In the last quarter ventury, academic psychology has undergone a major intellectual shift of power: from the ruling tenets of behaviorism to those of cognitive theory....This book represents one of the first comprehensive attempts to explain this theoretical shift. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Cognitive science has been dominated by a model of mental phenomena based on software--or the rules for input, output, organization, and functioning employed by a computer--which is now showing signs of losing its preeminence. In this book 28 leading scholars from diverse fields carefully consider what that think will be the future course for this intellectual movement.

Technological developments during the Second World War led to an approach that linked ideas from computer science to neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy and psychology, known today as the Cognitive Revolution. Leaving behind traditional behaviourist approaches popular at the time, psychology began to utilise artificial intelligence and computer science to develop testable theories and design groundbreaking new experiments. The Cognitive Revolution dramatically changed the way that psychological research and studies were conducted and proposed a new way of thinking about the mind. In Working Memories, Alan Baddeley, one of the world's leading authorities on Human Memory, draws on his own personal experience of this time, recounting the radical development of a pioneering science in parallel with his own transatlantic, vibrant and distinguished career. Detailing the excitement and sometimes frustration experienced in taking psychology into the world beyond the laboratory, Working Memories presents unique insights into the mind and psychological achievements of one of the most influential psychologists of our time.

Examines the role Gestalt Psychology has played in the years leading up to the cognitive revolution. The text discusses the historical relationships connecting behaviourism, Gestalt Psychology and the development of cognitive psychology, and outlines the principles of Gestalt Psychology.

Rom Harré’s career spans more than 40 years of original contributions to the development of both psychology and other human and social sciences. Recognized as a founder of modern social psychology, he developed the microsociological approach ‘ethogenics’ and facilitated the discursive turn within psychology, as well as developed the concept of positioning theory. Used within both philosophy and social scientific approaches aimed at conflict analysis, analyses of power relations, and narrative structures, the development and impact of positioning theory can be understood as part of a second cognitive revolution. Whereas the first cognitive revolution involved incorporating cognition as both thoughts and feelings as an ineliminable part of psychology and social sciences, this second revolution released this cognition from a focus on individuals, and towards a focus of understanding individuals as participating in public practices using public discourses as part of their cognition. This edited volume adds to the scholarly conversation around positioning theory, evaluates Rom Harré’s significance for the history and development of psychology, and highlights his numerous theoretical contributions and their lasting effects on the psychological and social sciences. Included among the chapters: What is it to be a human being? Rom Harré on self and identity The social philosophy of Harré as a philosophy of culture The discursive ontology of the social world Ethics in socio-cultural psychologies Discursive cognition and neural networks The Second Cognitive Revolution: A Tribute to Rom Harré is an indispensable reader for anyone interested in his cognitive-historical turn, and finds an audience with academics and researchers in the social and human science fields of cognitive psychology, social psychology, discursive psychology, philosophy, sociology, and ethnomethodology.

A brilliant inquiry into the origins of human nature from the author of Rationality, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and Enlightenment Now. "Sweeping, erudite, sharply argued, and fun to read..also highly persuasive." --Time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize Updated with a new afterword One of the world's leading experts on language and the mind explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits-a doctrine held by many intellectuals during the past century-denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts. Injecting calm and rationality into debates that are notorious for ax-grinding and mud-slinging, Pinker shows the importance of an honest acknowledgment of human nature based on science and common sense.

The first full-scale history of cognitive science, this work addresses a central issue: What is the nature of knowledge?

If nothing else, the twelve papers assembled in this volume should lay to rest the idea that the interesting debates about the nature of science are still being conducted by "internalists" vs. "externalists,"" rationalists" vs. "arationalists, n or even "normative epistemologists" vs. "empirical sociologists of knowledge. " Although these distinctions continue to haunt much of the theoretical discussion in philosophy and sociology of science, our authors have managed to elude their strictures by finally getting beyond the post-positivist preoccupation of defending a certain division of labor among the science studies disciplines. But this is hardly to claim that our historians, philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists have brought about an "end of ideology," or even an "era of good feelings," to their debates. Rather, they have drawn new lines of battle which center more squarely than ever on practical matters of evaluating and selecting methods for studying science. To get a vivid sense of the new terrain that was staked out at the Yearbook conference, let us start by meditating on a picture. The front cover of a recent collection of sociological studies edited by one of us (Woolgar 1988) bears a stylized picture of a series of lined up open books presented in a typical perspective fashion. The global shape comes close to a trapezium, and is composed of smaller trapeziums gradually decreasing in size and piled upon each other so as to suggest a line receding in depth. The perspective is stylized too.

The evolution of cognitive psychology, traced from the beginnings of a rigorous experimental psychology at the end of the nineteenth century to the "cognitive revolution" at the end of the twentieth, and the social and cultural contexts of its theoretical developments. Modern psychology began with the adoption of experimental methods at the end of the nineteenth century: Wilhelm Wundt established the first formal laboratory in 1879; universities created independent chairs in psychology shortly thereafter; and William James published the landmark work Principles of Psychology in 1890. In A History of Modern Experimental Psychology, George Mandler traces the evolution of modern experimental and theoretical psychology from these beginnings to the "cognitive revolution" of the late twentieth century. Throughout, he emphasizes the social and cultural context, showing how different theoretical developments reflect the characteristics and values of the society in which they occurred. Thus, Gestalt psychology can be seen to mirror the changes in visual and intellectual culture at the turn of the century, behaviorism to embody the parochial and puritanical concerns of early twentieth-century America, and contemporary cognitive psychology as a product of the postwar revolution in information and communication. After discussing the meaning and history of the concept of mind, Mandler treats the history of the psychology of thought and memory from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth, exploring, among other topics, the discovery of the unconscious, the destruction of psychology in Germany in the 1930s, and the relocation of the field's "center of gravity" to the United States. He then examines a more neglected part of the history of psychology—the emergence of a new and robust cognitive psychology under the umbrella of cognitive science.

A classic book on cultural identity by a major Caribbean writer.