Cognitive psychology (2nd ed )

This book brings cognition to life by demonstrating the endless application of cognitive psychology to everyday life. While introducing the current research in this rapidly changing field, the text also introduces critical thinking exercises that highlight important phenomena and provide an engaging firsthand view of the everyday relevance of research in cognition. The book has three main threads that serve as unifying themes for current research in the field: Cognition and Neuroscience Cognition and Consciousness and Cognition and Individual Differences. A 'story' introduces the book and is continually referred to throughout in installments, highlighting the application of the information and providing a useful organizing tool.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1-An Introduction to Cognition

What is Cognition?

The Omnipresence of Cognitive Processing

An Interdisciplinary Perspective

Psychology B.C. (Before Cognitive psychology)

Psychophysics

Structuralism: The Contents of Mental Experience

Functionalism: The Functions of Mental Experience

Behaviorism: The Rejection of Mental Experience

Laying the Foundation for Cognitive Psychology

The Emergence of Cognitive Psychology

S-R Explanations: Seriously wRong?

Technological Influences

PSYCHOLOGY A.D. (After Decline of behaviorism)

Behaviorism Reconsidered

Information-Processing: A Computer Metaphor for Cognition

Connectionism: A Brain Metaphor for Cognition

Alternative Approaches to Cognitive Psychology

Research Themes

Chapter 2-Research Methods in Cognition

Descriptive Research

Naturalistic Observation

Case Studies

Self-Report

Experimental Research

The Importance of the Computer

What Happens in an Experiment?

The Advantages and Disadvantages of an Experiment

The Cognitive psychology Experiment

How Can We See Thinking?: The Dependent Variable

What Variables Influence Cognition?: The Independent Variable

Confounding Variables

Assigning Participants to Conditions

The Factorial Design

Analyzing and Presenting Results

A Sample Experiment

Cognitive Neuroscience: Investigating Mind and Brain

An Overview of The Nervous System

The Tools of Cognitive Neuroscience

Chapter 3 Basics of Perception and Awareness

Basic Issues in Perception

Sensation and. Perception

Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processing

The Basic Tasks of Visual Perception

Perceptual Organizational Processes

Multisensory Interaction and Integration

Synesthesia

Comparing the Senses

Perception and Action

Consciousness

Varieties of Consciousness

Subliminal Perception

Perceptual Processing and Attention

Visual Attention

Auditory Attention

Chapter 4 - Attending to and Manipulating Information

Selection and Division: The Strategic Nature of Attention

Control of Selective Attention

Dividing Attention

Automaticity

Characteristics of Automatic Processes

Accounts of Automaticity

Costs of Automaticity

Processing in Immediate Memory

The Information Processing Approach to Memory

Short-Term Memory

A Modular Approach to STM: Working Memory

The Articulatory Loop

The Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad

The Episodic Buffer

Central Executive

Working Memory and the Brain

The Working Memory Model...