Goldstein B.E. Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience

4th edition. — Cengage Learning, 2015. — 4 p. — ISBN10: 1285763882, ISBN13: 978-1285763880Overview
Connecting the study of cognition to everyday life in an unprecedented way, E. Bruce Goldstein’s COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY: CONNECTING MIND, RESEARCH, AND EVERYDAY EXPERIENCE gives equal treatment to both the landmark studies and the cutting-edge research that define this fascinating field. A wealth of concrete examples and illustrations help students understand the theories of cognition-driving home both the scientific importance of the theories and their relevance to students’ daily lives. Goldstein’s accessible narrative style blends with an art program that makes difficult concepts understandable. Students gain a true understanding of the behind the scenes activity that happens in the mind when humans do such seemingly simple activities as perceive, remember, or think. Goldstein also focuses on the behavioral and physiological approaches to cognition by including physiological materials in every chapter. As is typical of his work, this fourth edition is a major revision that reflects the most current aspects of the field. To help reinforce concepts, the text can be packaged with COGLAB 5: THE ONLINE COGNITION LAB, which gives both students and instructors the chance to participate as subjects in research experiments.Features and Benefits
Goldstein presents a balance of cutting-edge research and classic studies. To keep the book both compelling and scholarly, he carefully selects research that best illustrates his point and then conveys it in a student-friendly style.
An emphasis on real-life examples makes cognition come to life for students. For example, looking up a phone number to order pizza illustrates the modal model of memory in Chapter 5, "Short-Term Memory and Working Memory." A story about false identifications of people in criminal investigations (memory errors) appears in Chapter 8, "Everyday Memory and Memory Errors."
"Demonstrations" features offer students illustrative exercises that show them exactly how cognition works.
"Test Yourself" questions, which appear in the middle and at the end of each chapter, are designed to get students to recall and review the information they have just read.
"Think About It" features at the end of each chapter use questions and doable projects to take students beyond the text material. For example, Chapter 6 instructs students to rent movies (e.g., Memento, 50 First Dates) that depict memory loss, and search the Internet for films in addition to those listed in the book. Students are asked to describe how memory loss is depicted in the movies, compare the problems with the cases of memory loss described in the chapter, conduct additional research if necessary, and determine the accuracy of the movies’ depictions.What's New
The fourth edition reflects the latest advances in research, with an emphasis on neuropsychology, neuroimaging, and advances in cognitive theory. New topics include semanticization of remote memories, the role of visual imagery on food craving, choking under pressure, survival value as a determinant of encoding, the multiple trace hypothesis, consolidation and sleep, distractions while driving (texting and the Internet), and how pictures can create false memories.
All chapters have been rewritten with an eye towards making difficult concepts more accessible, in part based on feedback from the author’s own students.
Many changes have been made in organization and explanation. For example, Chapters 3 and 4 (on perception and attention, respectively) have been completely reorganized. Schiffrin and Schneider’s attention experiments in Chapter 4 and the discussion of connectionism in Chapter 9 have been simplified in response to student feedback.
Many of the chapter-opening vignettes have been rewritten to even more effectively capture student interest. Similarly, a number of the end-of-chapter Something To Consider sections, which describe interesting or cutting-edge research, have been updated or replaced by new topics to maximize student engagement. New topics include ’Taking Possession’ by the Brain (Chapter 4), Effective Studying (Chapter 7), The Power of Pictures (Chapter 8), and Imagery and Food Craving (Chapter 10).Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive Neuroscience
Perception
Attention
Short-Term and Working Memory
Long-Term Memory: Structure
Long-Term Memory: Encoding and Retrieval
Everyday Memory and Memory Errors
Knowledge
Visual Imagery
Language
Problem Solving
Judgment, Decisions, and ReasoningName Index
Subject Index