Psychology

For decades, the fundamental processes underlying memory and attention have been understood within an “information processing” framework in which information passes from one processing stage to another, leading eventually to a response. More recently, however, the attempt to build a general theoretical framework for information processing has been largely supplanted in favor of two more recent approaches: mathematical models of processing and direct investigations of brain function. This book reconciles theoretical conflicts in the literature to present an important, analytical update of the traditional information-processing approach by modifying it to incorporate the last few decades of research on memory, attention, and brain functioning. Throughout, the book cogently considers and ultimately refutes recent challenges to the fundamental assumption of the existence of special short-term memory and selective attention faculties. It also draws a key distinction between memory processes operating inside and outside of the focus of attention. The book hopes to foster an understanding of how memory and attention operate together, and how both functions are produced by brain processes.

Our ability to attend selectively to our surroundings is crucial if we are to negotiate the world around us in an efficient manner. Several aspects of the temporal dimension turn out to be critical in determining how we can put together and select the events that are important to us as they themselves unfold over time. For example, we often miss events that happen while we are occupied perceiving or responding to another stimulus. On the other hand, temporal regularity between events can also greatly improve our perception. In addition, our perception of the passage of time itself can also be distorted while we are performing actions or paying attention to different aspects of the environment. This interplay between ‘attention’ and ‘time’ has been relatively neglected in the psychology and neuroscience literatures until very recently. This book addresses this foundational topic, bringing together several hitherto fragmented findings into a cohesive field of enquiry. It contains thirty-one critical-review chapters, organised into three stand-alone, yet extensively cross-referenced, themed sections. Each section focuses on distinct ways in which attention and time influence one another. These sections, each encompassing a range of methodologies from classical cognitive psychology to single-cell neurophysiology, provide functionally unifying frameworks to help guide through the many various experimental and theoretical approaches adopted. Section 1 considers variations of attention across time; Section 2 describes several types of temporal illusion; and Section 3 examines how attention can be directed in time.

The study of attention is central to psychology. This book presents the science of attention in a larger social context, which includes our ability voluntarily to choose and act upon an object of thought. The volume is based on fifty years of research involving behavioral, imaging, developmental, and genetic methods. It describes three brain networks of attention that carry out the functions of obtaining and maintaining the alert state, orienting to sensory events, and regulating responses. The book ties these brain networks to anatomy, connectivity, development, and socialization, and includes material on pathologies that involve attentional networks as well as their role in education and social interaction.

Attention is a complex and multidimensional construct. It depends on distributed neural networks; it is linked to multiple sources of information from the environment and to complex motor, emotional, and motivational systems. Taking this functional approach, this book focuses on visual attention and its underlying processes in the first four to five years of life. The book is organized around two overlapping structures. One is the division of attention into three conceptual domains: selectivity, state, and executive- or higher-level control. The second organizational structure revolves around the development of two attention systems during the early years: the first is an orienting/investigative system; and the second is a more voluntary system related to inhibitory processes, planning, goal-oriented activity, and to the larger construct of self-regulation. Within these two structures, the book discusses the research and theory relevant to the development of selection, modulation of intensity or state, and the higher-level control of attention. It also discusses individual variation in these three aspects of attention. It includes individual differences in patterns of attention and underlying temperamental factors, and differences in developmental trajectory. It also address deviations from the normal range of attention and possible developmental scenarios to account for them. For both development and individual differences, the book covers the research on behavioural and psycho-physiological indices of attention. In addition, the book makes inferences from the research in order to discuss the non-observable processes underlying these indices.

Are people rational? This question was central to Greek thought and has been at the heart of psychology and philosophy for millennia. This book provides a radical and controversial reappraisal of conventional wisdom in the psychology of reasoning, proposing that the Western conception of the mind as a logical system is flawed at the very outset. It argues that cognition should be understood in terms of probability theory, the calculus of uncertain reasoning, rather than in terms of logic, the calculus of certain reasoning.

Language acquisition is a contentious field of research occupied by cognitive and developmental psychologists, linguists, philosophers, and biologists. Perhaps the key component to understanding how language is mastered is explaining word acquisition. At twelve months, an infant learns new words slowly and laboriously; but at twenty months, he or she acquires an average of ten new words per day. How can we explain this phenomenal change? A theory of word acquisition deepens our understanding of the nature of language but also provides real insight into the workings of the developing mind. This book presents competing word acquisition theories that have emerged in the past decade. Each theory is presented by the researcher. The book provides introductory and summary chapters to help assess each theoretical model.

Community psychology emphasizes an ecological approach to mental health by focusing on the individual in the environment and the influences that shape and change behavior. This book brings together the work of the author, one of the founders of community psychology. It unites 13 of his publications from 1968 to 2002, as well as four new essays on current issues in the field: the theory, research, practice, and education of community psychologists. The author introduces the work by offering connections between his personal experiences and the topics he chose to focus on throughout his long career. He begins each of the 13 previously published essays with commentary that sets the article in its original context so that the reader has a historical perspective on why certain ideas were salient at a particular time and how they are still timely today. The author concludes with a “summing up” section integrating the previously published articles with the four new essays. Throughout, he presents examples of how to plan and carry out research and practice in the community. The principles underlying the examples both enhance the relevance of the research and practice and increase the potential of community residents to use the findings for their own purposes.

The topics discussed in this volume have been chosen to represent studies in which both behavioural and neurobiological analysis have been emphasized. They include work on behavioural and neural aspects of imprinting, song learning in birds, and spatial memory of food-storing birds. There are also overviews of neural and behavioural aspects of classical conditioning, the role of the hippocampus in spatial behaviour in mammals, and studies of learning in invertebrate model systems. The volume is based on a Royal Society Discussion Meeting held in February 1990 and the chapters have been published in the Society's Philosophical Transactions series B.

Virtual environments provide places for “being there together”, for avatars to interact with each other in computer-generated spaces. They range from immersive systems in which people have life-size tracked avatar bodies to large-scale spaces such as Second Life where populations of users socialize in persistent virtual worlds. This book draws together research on how people interact in virtual environments: What difference does avatar appearance make? How do avatars collaborate and play together? How do the type of system and the space affect how people engage with each other? How does interaction between avatars differ from face-to-face interaction? What can social scientists learn from experiments and other studies of how people interact in virtual environments? What are the ethical and social issues in doing this research, and in the uses of this technology? And how do virtual environments differ from other communication technologies such as videoconferencing systems and other new media? This book is a state-of-the art survey of research on these topics, and offers a framework for understanding this technology and its future implications.