Experimenting With the Mind: Readings in Cognitive Psychology

By Lloyd Komatsu

This text fills a gap between traditional cognitive psychology textbooks and independent reading of scientific journals. The author presents a balanced collection of classic articles from the '50s and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0534216005
• ISBN13: 9780534216009
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Brooks/Cole Pub Co
• Length: 624 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.8" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

A useful introduction to journal articles

Firstly a note of caution: this is not a standard introductory text to cognitive psychology (such as Best, Matlin or Eysenck and Keane), but instead a 'reader' in cognitive psychology. It is a collection of 35 'classic' journal articles covering all aspects of the subject. Komatsu places the articles clearly in their theoretical contexts; explaining the preceding research, and subsequent developments, with references for further reading and a series of questions for the reader. The articles may well have been chosen for their clarity, and as such seem good choices (although I can imagine many struggling with Mclelland and Rumelhart). In fact, simply by placing the articles in a nice textbook seems to make them more palatable. I would strongly recommend this as a companion text for an introductory cognitive psychology course. While I believe this to be an excellent text, it is not without some limitations. It's strengths seem to lie in the areas of attention (with studies by Cherry; Treisman; Spelke, et al), and representation of knowledge (Collins and Quillian; Rosch and Mervis), and in the methodologies covered (with example of experimental studies and also from the fields of connectionism and cognitive neuropsychology). There are a good deal of other important articles as well (and I would single out Loftus and Palmer; Metcalfe and Weibe; Chi, Feltovich and Glaser; Bahrick et al., 1975; Mclelland and Rumelhart; Baddeley et al.,1975; Sternberg), but some choices seem more idiosyncratic (for example the articles selected from Wason and Kahneman and Tversky are important, but not the most obvious selections). I feel the weaknesses lie in the areas of perception and language, where with some exceptions the choices seem weak. These reservations, notwithstanding, this is an excellent addition to the area.