This book brings together contributions from researchers within various social science disciplines who seek to redefine the methods and topics that constitute the study of work. They investigate work activity in ways that do not reduce it to a 'psychology' of individual cognition nor to a 'sociology' of societal structures and communication. A key theme in the material is the relationship between theory and practice. This is not an abstract problem of interest merely to social scientists. Rather, it is discussed as an issue that working people address when they attempt to understand a task and communicate its demands. Mindful practices and communicative interaction are examined as situated issues at work in the reproduction of communities of practice in a variety of settings including: courts of law, computer software design, the piloting of airliners, the coordination of air traffic control, and traffic management in underground railway systems.

Communication and Social Cognition represents the explosion of work in the field of social cognition over the past 25 years. Expanding the contribution made by Social Cognition and Communication, published in 1982, this scholarly collection updates the study of communication from a social cognitive perspective, with contributions from well-known experts and promising new scholars in diverse areas of communication. Organized into sections--message production, interpersonal communication, media, and social influence--the collection reflects the areas in which social cognition theories have become integral in understanding communicative processes, and in which a proliferation of scholarship has emerged. Readers are informed of the current major trends in social cognition research, and are introduced to its history. Throughout the text, chapter authors highlight both theoretical and methodological aspects of research, encouraging communication scholars to include social cognition in their research, and, likewise, promoting communication to social cognition researchers. The volume addresses the future of social cognition, including the most fitting directions in which to take scholarship, emerging theories in the field, and the methods currently yielding the most promising results. Communication and Social Cognition appeals to scholars, researchers, and advanced students in communication and psychology. It can be used as a textbook in graduate courses related to social cognition, social influence, message production, interpersonal communication, media effects, and message design.

This book examines the theoretical and methodological research issues that underlie the design and use of interactive technology. The analysis directs attention to three human capacities: cognition, communication and interaction. The examination of these capacities is embedded in understanding concepts of communication and interaction and their application; conceptions of knowledge and cognition; and the role of aesthetics and ethics in design.

Language is the essence of interpersonal behavior and social relationships, and it is social cognitive processes that determine how we produce and understand language. However, there has been surprisingly little interest in the past linking social cognition and communication. This book presents the latest cutting-edge research from a select group of leading international scholars investigating the how language shapes our thinking, and how social cognitive processes in turn influence language production and communication. The chapters represent diverse perspectives of investigating the links between language and communication, including evolutionary, linguistic, cognitive and affective approaches as well as the empirical analysis of written and spoken narratives. New methodologies are presented including the latest techniques of text analysis to illuminate the psychology of individual language users, and entire cultures and societies. The chapters address such questions as how are cognitive and identity processes reflected in language? How do affective states influence language production? Are political correctness norms in language use effective? How do partners manage to accommodate to each other’s communicative expectations? What is the role of language as a medium of interpersonal and intergroup influence? How are individual and cultural identities reflected in, and shaped by narratives in literature, school texts and the media? The book is aimed at all students, researchers and laypersons interested in the interplay between thinking and communication, and should be required reading for all professionals who use language in their everyday work to interact with people.

Edwin Hutchins combines his background as an anthropologist and an open ocean racing sailor and navigator in this account of how anthropological methods can be combined with cognitive theory to produce a new reading of cognitive science. His theoretical insights are grounded in an extended analysis of ship navigation—its computational basis, its historical roots, its social organization, and the details of its implementation in actual practice aboard large ships. The result is an unusual interdisciplinary approach to cognition in culturally constituted activities outside the laboratory—"in the wild." Hutchins examines a set of phenomena that have fallen in the cracks between the established disciplines of psychology and anthropology, bringing to light a new set of relationships between culture and cognition. The standard view is that culture affects the cognition of individuals. Hutchins argues instead that cultural activity systems have cognitive properties of their own that are different from the cognitive properties of the individuals who participate in them. Each action for bringing a large naval vessel into port, for example, is informed by culture: the navigation team can be seen as a cognitive and computational system. Introducing Navy life and work on the bridge, Hutchins makes a clear distinction between the cognitive properties of an individual and the cognitive properties of a system. In striking contrast to the usual laboratory tasks of research in cognitive science, he applies the principal metaphor of cognitive science—cognition as computation (adopting David Marr's paradigm)—to the navigation task. After comparing modern Western navigation with the method practiced in Micronesia, Hutchins explores the computational and cognitive properties of systems that are larger than an individual. He then turns to an analysis of learning or change in the organization of cognitive systems at several scales. Hutchins's conclusion illustrates the costs of ignoring the cultural nature of cognition, pointing to the ways in which contemporary cognitive science can be transformed by new meanings and interpretations. A Bradford Book

This text explores how memory, communication, & social cognition function in the development of romantic relationships, and describes the stages of the development. For students of close relationships, interpersonal communication.

Originally published in 1988, the purpose of this book was to explore the interrelations among communication, social cognition and affect. The contributors, selected by the editors, were some of the best known in their fields and they significantly added to the knowledge of this interdisciplinary domain at the time. In late April 1986 the authors met at a conference centre at the University of Kentucky. They presented first drafts of their chapters and exchanged ideas. Out of these interactions came this book, which has a broad interest across several areas of psychology and communication. While answering a number of questions, the authors also posed others for future examination.

"The TSW program is an evidence-based intervention that enhances people's cognitive functioning in order to help them get and keep competitive jobs. This book explains how to provide the TSW program, and includes materials for implementing it, such as educational handouts and assessment tools. In addition, the book contains a wealth of information about overcoming common cognitive obstacles to steady employment that may be useful to the broad range of professionals helping individuals return to work"--

The educational use of television, film, and related media has increased significantly in recent years, but our fundamental understanding of how media communicate information and which instructional purposes they best serve has grown very little. In this book, the author advances an empirically based theory relating media's most basic mode of presentation -- their symbol systems -- to common thought processes and to learning. Drawing on research in semiotics, cognition and cognitive development, psycholinguistics, and mass communication, the author offers a number of propositions concerning the particular kinds of mental processes required by, and the specific mental skills enhanced by, different symbol systems. He then describes a series of controlled experiments and field and cross-cultural studies designed to test these propositions. Based primarily on the symbol system elements of television and film, these studies illustrate under what circumstances and with what types of learners certain kinds of learning and mental skill development occur. These findings are incorporated into a general scheme of reciprocal interactions among symbol systems, learners' cognitions, and their mental activities; and the implications of these relationships for the design and use of instructional materials are explored.

A learner's dictionary and CD-ROM pack, with sounds, pictures and powerful search tools.