Cognition - Margaret W Matlin

Matlin offers a comprehensive overview of cognition, including recent developments in perception, imagery, problem solving, and creativity. Advances in such areas as memory and language are discussed with expanded theoretical approaches. Students are continually reminded how cognition relates to their everyday, real-world experiences. All chapters and sections are self contained and easy to perform demonstrations illustrate important experiments in cognition and clarify central concepts. Features: * Students are continually reminded how cognition relates to their everyday, real-world experiences. * All chapters and sections are self contained. * Easy to perform demonstrations illustrate important experiments in cognition and clarify central concepts. * Matlin's text provides five themes: (1) The cognitive processes are active, rather than passive. (2) The cognitive processes are remarkably efficient and accurate. (3) The cognitive processes handle positive information better than negative information.;(4) The cognitive processes are interrelated with one another New to this edition: * Chapter 1 contains the newest material on neuroscience and the parallel distributed processing approach. * Chapter 2 includes in-depth information of face perception, the cognitive unconscience, and the biological basis of attention. * Chapter 3 contains new information on the long-term recency effect, and the generation effect. * Chapter 4 has a new in-depth section on the working-memory approach to short term memory. * Long term memory information is updated in Chapter 5 along with mood-congruence, expertise, eyewitness testimony, false memory, and memory improvement. * Chapter 6 has a new in-depth section on imagery and interference, with updated material on mental-image rotation, ambiguous figures, and neuropsychology. * Updated information on prototypes, scripts, schemes, the pragmatic approach to memory abstraction, and the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon is presented in Chapter 7. * Chapter 8, Language Comprehension: Listening and Reading, is the most thoroughly revised chapter due to the recent explosion of research in this field.;* Chapter 9 features new sections on speech production, discourse production, and in-depth material on first-language maintenance among immigrants. New material is included on the social context of speech. * Chapter 10 contains new material on the means-end heuristic, the analogy approach, problem solving and memory, mental set, and creativity. * Chapter 11, Logical Reasoning and Decision Making, has been condensed, eliminating the section on syllogisms, and giving a concise discussion of the chapter subject. * Chapter 12 includes new discussion on children's conceptual knowledge and theories of over regularization.