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Books in Psychology

Elsevier's Psychology collection is vital for students and psychologists, providing a thorough understanding of the mind and behavior. Covering human thought, development, personality, emotion, and motivation, it offers insights into both theoretical and practical aspects. Through topics like cognitive, developmental, and clinical psychology, it equips researchers and students to address real-world challenges and advance their understanding of the field.

    • The Intelligent Imitator

      • 1st Edition
      • Volume 95
      • November 20, 1992
      • R. Kvadsheim
      • English
      • eBook
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      This monograph presents a novel conceptual framework for the study of human social behavior with potentially far-reaching implications. Owing to the role it accords to stored memory representations of observed occurrences (examples) of actions, the proposed framework is referred to as the Exemplar Choice Theory, or ECT. The theory links perception and action and combines an expectancy-value perspective on choice behavior, with features of recent exemplar-based approaches to the study of human information processing. It addresses the influence of social models, as well as the impact of past action consequences and differs from extant theories of instrumental learning. The volume focuses on two extreme classes of conditions defined in terms of the actor's limited access to information and discusses available evidence from many areas of psychology. Its structure is as follows: the introductory chapter locates the proposed theory within a historical context; this is followed by an overview of the main structure of the conceptual framework; subsequently, general propositions are presented and discussed in detail; later, empirical implications are derived for certain extreme classes of choice conditions and considered in the light of empirical evidence. It is hoped the publication will inspire students and researchers of psychology, biology, zoology and of many social sciences, including sociology, anthropology, decision research, marketing, economics, cognitive science and mass media studies to undertake further research and to reconsider existing data and frameworks.
    • Orthography, Phonology, Morphology and Meaning

      • 1st Edition
      • Volume 94
      • October 20, 1992
      • R. Frost + 1 more
      • English
      • Paperback
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      The area of research on printed word recognition has been one of the most active in the field of experimental psychology for well over a decade. However, notwithstanding the energetic research effort and despite the fact that there are many points of consensus, major controversies still exist.This volume is particularly concerned with the putative relationship between language and reading. It explores the ways by which orthography, phonology, morphology and meaning are interrelated in the reading process. Included are theoretical discussions as well as reviews of experimental evidence by leading researchers in the area of experimental reading studies. The book takes as its primary issue the question of the degree to which basic processes in reading reflect the structural characteristics of language such as phonology and morphology. It discusses how those characteristics can shape a language's orthography and affect the process of reading from word recognition to comprehension.Contri... by specialists, the broad-ranging mix of articles and papers not only gives a picture of current theory and data but a view of the directions in which this research area is vigorously moving.
    • Percepts, Concepts and Categories

      • 1st Edition
      • Volume 93
      • October 9, 1992
      • B. Burns
      • English
      • eBook
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      The most important distinction derived from the computational view of thought is between structures and processes. So proclaimed Farah and Kosslyn in 1982, arguing that structures and processes cannot be examined in isolation and concluding that converging operations are required to isolate the structure-process pair that can explain a particular finding. The distinction between structure and process within the study of percepts, concepts and categories is considered in depth in this volume, with penetrating commentaries by fellow authors concluding each chapter. This interesting format achieves a broad coverage of the various aspects and implications of the structure-process distinction. It affords a salient indication of the diversity of positions as to the description and utility of distinguishing structures and processors. At the same time, it reveals that researchers specializing in areas of study ranging from simple structure and process involved in perceptual organization and texture to complex structure and process associated with reading graphs and chess expertise, do utilize such a distinction in similar ways. The analysis is organized into four major parts within the book: Early Visual Representation and Processing; Percepts, Concepts, Categories and Development; Categories, Concepts and Learning; and Higher-Order Representation and Processing.
    • Maternal Substance Abuse and the Developing Nervous System

      • 1st Edition
      • August 24, 1992
      • Ian S. Zagon + 1 more
      • English
      • Hardback
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      The purpose of this book is to review the basic science and clinical findings concerning maternal substance abuse and the developing nervous system of unborn children. The short-term but vitally significant repercussions of such exposure on biological development, with particular reference to the nervous system, are discussed. The book also discusses the profound influence of maternal substance abuse on behavior in adulthood, which is caused by subtle changes in the chemistry or structure of the developing nervous system. The subject will not only be of interest to clinical and basic science researchers and teachers in the field of maternal substance abuse, but also to individuals in psychology, social work, cellular and molecular biolgoy, embryology, neuroscience, pharmacology, and in clinical professions such as pediatrics, neonatology, and obstetrics. The breadth of topics covered includes alcohol, cocaine, opiates, nicotine, benzodiazepines, marijuana, and the role of stress and hormones. Emphasis is placed on the relationship of the effects of substance abuse on neurotrophic factors and receptors.
    • Psychophysical Approaches to Cognition

      • 1st Edition
      • Volume 92
      • August 20, 1992
      • D. Algom
      • English
      • Paperback
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      Our lives are informed by perceptual and cognitive processes at all levels, from instrumental learning to metaphorical discourse to memorial representation. Yet, historically, these two branches of experimental psychology, perception and cognition, have developed separately using independent methods of experimentation and analysis. This volume is motivated by the assumption that a fundamental integration of the two fields is fruitful methodologically and indispensable theoretically. It explores how the notion of psychophysics aligned with cognitive processes shapes the study of perception and cognition, and illuminates a variety of contemporary research issues from a novel theoretical perspective. The papers raise conceptual and metatheoretical issues against the background of relevant empirical data.The authors provide a virtually narrative account of the most recent developments in their respective fields of expertise in psychophysics and cognitive psychology. Hence, this volume gives the interested reader an opportunity to reflect critically upon some of the current issues defining the two domains and their conjunction. Topics discussed include the psychology and psychophysics of similarity, the psychophysics of visual memory and cognitive factors in judgment. The emerging notion of cognitive psychophysics may well warrant the attention of experts in the field.
    • Social Discourse and Moral Judgement

      • 1st Edition
      • August 19, 1992
      • Daniel N. Robinson
      • English
      • Hardback
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      This edited work presents a unique and authoritative look at morality - its development within the individual, its evolution within society, and its place within the law. The contributors represent some of the foremost authorities in these fields, and the book represents a collection of essays presented at a symposium on social constructivism and morality.
    • International Review of Research in Mental Retardation

      • 1st Edition
      • Volume 18
      • August 19, 1992
      • English
      • Paperback
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      This serial was established under the editorship of Dr. Norman R. Willis in 1966. As a result of his editorial effort and the contributions of many authors, the serial is now recognized as the area's best source of reviews of behavioral research on mental retardation. From its inception, active research scientists and graduate students in mental retardation have looked to this serial as a major source of critical reviews of research and theory in the area. These volumes are required reading for any professional seeking a deeper insight into the behavioral consequences of intellectual and developmental handicaps.
    • The Nature and Origin of Mathematical Skills

      • 1st Edition
      • Volume 91
      • August 7, 1992
      • J.I.D. Campbell
      • English
      • Paperback
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      A broad range of current experimental research on numerical cognition and the acquisition of mathematical skills is covered in this volume. The individual chapters provide in-depth analysis of specific issues, methodologies, phenomena, and theory. The book is divided into two parts. In the first part the focus is on the acquisition and development of numerical skills. Part 2 of the book contains research on the information-processi... basis of numerical skills, focusing on the mechanisms of perception, attention, and memory that support number skills.The range of theoretical and methodological orientations represented in the volume captures both the diversity and coherence of contemporary research into mathematical skills. The research of educational psychologists, cognitive psychologists, and cognitive neuropsychologists mutually informs and reinforces theoretical developments within each area. The multidisciplinary interest in mathematics skills reflects the pervasiveness and importance of mathematics in education, technology, and science, and also indicates that questions about mathematical competence address important issues in diverse areas of psychology and cognitive science.
    • The Role of Eye Movements in Perceptual Processes

      • 1st Edition
      • Volume 88
      • July 6, 1992
      • E. Chekaluk + 1 more
      • English
      • Paperback
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      It has become a truism that the frozen optical diagram representation of vision is the worst possible picture of the way in which we visually interact with the environment. Even apart from our reaction to moving targets by pursuit movements, our visual behaviour can be said to be characterised by eye movements. We sample from our environment in a series of relatively brief fixations which move from one point to another in a series of extremely rapid jerks known as saccades. Many questions arising from this characteristic of vision are explored within this volume, including the question of how our visual world maintains its perceptual stability despite the drastic changes in input associated with these eye movements.
    • Language Processing in Chinese

      • 1st Edition
      • Volume 90
      • May 25, 1992
      • Hsuan Chih Chen + 1 more
      • English
      • Paperback
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      The aim of this book is to integrate the most recent research in the cognitive aspects of the Chinese language into a single academic reference for those interested in language processing and related fields. Chinese is perhaps the most widely used language in the world. In addition to its popularity, many specific features make it unique in relation to many Indo-European languages. Chinese words generally do not have inflections indicating grammatical attributes such as number, gender and case for nouns, or tense and aspect for verbs. Chinese words have no inherently marked lexical categories. Unlike the alphabetic symbols common to Indo-European languages, the Chinese writing system is logographic in nature. Chinese script/speech relationship is highly opaque, with the Chinese characters representing lexical morphemes in contrast to alphabetic symbols which represent phonemes. This volume presents research findings indispensable to the general understanding of human language processing about how people process the Chinese language.