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Aspects of Rationality

Reflections on What It Means To Be Rational and Whether We Are

• No Author/Editor data available

What does it mean to be rational – to reason well and effectively? How does rationality, broadly conceived, relate to the knowledge one acquires, the beliefs one forms, the explanations one constructs or appropriates, the judgments and decisions one makes, the values one adopts? What is the character of human reasoning and, in particular, does it tend to be rational?

Much has been written about human rationality – or lack thereof. In recent years, some writers have focused attention on the numerous ways in which people appear not to be rational, at least if being rational is taken to mean always thinking or behaving in accordance with some normative standard. Others have argued that, if human reasoning is as flawed as this work suggests, it is a wonder that we, as a species, are around to notice the fact.

This book examines much of the experimental research on reasoning as it relates to a variety of conceptions of rationality, not limited to conformity of thought and behavior or to the dictates of one or another normative system. The discussion focuses on specific topics that represent essential aspects of any adequately inclusive conception of rationality: intelligence and knowledge; beliefs; goals, values and affect; explanations; judgment and choice; understanding and wisdom.

ISBN: 9781841694870

Published November 19 2007 by Psychology Press.

The Syllable in Speech Production

Perspectives on the Frame Content Theory

• Edited by Barbara L. Davis, Krisztina Zajdo

As a testament to the scope of Peter MacNeilageÂ’s scholarly work across his 40 year career, contributions to this tribute volume represent a broad spectrum of the seminal issues addressed by phonetic and evolutionary science over a number of years. Approaches to the problems raised by attempting to understand these fundamental topics are illustrated in the broad diversity of paradigms represented in the volume. This diversity in itself is a tribute to the breadth of scholarly questions pursued by MacNeilage across his career.

Chapters are arranged around five thematic areas. Two themes, Evolutionary Perspectives on Speech Production and Acquisition of Speech, reflect the major thrust of PeterÂ’s scholarly career over the past 25 years. The other themes are reflective of the broad implications of MacNeilageÂ’s work for scholars in disparate scientific domains. One of the strengths of this volume is the unitary focus of contributions by scientists from diverse scientific backgrounds in considering the applicability of the Frame Content Theory within their own scholarly perspectives. Thematic strands in the volume include:

- Evolutionary Perspectives on Speech Production

- Neurobiological Aspects of Speech

- Perception / Action Relationships

- Acquisition of Speech Production Skill

- Modeling and Movement

- Alternative Perspectives on the Syllable.

ISBN: 9780805854794

Published February 15 2008 by Taylor and Francis.

The Development and Education of the Mind

The Selected Works of Howard Gardner

• By Howard Gardner

Leading American psychologist and educator Howard Gardner has assembled his most important writings about education. Spanning over thirty years, this collection reveals the thinking, the concepts and the empirical research that have made Gardner one of the most respected and cited educational authorities of our time.

Trained originally as a psychologist at Harvard University, Howard Gardner begins with personal sketches and tributes to his major teachers and mentors. He then presents the work for which he is best-known – the theory of multiple intelligences – including a summary of the original theory and accounts of how it has been updated over the years. Other seminal papers featured include:

• education in the arts
• the nature of understanding
• powerful ways in which to assess learning
• broad statements about the educational enterprise
• how education is likely to evolve in the globalised world of the twenty-first century.

ISBN: 9780415367295

Published November 24 2005 by Routledge.

Verbalising Visual Memories

A special issue of European Journal of Cognitive Psychology

• No Author/Editor data available

This special issue, Verbalising Visual Memories, comprises research on: (a) verbal interference and facilitation in face and person processing; (b) similarities and differences between effects of verbalisation and processing in the Navon task (Navon, 1977); and (c) effects of verbalisation in visual imagery and object memory. It is clear that verbal processes influence the encoding, storage and retrieval of visual information. Moreover, different forms of verbal interference and facilitation are likely to be due to different mechanisms in different contexts. The state-of-the-art is that we are just beginning to understand the rich complexity of the problem.

ISBN: 9781841698533

Published June 10 2008 by Psychology Press.

Social Relationships

Cognitive, Affective and Motivational Processes

• Edited by Joseph P. Forgas, Julie Fitness

Human beings are an intrinsically gregarious species - our personal relationships are of immense interest to us and are a key factor in achieving happiness and well being. From the moment of birth, humans crave love and intimacy and we devote much energy to creating and maintaining successful personal relationships throughout our personal and our working lives. However, modern industrialized societies present a particularly challenging environment for sustaining rewarding personal relationships. Understanding how people initiate, develop, maintain, and terminate relationships is one of the core issues in psychology, and the subject matter of this book.

Contributors to this volume are all leading researchers in relationship science, and they seek here to explore and integrate the subtle influence that evolutionary, socio-cultural, and intra-psychic (cognitive, affective and motivational) variables play in relationship processes. In addition to discussing the latest advances in areas of relationship research, they also advocate an expanded theoretical approach that incorporates many of the insights gained from evolutionary psychology, social cognition, and research on affect and motivation.

The contributions should be highly relevant to researchers, teachers, students, laypersons and to everyone who is interested in the subtleties of human relationships. The book is also highly recommended to clinical, health, and relationship professionals who deal with relationship issues in their daily work.

ISBN: 9781841697154

Published May 24 2008 by Psychology Press.

Computational Modelling

A Special Issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology

• No Author/Editor data available

The papers in the special issue describe computational models and principles that attempt to explain the performance of brain damaged subjects. The models elucidate the cognitive processes that underlie speaking, reading, spelling, and visuospatial planning by implementing hypothesized mechanisms and then identifying the consequences of specific "lesions" in these mechanisms for the modelÂ’s behaviour which, in turn, is related to the subjectsÂ’ behaviour. Although most of the presented models view cognitive mechanisms in connectionist or neural-network terms, they exhibit considerable variety in their underlying cognitive theories, their approach to modelling pathology, and particularly in how they use models to draw conclusions about theory.

ISBN: 9781841698557

Published July 01 2008 by Psychology Press.

The Science of Stories

An Introduction to Narrative Psychology

• By János László

The Science of Stories explores the role narrative plays in human life. Supported by in-depth research, the book demonstrates how the ways in which people tell their stories can be indicative of how they construct their worlds and their own identities.

Based on linguistic analysis and computer technology, Laszlo offers an innovative methodology which aims to uncover underlying psychological processes in narrative texts. The reader is presented with a theoretical framework along with a series of studies which explore the way a systematic linguistic analysis of narrative discourse can lead to a scientific study of identity construction, both individual and group.

The book gives a critical overview of earlier narrative theories and summarizes previous scientific attempts to uncover relationships between language and personality. It also deals with social memory and group identity: various narrative forms of historical representations (history books, folk narratives, historical novels) are analyzed as to how they construct the past of a nation.

The Science of Stories is the first book to build a bridge between scientific and hermeneutic studies of narratives. As such, it will be of great interest to a diverse spectrum of readers in social science and the liberal arts, including those in the fields of cognitive science, social psychology, linguistics, philosophy, literary studies and history.

ISBN: 9780415457941

Published May 28 2008 by Routledge.

Understanding Developmental Language Disorders

From Theory to Practice

• No Author/Editor data available

Developmental language disorders (DLD) occur when a child fails to develop his or her native language often for no apparent reason. Delayed development of speech and/or language is one of the most common reasons for parents of preschool children to seek the advice of their family doctor. Although some children rapidly improve, others have more persistent language difficulties. These long-term deficits can adversely affect academic progress, social relationships and mental well-being.

Although DLDs are common, we are still a long way from understanding what causes them and how best to intervene. Understanding Developmental Language Disorders summarises the recent research developments in genetics and neuroimaging studies, assessment techniques and treatment studies to provide an overview of all aspects of DLD. The book investigates the possible genetic and biological causes of the disorder, how best to assess children's language skills to identify when and where communication breakdown occurs, what the long-term outcomes are for children who grow up with DLD, overlaps between DLD and other childhood disorders such as dyslexia and autism and how best to treat children with the disorder. Each chapter is written by a leading authority in the field in a format accessible to researchers, clinicians and families alike.

This book, with its focus on both theory and practice, will be invaluable to students and researchers of speech-language pathology, psychology, psychiatry, linguistics and education. It will also be of interest to practicing speech-language pathologists, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, educational psychologists, and teachers and parents of children with developmental language disorders.

ISBN: 9781841696669

Published July 01 2008 by Psychology Press.

Flashbulb Memories

New Issues and New Perspectives

• Edited by Olivier Luminet, Antonietta Curci

We all have memories of highly emotional personal and public events that may have happened some years ago but which are felt as strongly as if they happened yesterday. We remember where they happened, the people who were with us, and seemingly irrelevant details such as the weather, particular sounds or specific clothes. Why do we remember these things? Is it because such events are so deeply emotional or so unexpected or because people talk about them so many times? Why are these "flashbulb memories" so vivid and lasting?

Flashbulb Memories: New Issues and New Perspectives explores these questions in the first book on flashbulb memories (FBMs) for more than a decade. It considers the many developments over the last 10 years, including new models of FBM formation, advances in statistical methods and neuroscience, and two key public events, the death of Princess Diana and the September 11th attacks in the US, which can help test FBM. The book examines the status of FBMs as "special" or "ordinary" memory formations, and the expert contributors represent a balance between those that favour each approach. It also investigates controversial topics of research such as:

• Are emotional, cognitive, or social factors highly relevant for the formation of FBMs?
• How can sociological, historical, and cultural issues help us to understand the process of FBMs?
• What are the differences between FBMs, memories for traumatic experiences, and highly vivid personal memories?
• How can we provide a valid and reliable measure for FBMs?

This book gathers together specialists in the field in order to make significant progress in this area of research which has remained divisive for the past 30 years. It will provide essential reading for researchers in FBM and also be of interest to those in related areas such as social psychology, cognitive psychology, cross-cultural psychology, sociology, political sciences and history as well as clinicians dealing with those who have strong FBMs after personal traumatic events.

ISBN: 9781841696720

Published November 19 2008 by Psychology Press.

Emotions

A Social Science Reader

• Edited by Monica Greco, Paul Stenner

Are emotions becoming more conspicuous in contemporary life? Are the social sciences undergoing an an 'affective turn'? This Reader gathers influential and contemporary work in the study of emotion and affective life from across the range of the social sciences. Drawing on both theoretical and empirical research, the collection offers a sense of the diversity of perspectives that have emerged over the last thirty years from a variety of intellectual traditions. Its wide span and trans-disciplinary character is designed to capture the increasing significance of the study of affect and emotion for the social sciences, and to give a sense of how this is played out in the context of specific areas of interest. The volume is divided into four main parts:

• universals and particulars of affect
• embodying affect
• political economies of affect
• affect, power and justice.

Each main part comprises three sections dedicated to substantive themes, including emotions, history and civilization; emotions and culture; emotions selfhood and identity; emotions and the media; emotions and politics; emotions, space and place, with a final section dedicated to themes of compassion, hate and terror. Each of the twelve sections begins with an editorial introduction that contextualizes the readings and highlights points of comparison across the volume. Cross-national in content, the collection provides an introduction to the key debates, concepts and modes of approach that have been developed by social scientist for the study of emotion and affective life.

ISBN: 9780415425636

Published November 25 2008 by Routledge.

Reading Acquisition and Developmental Dyslexia by Liliane Sprenger-Charolles, Pascale Colé, Willy Serniclaes This book sheds new light on dyslexia and its relationship with reading acquisition, presenting two unique advancements in this area, and offering a new framework which could explain both reading acquisition and developmental dyslexia. Published October 2006 by Psychology Press.

Cognitive Reserve Theory and Applications edited by Yaakov Stern This volume provides a comprehensive review of theory, research and clinical application of the cognitive reserve. Chapters explore the theoretical underpinnings of cognitive reserve, and evidence for its existence. Published October 2006 by Psychology Press.

Inhibitory After-Effects in Spatial Processing Experimental and Theoretical Issues on Inhibition of Return edited by Paolo Bartolomeo, Juan Lupiáñez This special issue will provide the reader with state-of-the-art information about the current debate on the functional mechanisms and the neural bases of IOR, and will thus become a reference for research on spatial attention. Published September 2006 by Psychology Press.

A General Theory of Emotions and Social Life by Warren D. TenHouten The scope of coverage of this key work is highly topical and comprehensive, and includes the development of emotions in childhood, symbolic elaboration of complex emotions, emotions management, violence, and cultural and gender differences. Published September 2006 by Routledge.

Cognitive Science An Introduction to Mind and Brain by Daniel Kolak, William Hirstein, Peter Mandik, Jonathan Waskan A clear, collaborative introduction and the first textbook to present a unified approach to the different strands of cognitive science. Including illustrations, exercises and glossary, this will prove invaluable to all students of cognition. Published September 2006 by Routledge.

Language Production A Special Issue of Language and Cognitive Processes edited by XAVIER ALARIO, ALBERT COSTA, MARTIN PICKERING, VICTOR FERREIRA

Articles in this special issue deal with three different topics of general interest for models of language production: A. the general organizational principles of the language production system, B. several aspects of the lexical selection process and C. the representations and processes used during syntactic encoding.

Published November 2006 by Psychology Press.

The Representation of Language in the Brain In Honour of John C. Marshall edited by CHRIS CODE

This Special Issue combines contributions from John C Marshall's colleagues and friends, presenting issues concerned with The Representation of Language in the Brain. Contributions include reading, naming, syntax, comprehension, progressive aphasia, history of aphasia, treatment, language evolution and embodied cognition.

Published November 2006 by Psychology Press.

Theory of Mind A Special Issue of Social Neuroscience edited by Rebecca Saxe, Simon Baron-Cohen The articles in this special issue use a wide range of techniques and subject populations to address fundamental questions about the cognitive and neural structure of theory of mind. Published January 2007 by Psychology Press.

Judgment and Choice: Perspectives on the Work of Daniel Kahnerman A special issue of the journal Thinking and Reasoning edited by David Lagnado, Daniel Read

This special issue presents ongoing research inspired by both Kahneman and Tversky. It covers many of the central themes ¿ the heuristics and biases of judgment and prediction, framing effects, assessments and predictions of utility ¿ that made their work so innovative.

Published February 2007 by Psychology Press.

Cognitive Science

An Introduction to Mind and Brain

Cognitive Science is a major new guide to the central theories and problems in the study of the mind and brain. The authors clearly explain how and why cognitive science aims to understand the brain as a computational system that manipulates representations. They identify the roots of cognitive science in Descartes - who argued that all knowledge of the external world is filtered through some sort of representation - and examine the present-day role of Artificial Intelligence, computing, psychology, linguistics and neuroscience.
Throughout, the key building blocks of cognitive science are clearly illustrated: perception, memory, attention, emotion, language, control of movement, learning, understanding and other important mental phenomena. Cognitive Science:

• presents a clear, collaborative introduction to the subject
• is the first textbook to bring together all the different strands of this new science in a unified approach
• includes illustrations and exercises to aid the student

Published September 26 2006 by Routledge.