1st Edition
The Psychology of Cognition An Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience
This comprehensive, cutting-edge textbook offers a layered approach to the study of cognitive neuroscience and psychology. It embraces multiple exciting and influential theoretical approaches such as embodied cognition and predictive coding, and explaining new topics such as motor cognition, cognitive control, consciousness, and social cognition.
Durk Talsma offers foundational knowledge which he expands and enhances with coverage of complex topics, explaining their interrelatedness and presenting them together with classic experiments and approaches in a historic context. Providing broad coverage of world-class international research this richly illustrated textbook covers key topics including:
- Action control and cognitive control
- Consciousness and attention
- Perception
- Multisensory processing and perception-action integration
- Motivation and reward processing
- Emotion and cognition
- Learning and memory
- Language processing
- Reasoning
- Numerical cognition and categorisation
- Judgement, decision making, and problem solving
- Social cognition
- Applied cognitive psychology
With pedagogical features that include highlights of relevant methods and historical notes to spark student interest, this essential text will be invaluable reading for all students of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience.
Foreword
Part 1: Introduction
Chapter 1. Cognitive psychology – history and development of a discipline
Chapter 2. The Brain
Part 2: Control
Chapter 3. Action and action control
Chapter 4. Consciousness and Attention
Chapter 5. Cognitive Control
Part 3: Perception
Chapter 6. Visual perception
Chapter 7. Auditory perception
Chapter 8. Mechanical perception
Part 4. Integration
Chapter 9. Multisensory integration
Chapter 10. Perception-action integration
Part 5. Emotion and motivation
Chapter 11. Motivation and reward
Chapter 12. Emotion and cognition
Chapter 14. The dynamics of our memory
Chapter 15. Everyday memory
Part 7. The Psychology of Language
Chapter 16. Language Functions
Chapter 17. Language perception and understanding
Chapter 18. Language Production
Part 8. Higher cognition
Chapter 19. Mental representations and reasoning skills
Chapter 20. Numbers and Categories
Chapter 21. Judgement and Decision making
Chapter 22. Problem solving and development of expertise
Part 9. A broader perspective
Chapter 23. Social Cognition
Chapter 24. To err is human: the role of errors in human cognition
Appendix: Bayesian inference
Glossary
References
Biography
Durk Talsma is Professor in the Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium. His research interests include selective attention, multisensory integration, visual short-term memory, and event-related potential methodology.
Although there exist very many introductory textbooks on psychology, this book stands out. This is the single best introduction to psychological science in existence. The author enlivens the text with concrete examples, interesting anecdotes, and historical excursions. All of this radiates a love for the field and a love for science. - Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Department of Psychological Methods, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam
This is a hefty volume. It has to be — it is nothing less than a comprehensive and up-to-the-minute review of research in cognitive psychology. Talsma combines breadth of coverage and approachable style with nuance, depth of knowledge and historical context to satisfy newcomers to the field and the most demanding expert. This will become an instant classic and an indispensable resource for everyone interested in human cognition. - Paul M. Corballis, PhD, Professor, School of Psychology, University of Auckland, New Zealand
