An anthology of core readings on cognitive psychology.

Cognitive psychology addresses many fascinating questions about memory, emotion and language: Can our identity be reduced to our memories? What are emotions for? Are we born with an innate knowledge of language? This introductory text is a concise guide to the core fundamentals of cognitive psychology, rather than an encyclopaedic volume. The authors cover a broad range of topics, using their wealth of teaching experience to select the key theories and most engaging examples. Lively and thought-provoking, this new book conveys the sense of discovery that makes the subject so exciting to study.

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.

Based on decades of theory, research, and practice, this seminalbook presents a detailed and comprehensive review, evaluation, andintegration of the scientific and empirical research relevant toAaron T. Beck's cognitive theory and therapy of depression. Sinceits emergence in the early 1960s, Beck's cognitive perspective hasbecome one of the most influential and well-researchedpsychological theories of depression. Over 900 scientific andscholarly references are contained in the present volume, providingthe most current and exhaustive evaluation of the scientific statusof the cognitive theory of depression. Though the application of cognitive therapy has been welldocumented in the publication of treatment manuals, the cognitivetheory of depression has not been presented in a unified manneruntil the publication of this book. Coauthored by the father ofcognitive therapy, Scientific Foundations of Cognitive Theory andTherapy of Depression offers the most complete and authoritativeaccount of Beck's theory of depression since the publication ofDepression: Causes and Treatment in 1967. Through its elaborationof recent theoretical developments in cognitive theory and itsreview of contemporary cognitive-clinical research, the bookrepresents the current state of the art in cognitive approaches todepression. As a result of its critical examination ofcognitive-clinical research and experimental informationprocessing, the authors offer many insights into the futuredirection for research on the cognitive basis of depression. The first half of the book focuses on a presentation of theclinical phenomena of depression and the current version ofcognitive theory. After outlining important questions that havebeen raised with the diagnosis of depression, the book then tracesthe historical development of Beck's cognitive theory and therapythrough the 1960s and '70s. It presents the theoretical assumptionsof the model and offers a detailed account of the most currentversion of the cognitive formulation of depression. The second half of the book provides an in-depth analysis of theempirical status of the descriptive and vulnerability hypotheses ofthe cognitive model. Drawing on over three decades of research, thebook delves into the scientific basis of numerous hypothesesderived from cognitive theory, including negativity, exclusivity,content specificity, primacy, universality, severity/persistence,selective processing, schema activation, primal processing,stability, diathesis-stress, symptom specificity, and differentialtreatment responsiveness. "In 1967 the first detailed description of the cognitive theory ofdepression was published in Depression: Causes and Treatment by oneof us, Aaron T. Beck. The basic concepts of the theory laid out inthat volume still provide the foundation for the cognitive model 30years later. As well the first systematic investigations of thetheory described in the 1967 volume contributed to a paradigmaticshift in theory, research, and treatment of depression thatresulted in a very vigorous and widespread research initiative onthe cognitive basis of depression. The present book is intended toprovide a comprehensive and critical update of the developments incognitive theory and research on depression that have occurredsince the initial publication in the 1960s."--David A. Clark, fromthe Preface.

What is cognitive science? The Foundations of Cognitive Science answers this question in a way that gives a feeling for the excitement, ferment, and accomplishments of this new field. It is the first broad treatment of cognitive science at an advanced level. Complete and authoritative, The Foundations of Cognitive Science covers the major architectures; provides background in philosophy linguistics, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience; and deals with methods for studying both brain and mind. All of the chapters have been written especially for the book by the leading scholars in the field. The foundations of cognitive science are developed in seven chapters covering computation, symbolic architectures, parallel distributed processing, grammars, semantics and formal logic, experimental cognitive science, and brain and cognition. These are then applied to the major cognitive domains of language acquisition, reading, discourse, mental models, categories and induction, problem solving, vision, visual attention, memory, action and motor control. The Foundations of Cognitive Science concludes with an assessment by a philosopher and a cognitive anthropologist. Michael I. Posner is Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon. A Bradford Book. Contributors: Herbert A. SimonCraig A. KaplanZenon W. PylyshynAllen NewellJohn E. LairdPaul S. RosenbloomDavid E. RumelhartThomas WasowJon BarwiseJohn EtchemendyGordon H. BawerJohn P. ClapperTerrence J. SejnowskiPatricia Smith ChurchlandSteven PinkerAlexander PollatsekKeith RaynerBarbara J. GroszCandace L. SidnerMartha E. PollackP. N. Johnson-LairdEdward E. SmithKurt VanLehnEllen C. HildrethShimon UllmanAlan AllportDaniel L. SchacterDavid A. RosenbaumMichael I. JordanE. BizziF. A. Mussa IvaldiRoy D'AndradeGilbert Harman Contents: Computation, Symbolic Architectures, Parallel Distributed Processing, Grammars, Semantics and Formal Logic, Experimental Cognitive Science, Brain and Cognition, Language Acquisition, Reading, Discourse, Mental Models, Categories and Induction, Problem Solving, Vision, Visual Attention, Memory, Action, Motor Control, Culture, Philosophical Critique

Despite its essential role, memory consolidation can also be susceptible to interference, leading to forgetting or distortion of memories. Retroactive interference occurs when newly acquired information disrupts the retention of previously learned material. This effect can hinder the consolidation of older memories and highlights the competitive nature of memory processing. Furthermore, contextual factors, such as environmental cues and emotional states during the consolidation phase, influence how well memories are retained. For example, memories tested in the same context in which they were encoded tend to demonstrate enhanced recall, a phenomenon known as context-dependent retrieval. This principle underscores that both encoding and consolidation work synergistically to optimize memory performance.

the first broad treatment of cognitive science at an advanced level