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"This is a monumental work, covering a wide range of topics, bothclassical findings and recent approaches on the frontiers of research."-- Anne Treisman, Princeton University

This book revolutionizes how vision can be taught to undergraduate andgraduate students in cognitive science, psychology, and optometry. It isthe first comprehensive textbook on vision to reflect the integratedcomputational approach of modern research scientists. This newinterdisciplinary approach, called "vision science," integratespsychological, computational, and neuroscientific perspectives.

The book covers all major topics related to vision, from early neuralprocessing of image structure in the retina to high-level visualattention, memory, imagery, and awareness. The presentation throughoutis theoretically sophisticated yet requires minimal knowledge ofmathematics. There is also an extensive glossary, as well as appendiceson psychophysical methods, connectionist modeling, and color technology.The book will serve not only as a comprehensive textbook on vision, butalso as a valuable reference for researchers in cognitive science,psychology, neuroscience, computer science, optometry, and philosophy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Physics to Phenomenology
Palmer has written an outstanding book for the technically trained reader, even if that reader has a casual interest in understanding the emergence of of human cognition from the physics of vision, to the function of sight.
Absent from the book is a cogent presentation of aesthetics of seeing.For that the interested reader should see John Gage's Color and Meaning.

Psychology & Neurophysiology of Vision Science
Stephen Palmer has written a marvelous book. Its well organized and written.It is suitable as a reference & text for those beginning and advancing to higher levels in Vision Science. The pictures, diagrams, graphs, charts, photos, and outlines are well placed and explained in the body of the text. Because Dr. Palmer is first a Neuropsychologist, the approach is more geared toward psychological mechanisms & psychophysics. The emphasis is less on Biological Approaches to Visual Function. This & Chalupa's 2 Volume Set should get novice to intermediate scientists going further in Vision Science!

I can't believe it's an one-author book
This book covers neuro, behavioral, computer science, almost everything about vision science, and very organized. at the bottom line, this book can be a good reference for vision science.

A book that's as good as its cover
As an interested academic in a completely unrelated field (chemistry) Palmer's book was only the second cognitive psychology text that I had ever read.It was an "eye opener." There should be awards given to authors who commit themselves and succeed at the task of what Palmer has done here.The book was comprehensive and didn't pull any punches, but was still very readable.The quality of the writing and organization leads me to assume that the man is a gifted teacher as well. The layout, glossary, index, and organization of the text were clearly constructed with the reader in mind.Five star reviews at Amazon.com should be reserved for books of this quality.

A unique text for students and researchers alike.
This is an excellent book! Steve Palmer is perhaps best known for his work on perceptual grouping and perceptual organization. With this text, however, Palmer proves that his interests extend beyond these boundariesinto the domain of perception as a whole. Palmer also demonstrates that hisinterests are not confined by one methodology either. Presenting findingsfrom a number of perspectives is one of the things that excites Palmer themost, and he does it like no other. By making use of relevant research inneuroscience, psychology, computer vision and linguistics, to name a few,Palmer develops a unified text for the emerging domain of "VisionScience", a subfield of the larger interdisciplinary enterprise ofCognitive Science.

Palmer's book differs from other books on visualperception in three major ways. First, Palmer introduces the majortheoretical perspectives to visual perception--inferential, ecological andcomputational-- early in the text and then places empirical findingsthroughout the text in the context of these perspectives. Second, Palmerpresents findings from a number of disciplines in an integrated fashion. Asopposed to having separate sections for neuroscience, computer vision andperceptual development, for example, Palmer presents research from multipledisciplines as it relates to relevant areas of visual perception, such asperceptual organization or object recognition. Third, and perhaps mostimportantly, Palmer resists the temptation to dichotomize. The discussionsof the literature are sophisticated, presenting both the pros and the consof different approaches to phenomena in perception, even venturing topropose novel theoretical syntheses at various points in the book.

Foranyone who is interested in visual perception, neuroscience, computervision, or just Cognitive Science in general, this is a book that you musthave on your book shelf. ... Read more

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Psychosemantics explores the relation between commonsense psychological theories and problems that are central to semantics and the philosophy of language. Building on and extending Fodor's earlier work it puts folk psychology on firm theoretical ground and rebuts externalist, holist, and naturalist threats to its position

This book is included in the series Explorations in Cognitive Science, edited by Margaret A. Boden. A Bradford Book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Brilliant!And wrong.
If you know much about the philosophy of mind, then you already know that Psychosemantics is a high-water mark for one thread of debate about belief-desire psychology.If you do not yet know much about the field, this book is very strongly recommended, with two important caveats.First, it is biased.Fodor is not trying to educate; he's trying to persuade, and he does this in part by offering characterizations of his opponents' views that they would not always recognize.Second, Fodor's style is misleadingly accessible.He is funny and casual, catching himself with (almost, but not quite) the same barbs the he levels at his opponents.But his arguments -- even the humour -- presumes a very considerable knowledge of philosophy and psychology.This is a book to be read in conjunction with a pretty thorough introduction, for the novice.A companion to metaphysics would be a good idea!

Extremely trite
Fodor does not give arguments in this book. He is merely stating his opinion on issues in philosophy of mind. Why is this guy getting so many MIT Press, Harv. U. Press contracts? ... Read more

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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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A New Psychology
Ever since Jerry Fodor published the widely influential book The Modularity of Mind in the 1980s, continuing from the cognitive revolution in the 1950s and 1960s, the idea that the mind works like a massively modular information processing system (namely, a computer) has been extremely popular. More recently, popular psychologists such as Steven Pinker have endorsed an easily understood and largely popular computational theory of the way that the mind works, which implicitly assumes tricky philosophies such as the internalist view of the mind, and also is implicitly assumed by evolutionary psychology, a largely nativist way of looking at the way the mind has developed.

In The Continuity of Mind, Michael Spivey introduces what is probably the most convincing account so far that the mind works an entirely different way. He proposed, as others have before him, that the mind is a continuous dynamical system embodied in its environment, with perception and action being blurred in a continuous cascade of "hungry" mental operations and actions. It's easy to see that this view is much more complicated than the straightforward modular account, but Spivey introduces the mathematics and the nitty-gritty aspects of this fascinating theory easily and without tripping over himself too much. He argues for this embodied dynamical view of cognition with convincing evidence from fields such as visual perception and language, and finishes with hopeful hints that similarly convincing evidence will soon emerge in fields such as reasoning and decision making. The final two chapters on the book lay out the implications that this new and exciting view of the mind has for philosophy of mind at large, touching on concepts of free will, consciousness, and government.

Spivey is eloquent and witty, and asserts his arguments with respect for the history that he is building upon. Since this book has come out, research has pointed to this embodied continuous dynamical system view of the mind fitting in quite well with social perception and decision making, and slowly people are beginning to realize that this dynamical systems account of cognition isn't quite as complicated and unintuitive as it has long been believed to be. In fact, one of Spivey's most convincing arguments is that this view of cognition is really much more valid neurophysiologically than its modular counterpart. Many people have argued for this view of cognition before, but Spivey's execution is absolutely perfect and I have no doubt that this book will be the centerpiece for a new study of how the mind works.

Deep, great, diverse book
M. Spivey presents some deep material. The book is just filled with evidence for a very core idea: Our understanding of the mind should be based on continuous functions, and not on the choppy file-copy concepts of a computer system (like the kind I'm typing this on). The book taps into areas that span much of what would satisfy very diverse interests: perception, language, problem solving, consciousness, with neuroscience stuff everywhere. And for any geeks, he supplies programming code at the back of this book for you to run some of the theoretical model systems he uses to demonstrate continuous theories. In short, the book is deep and interesting and will entertain and interest anyone interested in understanding the mind. ... Read more

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Does a knowledge of Latin facilitate he learning of computer programming? Does skill in geometry make it easier to learn music? The issue of the transfer of learning from one domain to another is a classic problem in psychology as well as an educational question of great importance, which this ingenious new book sets out to solve through a theory of transfer based on a comprehensive theory of skill acquisition.

The question was first studies systematically at the turn of the century by the noted psychologist Edward L. Thorndike, who proposed a theory of transfer based on common elements in two different tasks. Since then, psychologists of different theoretical orientations—verbal learning, gestalt, and information processing—have addressed the transfer question with differing and inconclusive results. Singley and Anderson resurrect Thorndike's theory of identical elements, but in a broader context and from the perspective of cognitive psychology. Making use o a powerful knowledge–representation language, they recast his elements into units of procedural and declarative knowledge in the ACT* theory of skill acquisition. One skill will transfer to another, they argue, to the extent that it involves the same productions or the same declarative precursors. They show that with production rules, ransfer can be localized to specific components—in keeping with Thorndike's theory—and yet still be abstract and mentalistic.

The findings of this book have important implications for psychology and the improvement of teaching. They will interest cognitive scientists and educational psychologists, as well as computer scientists interested in artificial intelligence and cognitive modeling.

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This update of the 1981 classic on neural networks includes new commentaries by the authors that show how the original ideas are related to subsequent developments. As researchers continue to uncover ways of applying the complex information processing abilities of neural networks, they give these models an exciting future which may well involve revolutionary developments in understanding the brain and the mind -- developments that may allow researchers to build adaptive intelligent machines. The original chapters show where the ideas came from and the new commentaries show where they are going.
... Read more

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Analogy has been the focus of extensive research in cognitive science over the past two decades. Through analogy, novel situations and problems can be understood in terms of familiar ones. Indeed, a case can be made for analogical processing as the very core of cognition. This is the first book to span the full range of disciplines concerned with analogy. Its contributors represent cognitive, developmental, and comparative psychology; neuroscience; artificial intelligence; linguistics; and philosophy.The book is divided into three parts. The first part describes computational models of analogy as well as their relation to computational models of other cognitive processes. The second part addresses the role of analogy in a wide range of cognitive tasks, such as forming complex cognitive structures, conveying emotion, making decisions, and solving problems. The third part looks at the development of analogy in children and the possible use of analogy in nonhuman primates.ContributorsMiriam Bassok, Consuelo B. Boronat, Brian Bowdle, Fintan Costello, Kevin Dunbar, Gilles Fauconnier, Kenneth D. Forbus, Dedre Gentner, Usha Goswami, Brett Gray, Graeme S. Halford, Douglas Hofstadter, Keith J. Holyoak, John E. Hummel, Mark T. Keane, Boicho N. Kokinov, Arthur B. Markman, C. Page Moreau, David L. Oden, Alexander A. Petrov, Steven Phillips, David Premack, Cameron Shelley, Paul Thagard, Roger K. R. Thompson, William H. Wilson, Phillip Wolff. ... Read more

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This book presents a coherent state-of-the-art survey on the area of systematic and cognitive musicology which has enjoyed dynamic growth now for many years. It is devoted to exploring the relationships between acoustics, human information processing, and culture as well as to methodological issues raised by the widespread use of computers as a powerful tool for theory construction, theory testing, and the manipulation of musical information or any kind of data manipulation related to music. The book comes with a CD providing sound examples for various chapters; it contains a comprehensive name and subject index and the following chapters: Gestalt theory revisited, from pitch to harmony, from rhythm to expectation, from timbre to texture, from musical expression to interactive computer systems. ... Read more

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An exciting reference work which captures current thinking about the workings of the mind and brain, focusing on problems that are as old as recorded history, but reflecting new approaches and techniques that have emerged since the 1980's. 

The Encyclopedia contains 696 articles covering in depth the entire spectrum of the cognitive sciences.  Reviewing the common themes of information and information processing, representation and computation, it also covers in depth the core areas of psychology, philosophy, linguistics, computer science, and neuroscience.  Ancillary topics such as education, economics, evolutionary biology and anthropology are also covered.

The articles have been written to provide multiple levels of information so that readers from various levels can benefit from this set – from undergraduate and postgraduate students to university lecturers.

With extensive cross-referencing, a glossary and subject index to further aid the reader through the book, the Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science is an essential addition to any library or office shelf.

The Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (ECS) includes:

• 4 Volumes
• 4000 pages
• 696 articles
• Contributions from the world’s leading experts
• 1,500 illustrations
• Detailed indexes and appendices
• Extensive cross-referencing

Product Description
An exciting reference work which captures current thinking about the workings of the mind and brain, focusing on problems that are as old as recorded history, but reflecting new approaches and techniques that have emerged since the 1980's. 

The Encyclopedia contains 696 articles covering in depth the entire spectrum of the cognitive sciences.  Reviewing the common themes of information and information processing, representation and computation, it also covers in depth the core areas of psychology, philosophy, linguistics, computer science, and neuroscience.  Ancillary topics such as education, economics, evolutionary biology and anthropology are also covered.

The articles have been written to provide multiple levels of information so that readers from various levels can benefit from this set – from undergraduate and postgraduate students to university lecturers.

With extensive cross-referencing, a glossary and subject index to further aid the reader through the book, the Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science is an essential addition to any library or office shelf.

The Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (ECS) includes:

• 4 Volumes
• 4000 pages
• 696 articles
• Contributions from the world’s leading experts
• 1,500 illustrations
• Detailed indexes and appendices
• Extensive cross-referencing

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John Campbell investigates how consciousness of the world explains our ability to think about the world; how our ability to think about objects we can see depends on our capacity for conscious visual attention to those things. He illuminates classical problems about thought, reference, and experience by looking at the underlying psychological mechanisms on which conscious attention depends. ... Read more