5 Books About Cognitive Psychology

What to read about the work of human memory and visual perception

• 1.H. Gardner The Mind's New Science: The History of Cognitive Revolution. Harper Collins Basic Books, 1987.

It so happened that it was with this book began my acquaintance with cognitive psychology about twenty years ago. And, apparently, it is to some extent determined the development of my ideas about the ways, possibilities and limitations of science. H. Gardner, one of the leading American researchers of the human intellect, writes a kind of intellectual history of cognitive psychology and cognitive science as a whole considering in turn is going formation of cognitive research in psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, computer science, anthropology and philosophy. What is told in this book? To learn how to gradually preparing for "cognitive revolution" (according to the American psychologist and psycholinguist George Miller - one of those it administers - in fact "counter-revolution", as the psychology back to the primordial his subject, in the US repressed psychology for many years behavior - behaviorism calls to examine only the external reaction to external stimuli and is not interested in what is not observable from the outside). About the people who built the new area, the most important of their publications, and about the major milestones in the formation of a new area of psychological research. On what scientific issues were the focus of cognitive studies during the first three decades of formation of cognitive psychology and cognitive science, starting from the problem of perception of the world and its display (representation) of our cognitive system and ending the problem of categorization and rationality (or, conversely , irrationality) of human cognition. It is important that the author does not simply lists of research, but also details the most significant of their findings and conclusions, giving the reader a meaningful picture of human knowledge and its interdisciplinary study opportunities.

• 2.Baddeley "Your Memory"

In the English edition of this book has a subtitle. "Application Guide" And although the Russian edition of it is omitted, the essence of the book is not me, it really allows you to take a fresh look at the phenomena and memory errors, which are familiar to any of us in our own experience, and thus learn to control its own memory. Alan Baddeley, one of the classics of modern cognitive psychology and a leading expert on the issue of working (short-term) memory, wrote an unusually vivid language, which managed to keep the interpreter. In the book, he goes beyond the cognitive psychology itself, discussing and classic studies of memory, but its core is just a cognitive approach in which, by analogy with computer memory units, to distinguish between short-term ( "operational") and long-term ( "permanent") memory and allocate them to the various subsystems that provide Capturing, storing and playback of different types of information. For example, in the working memory is a subsystem for short retention verbal information or visual images, and in the long - subsystem in which impersonal knowledge stored common for all sorts of people (such as that London - capital UK) and our individual life experience events of our lives (for example, the memories of admission to a university or a first date). And given the fact that the whole cognitive psychology, which is defined as the science of the acquisition, storage, conversion and use of knowledge, revolves around the issue of human knowledge, and thus is the science of memory, this book may well serve as a starting point for getting acquainted with cognitive psychology in general. To improve cognitive, mental process, learning function, awake brain and get the feel of insight - you can buy Picamilon, Selank, Semax, Phenylpiracetam, Cortexin, Cogitum.

• 3.D. Kahneman, Slovic D., A. Tversky, "Decision-making in uncertainty: the rules and prejudices"

This book, published in Kharkov - now a rarity. However, since there were many other works, highlighting the issues raised in this collection of articles, including the transfer of other articles of Kahneman and Tversky in various journals and books on cognitive psychology. Daniel Kahneman - the first psychologist who won the Nobel prize (though in economics) for the analysis of errors of human thought in making economic decisions. His closest associate and colleague Amos Tversky did not live up to the award. However, the "prospect theory" underlying modern behavioral economics, they have developed together with famous experiments carried out and described heuristics thinking that make us make mistakes, make wrong inferences and act to its detriment. Here, for example, why we race across town to buy the player for 200 rubles cheaper if initially it cost 400 rubles, but wondered whether to go if it cost 4400? Why, if we describe some strong young lady, who in his youth years actively participated in the public life of university, I went to demonstrations and studied philosophy, foaming at the mouth to prove that she is more likely to be a bank teller and an active feminist, rather than simply as a cashier ? Why, if tossing a coin ten times in a row had the "tails", expect that now, then just drop out "eagle"? Answers are looking for in the book. And if it seems interesting, be sure to read the new book by Daniel Kahneman, for which he was awarded the Prize of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA - Thinking, Fast and Slow (Penguin Books Ltd., 2011).

• 4.Palmer S. Vision Science: From Photons to Phenomenology. Bradford Books, 1999.

This hefty eight hundred page volume printed in small type coffee, with a reproduction of Van Gogh on the cover, with a luxurious glossary and an index - not just a book about vision and visual perception, as it might seem from the title. The author, an American psychologist Steven Palmer, University of California professor of Berkeley, affects a wide range of issues that are sometimes very indirect relation to the problem of human visual perception, and considers these issues from the standpoint not only of psychology (which, of course, stands for him as a key area ), but also neuroscience, computer science and philosophy. In addition to information about the structure of the eye and visual cortex, as well as the main approaches and scientific problems of the field of vision (such as the perception of object shape, movement, distance and depth, etc...), Among the topics of this book - research and modern theory of attention, memory, imagination, and even consciousness. The three applications written extensively discussed psychophysical methods for measuring the threshold of perception, cognition modeling using neural networks and, finally, the problem of color and color vision (which is discussed in a separate chapter) in a number of application areas, such as television, photography and color printing. In general, everything you need to know about visual perception, and a little more. I remember how, in 1999, was carrying the book, just published, from Sofia, where she received a gift from the director of the Center for Cognitive Studies of Gdańsk boychee Kokinova as explained haltingly baggage allowance, and how the airline is the only time in my life forgive this advantage. The book has since surpassed all my friends who are interested in cognitive psychology, pretty old, but has not lost relevance. Of course, the study does not stand still, but the main directions of searches and even basic answers to facing the cognitive psychology of perception issues in the book by Stephen Palmer are shown.

• 5."Cognitive psychology: history and modernity. Anthology"

In this anthology, which includes more than thirty articles of several generations of cognitive psychologists, we can learn from the direct participants of the events as a result of the "cognitive revolution" in the mid-twentieth century, cognitive psychology emerged, and with it the knowledge and interdisciplinary research; try to understand the fierce debate about how to construct "a system of information processing" and what form of knowledge presented in our heads; read about the conscious and unconscious processes in the knowledge and experience gained, the biggest section of the anthology dedicated to the research of individual cognitive processes: perception, attention, memory, thinking and problem solving. This section describes how to work, have become classics, and relatively new, but the bright study, discussed contemporary cognitive scientists. Here and descriptions of various phenomena of knowledge, ranging from visual illusions and ending with false memories, and a whole range of methods used by cognitive psychologists, and a host of specific experiments and attempts of theoretical understanding of the results. Of course, there are anthologies and articles in all the above-mentioned authors, reflecting their most significant contribution to the understanding of human cognition. And everything that she did not fit (the place of modern methods of recording brain activity in cognitive psychology, on the application areas of cognitive research on cognitive psychology of development and aging, emotion and social cognition, and much more), read in the anthology "Horizons cognitive psychology ".