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Human Performance

Cognition, Stress and Individual Differences

• By D. Roy Davies, Gerald Matthews, Rob B. Stammers, Steve J. Westerman

Human Performance provides the student and researcher with a comprehensive and accessible review of performance, in the real world and essential cognitive science theory.
Four main sections cover both theoretical and practical issues: Section One outlines the perspectives on performance offered by contemporary cognitive science, including information processing and neuroscience perspectives.
Section Two presents a multi-level view of the performer as biological organism, information-processor and intentional agent. It reviews the development of the cognitive theory of performance through experimental studies and also looks at practical issues such as human error.
Section Three reviews the impact of stress factors such as noise, fatigue and illness on performance. Section Four assesses individual and group differences in performance with accounts of ability, personality and aging.

ISBN: 9780415044066

Published August 24 2000 by Psychology Press.

Words and Minds

How We Use Language to Think Together

• By Neil Mercer

Words and Minds takes a lively and accessible look at how we use language to combine our mental resources and get things done. Examining everyday language and drawing on a wide range of research, but always with a light style, Neil Mercer provides a unified account of the relationship between thought and language.
Mercer analyses real-life examples of language being used effectively, or otherwise, in many different settings, including workplaces and schools, the home, the internet and the courtroom, and offers practical insights into how we might improve our communication skills.
Words and Minds will appeal to anyone interested in language and the psychology of everyday life.

ISBN: 9780415224758

Published June 29 2000 by Routledge.

The Foundations of Remembering

Essays in Honor of Henry L. Roediger, III

• Edited by James S. Nairne

The Foundations of Remembering presents a collection of essays written by top memory scholars in honor of Henry L. Roediger III. The chapters were originally delivered as part of the “Roddyfest” conference held in March 2005 to celebrate Purdue University’s awarding of an honorary doctor of letters to Roediger in recognition of his many contributions to the field of psychology.

Authors were given a simple charge: choose your own topic, but place your work in historical context. Roediger is fascinated by the intellectual lineage of ideas, so addressing historical “foundations” seemed a fitting tribute. The Chapters contained in this volume help to establish the foundations of remembering, circa the first decade of the 21st century, as perceived by some of the leading memory researchers in the world. Not surprisingly, each of the chapters touches on Roediger’s research as well, largely because his work has helped to define and clarify many topics of interest to the memory field.

The Foundations of Remembering is intended for a wide audience: students, scholars, and anyone interested in exploring the historical and conceptual roots of modern memory theory.

ISBN: 9781841694467

Published January 30 2007 by Psychology Press.

Extending Intelligence

Enhancement and New Constructs

• Edited by Patrick C. Kyllonen, Richard D. Roberts, Lazar Stankov

This volume presents research from a variety of perspectives on the enhancement of human intelligence. It is organized around five themes – enhancement via instruction; enhancement via development (over the life cycle); enhancement over time; enhancement via new constructs; and new directions in enhancement.

Three key issues are addressed:

• First, although most of the scientific research on intelligence has concerned what it is, this volume attends to the consequential societal and economic issue concerns of whether it can be increased, and how.
• Second, intellectual enhancement is particularly important when targeted to minorities and the poor, groups that have typically performed relatively less well on intelligence and achievement measures. This volume reflects the education community’s ongoing interest in understanding, and attempting to close, achievement or test score gaps.
• Third, most of the attention to examining intellectual enhancement, and in accounting for and closing the test-score gap, has focused on general cognitive ability. In line with the current emphasis on considering intelligence from a wider perspective, this volume includes constructs such as emotional and practical intelligence in definitions of intellectual functioning.

Extending Intelligence: Enhancement and New Constructs is an essential volume for researchers, students, and professionals in the fields of educational psychology, intelligence, educational measurement and assessment, and critical thinking.

ISBN: 9780805845044

Published November 01 2007 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

How Distinctive is Affective Processing?

A special issue of Cognition and Emotion

• Edited by Andreas. B. Eder, BERNHARD HOMMEL, Jan D. Houwer

Influential theories on affect and emotion propose a fundamental differentiation between emotion and cognition, and research paradigms designed to test them focus on differences rather than similarities between affective and cognitive processes. This research orientation is increasingly challenged by the widespread and successful use of cognitive research paradigms in the study of affect and emotion – a challenge with far-reaching implications. Where and on what basis do theorists draw the line between cognition and emotion, and when is it useful to do so? Should researchers build more global, integrative models of cognition and emotion, or should they rely on local, content-specific models that draw attention to a differentiation between affective and cognitive processes? This special issue compiles different viewpoints on fundamental issues in the relationship between affect and cognition.

ISBN: 9781841698144

Published September 27 2007 by Psychology Press.

Cognition and Emotion

From Order to Disorder

• By Mick Power, Tim Dalgleish

The relationship between thinking and feeling has puzzled philosophers for centuries, but more recently has become a dominant focus in psychology and in the brain sciences. This second edition of the highly praised Cognition and Emotion examines everything from past philosophical to current psychological perspectives in order to offer a novel understanding of both normal emotional experience and the emotional disorders.

The authors integrate work on normal emotions with work on the emotional disorders. Although there are many influential theories of normal emotions within the cognition and emotion literature, these theories rarely address the issue of disordered emotions. Similarly, there are numerous theories that seek to explain one or more emotional disorders (e.g., depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and phobias), but which rarely discuss normal emotions. The present book draws these separate strands together and introduces a theoretical framework that can be applied to both normal and disordered emotions. It also provides a core cognition and emotion textbook through the inclusion of a comprehensive review of the basic literature. The book includes chapters on the historical background and philosophy of emotion, reviews the main theories of normal emotions and of emotional disorders, and includes separate chapters organised around the five basic emotions of fear, sadness, anger, disgust, and happiness.

Cognition and Emotion: From Order to Disorder provides both an advanced textbook for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in addition to a novel approach with a range of implications for clinical practice for work with the emotional disorders.

ISBN: 9780415373531

Published November 08 2007 by Psychology Press.