Cognitive Psychology

Many contemporary psychologists would describe themselves as cognitive psychologists. This reflects not only the fact that cognitive psychology is currently the dominant approach within academic psychology, but also the increasing vagueness of the term cognitive. After all, if the cognitive approach is seen to dominate, it is not surprising that many different types of psychologists want to identify themselves with it. However, it is probably fair to say that mainstream cognitive psychology is most closely related to what used to be called experimental psychology. In this volume, four of the five chapters deal with core components of mainstream cognitive psychology -- memory, attention, psycholinguistics, thinking, and reasoning -- largely from the perspective of human experimental psychology. The final chapter discusses various cognitive topics from the particular perspective of artificial intelligence which, along with experimental studies of cognition in normal humans and the neuropsychological approach, constitutes one of the main approaches within cognitive psychology. -- Introduction (p. ix).