Abstract: Five experiments explored inferencing in young and elderly subjects. Experiments 1 and 2 used the contradiction reading paradigm, a frequently used paradigm to study the formation of elaborative inferences. Subjects read short passages followed by a continuation sentence that either contradicted or was neutral to the elaboration. In Experiment 1, 1-2 sentences separated the predicting context and the contradiction sentence. In Experiment 2, 5-6 sentences separated the predicting context and the contradiction sentence. Overall, elderly subjects were slower than young subjects. Both young and elderly subjects read the contradiction sentence more slowly than the neutral sentence in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2 the effect was seen on the sentence following the contradiction sentence. Experiments 3, 4 and 5 explored the possibility that the results in Experiment 1 and 2 arose not because subjects formed elaborative inferences on-line but only because bridging inferences were formed upon presentation of the contradiction sentence. Only young subjects were tested in these experiments. Experiments 3 and 4 were replications of experiments 1 and 2 with the use of a different paradigm--a probe-word naming paradigm. In this paradigm, a probe word that was either related to the elaborative inference or was neutral was presented either 1-2 sentences or 5-6 sentences after the predicting context. In this paradigm faster naming times for the related than the neutral word are expected if subjects form elaborative inferences (i.e., facilitation). Results in both experiments were unexpected and showed a marginally significant inhibition effect (i.e., longer naming times in the related compared to the neutral condition). These results raise questions about whether elaborative inferences are formed on-line. In Experiment 5, the stimuli from Experiment 3 were altered to include a sentence that would encourage the formation of bridging inferences. In this experiment, there was no significant difference between the related and neutral conditions. Overall, the results call into question the hypothesis that elaborative inferences are formed on-line.

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The first comprehensive treatment of active inference, an integrative perspective on brain, cognition, and behavior used across multiple disciplines. Active inference is a way of understanding sentient behavior—a theory that characterizes perception, planning, and action in terms of probabilistic inference. Developed by theoretical neuroscientist Karl Friston over years of groundbreaking research, active inference provides an integrated perspective on brain, cognition, and behavior that is increasingly used across multiple disciplines including neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. Active inference puts the action into perception. This book offers the first comprehensive treatment of active inference, covering theory, applications, and cognitive domains. Active inference is a “first principles” approach to understanding behavior and the brain, framed in terms of a single imperative to minimize free energy. The book emphasizes the implications of the free energy principle for understanding how the brain works. It first introduces active inference both conceptually and formally, contextualizing it within current theories of cognition. It then provides specific examples of computational models that use active inference to explain such cognitive phenomena as perception, attention, memory, and planning.

The field of educational psychology is primarily concerned with teaching and learning. Educational psychology has a long historical past and an extensive record of conducting empirical research into the teaching/learning process. Educational psychology has also been involved with the topics of motivation, intelligence, memory, cognition, intellectual development and evaluation and assessment. Over the past 50 years, educational psychology has been predominantly involved with the learning processes of the normal, average student. However, over the past 20 years, mainstreaming and later inclusion has presented an additional challenge for educational psychologists and classroom teachers. This new book presents leading research from around the globe in all areas of educational psychology.

The ability to communicate through spoken and written language is one of the defining characteristics of the human race, yet it remains a deeply mysterious process. The young science of psycholinguistics attempts to uncover the mechanisms and representations underlying human language. This interdisciplinary field has seen massive developments over the past decade, with a broad expansion of the research base, and the incorporation of new experimental techniques such as brain imaging and computational modelling. The result is that real progress is being made in the understanding of the key components of language in the mind. The Oxford Handbook of Psycholinguistics brings together the views of 75 leading researchers in psycholinguistics to provide a comprehensive and authoritative review of the current state of the art in psycholinguistics. With almost 50 chapters written by experts in the field, the range and depth of coverage is unequalled. The contributors are eminent in a wide range of fields, including psychology, linguistics, human memory, cognitive neuroscience, bilingualism, genetics, development and neuropsychology. Their contributions are organised into six themed sections, covering word recognition, the mental lexicon, comprehension and discourse, language production, language development, and perspectives on psycholinguistics. The breadth of coverage, coupled with the accessibility of the short chapter format should make the handbook essential reading for both students and researchers in the fields of psychology, linguistics and neuroscience.

This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of conducting scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any doctoral seminar or research methods class. This book is currently used as a research text at universities on six continents and will shortly be available in nine different languages.

Much of our behavior is guided by our understanding of events. We perceive events when we observe the world unfolding around us, participate in events when we act on the world, simulate events that we hear or read about, and use our knowledge of events to solve problems. In this book, Gabriel A. Radvansky and Jeffrey M. Zacks provide the first integrated framework for event cognition and attempt to synthesize the available psychological and neuroscience data surrounding it. This synthesis leads to new proposals about several traditional areas in psychology and neuroscience including perception, attention, language understanding, memory, and problem solving. Radvansky and Zacks have written this book with a diverse readership in mind. It is intended for a range of researchers working within cognitive science including psychology, neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, anthropology, and education. Readers curious about events more generally such as those working in literature, film theory, and history will also find it of interest.