Advances in Psychology Series

The contributors to this book are all distinguished, internationally-known specialists working in the motor control and learning area. The result is a unique collection of papers that discuss many aspects of this intricate and diverse subject and at the same time manage to provide the reader with a good overview of the major topics.

Letter and Word Perception

Wilson's book proposes an associationistic form of psychological theory which is opposed to the more extreme structuralist claims. It brings together a relatively novel combination of topics from psychology, computational linguistics and artificial intelligence which support a viable associationistic position.

This volume critically evaluates the present state of research in the domain of inferences in text processing and indicates new areas of research. The book is structured around the following theoretical aspects: - The representational aspect is concerned with the cognitive structure produced by the processed text, e.g. the social, spatial, and motor characteristics of world knowledge. - The procedural aspect investigates the time relationships on forming inferences, e.g. the point of time at which referential relations are constructed. - The contextual aspect reflects the dependence of inferences on the communicative embedding of text processing, e.g. on factors of modality and instruction.

The primary purpose of this book is to document the pervasive ramifications of the compositional problem (the discipline's historical inability to define or give a technical specification to psychological phenomena) for the conduction of academic, experimental psychology at five levels of analysis: methodological, epiphenomenal, explanatory, metaphysical, and normative.

Cognition and Memory

Presenting a philosophical and psychological overview of the history of the concept of intelligence, this controversial text does not aim to supply yet another opinion on, or interpretation of the concept of intelligence, but rather attempts to find out how to approach this concept on a scientific level.

The focus of this book is on stressful experiences and emotional reactions. The common perspective is that self-related cognitions play an important role in describing and explaining the subjective experience of stress, anxiety and depression and the impact on academic performance and social interactions. The assumption of self-related cognitions as mediators in the regulation of one's behavior has a variety of consequences for different fields of applications in psychology.

Language and Comprehension

The book deals with two focal issues: 1. The structural rules according to which information is organized in perception (Part I). 2. The rules on how pieces of information are integrated and transformed into judgements (Part II). Included in Part I are theories on neural mechanisms and models linking perception and memory. Part II refers to simple physical and complex semantic dimensions. Antecedents in animal behaviour are explored too. The book is intended for a broad readership; it should stimulate research which will link topics that have been traditionally separated. Features of the book are: - a synopsis of discrete, structural and quantitative aspects of perception linking perception with higher cognition and memory. - an overview on new approaches and findings from East and West on perceptual organization and rules inherent to judgement. - the chapters are strongly interconnected and didactical in tone. Introductions are designed to increase readability of the work.

Examining selected statistical and modeling approaches in psychology, the book concentrates on the topics of mental test theory and theory of measurement. The main objective is not only to present a critical view of the approaches suggested up until now, but also their reinterpretation, extension and enrichment by new theories and concepts, for example, formal theories of semiotics and knowledge, and a unifying theory of actions. The book also shows a relation between test theory and the foundations of fuzzy set theory. It presents new models of measurement tools and new measurement theories of concepts such as objective and subjective time, risk or utility, and discusses the cognitive foundations of these theories, namely the theory of perception and observability.

Research on discourse (or text) processing has only recently come into its own. It builds on the work of text analysis which has a long and distinguished history, but modern developments in psychology (e.g. memory research), artificial intelligence, linguistics and philosophy have contributed to this emergence in the last decade as a lively and promising research area. This book contains 46 selected and edited contributions from the International Symposium held in Fribourg in 1981, and represents a truly international overview of the developments in research on written and oral discourse. The contributions have been grouped according to problem area and not according to methodology, with the intention of focusing on the important issues in the field of discourse processing and of showing how diverse approaches contribute to a better understanding of the problems involved. The main themes are: text structure, coherence, inference, memory processes, attention and control, goal perspectives, and educational implications.

Current Issues in Theoretical Psychology

Apraxia is a term used to denote a disorder in the performance of limb, verbal and oral non-verbal gestures, with often preserved ability to perform these same gestures outside the clinical setting in the appropriate situation or environment. Over the past century and particularly in the past four decades, a great deal of research has focused on understanding the nature of this complex disorder. This book is a review of current approaches to the study of apraxia and related action sequencing disorders as well as an examination of the mechanisms thought to underly these disorders. Neuropathological processes associated with apraxia are evaluated and principles of motor control, handedness and bimanual coordination are considered as they relate to the study of apractic disorders.

From the human brain, event related potentials (ERPs) can be obtained which reflect psychological information processing. This book summarizes the theoretical and methodological aspects of research on the so-called ``endogenous'' components of the ERP. These components are invoked by psychological processing rather than evoked by the mere presentations of external stimuli.

As indicated by its title A History of Great Ideas in Abnormal Psychology, this book is not just concerned with the chronology of events or with biographical details of great psychiatrists and psychopathologists. It has as its main interest, a study of the ideas underlying theories about mental illness and mental health in the Western world. These are studied according to their historical development from ancient times to the twentieth century. The book discusses the history of ideas about the nature of mental illness, its causation, its treatment and also social attitudes towards mental illness. The conceptions of mental illness are discussed in the context of philosophical ideas about the human mind and the medical theories prevailing in different periods of history. Certain perennial controversies are presented such as those between the psychological and organic approaches to the treatment of mental illness, and those between the focus on disease entities (nosology) versus the focus on individual personalities. The beliefs of primitive societies are discussed, and the development of early scientific ideas about mental illness in Greek and Roman times. The study continues through the medieval age to the Renaissance. More emphasis is then placed on the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, the enlightenment of the eighteenth, and the emergence of modern psychological and psychiatric ideas concerning psychopathology in the twentieth century.

The 32 main papers, taken together, provide a comprehensive review of speech research by scientists who have made leading contributions to our understanding of the topics discussed. The papers are assembled within a coherent, problem-oriented structure.

Under the title The Coordination and Regulation of Movements, an English language version of six of the most important papers of the Russian physiologist Nicholas Bernstein was published in 1967 (Pergamon Press Ltd.). That work has been out of print for some years, but in view of the frequency of its citation in recent works on movement control, a republication was considered desirable. However, since some of the papers in the first edition were written in the 1930's, it was felt that readers' interests would be better served if, after each chapter, an evaluation of the work and, where necessary, an update of the data in the light of more recent findings was included. Contributors of international renown provide such chapters.

The purpose of this volume is to look at the developments and changes that have occurred in the area of mental workload and its assessment since the NATO symposium was held in 1979. This has been achieved by inviting prominent researchers to survey their respective areas of expertise. Examined are the current methodologies, individual differences, unanswered questions, and future directions for the mental workload issue. Particular topics discussed include the properties of workload assessment techniques, physiological measures, heart rate variability, effort and fatigue in relation to the workload experienced during normal daily routines, subjective assessment techniques, and the cognitive psychology of subjective workload. A preliminary proposal for a cohesive model of mental load is presented. A bibliographic listing of contemporary research reports completes the volume.

A comprehensive view of coalition formation is presented here. Each of the chapters gives a summary of theories and research findings in a specific field of interest, at various levels of human and primate organisation.

This volume presents one possible conceptual analysis of the task of constructing a model of psychological reality, so that psychology's pluralistic state can be put into perspective. Chapters 1 and 2 specify the essential input assumptions of the analysis, establish the boundary conditions of the treatise, preview the kinds of decisions involved in the construction process, and present some necessary background information. Chapters 3 to 5 collectively abstract out possible psychological universes and recount the dominant classical and contemporary models of psychological reality framework. Chapters 6 to 9 focus on the philosophical input into psychology, especially as related to the nature of humanity, the mind-body problem, scientific explanation, and the discipline's two fundamental analytical categories: behavior and experience. Chapters 10 to 12 highlight many of the cultural and pragmatic constraints imposed on any model of psychological reality by considering the applied, contextual and relational aspects of psychology.

Contributed chapters by psychologists and behavioral biologists provide a broad coverage of animal behavior, and governing brain processes. Topics covered include: foraging behavior and strategies, economics and psychology, memory of events and space, time perception, expectancies, food preferences and diet selection, behavior variability and the concept of mind. The volume is designed to satisfy an intderdisciplinary audience, embracing the behavioristic tradition, biological and physiological approaches, and evolutionary theory as philosophical underpinnings to the chapters. Also achieved in this work is a good balance between empirical results and theory.

This book contains an edited selection of papers presented at the Eighth Research Conference on Subjective Probability, Utility and Decision Making, held in Budapest. Together they span a wide range of new developments in studies of decision making, the practice of decision analysis and the development of decision-aiding technology. The volume is arranged in sections: Societal Decision Making; Organizational Decision Making; Aiding the Structuring of Small Scale Decision Problems, and Tracing Decision Processes. The emphasis is on decision processes and structures and their applications, rather than formal modelling in isolation, thus reflecting current developments in research and practice which follow from the understanding of the nature and operation of decision theoretical models gained during the 1970's. The fifth section, A Symposium on the Validity of Studies on Heuristics and Biases, is of a different nature. The papers take stock of the considerable volume of work investigation ``heuristics and biases'' in decision making over the past decade, and their implication for theory and practice.

Graphonomics is the newly created term for the science of handwriting and other graphic skills. The Second International Conference on the Neural and Motor Aspects of Handwriting attracted contributions from experimental psychologists, neuropsychologists, neurologists, linguists, biophysicists, and computer scientists from 12 countries. This volume, the proceedings of the conference, features clinical studies of the neural basis of agraphia and dysgraphia from brain-damaged patients. The motor aspects of handwriting are further extended to new areas of interests. Research on handwriting in the English, Chinese and Japanese languages forms the first attempt in the field to investigate handwriting from the psycholinguistic perspective of different languages.

This volume comprises a selection of the papers presented at the 14th European Mathematical Psychology Group Meeting, held in Brussels, and three invited lectures. Presented are results and developments in mathematical psychology, especially in the theory of perception and learning, order and measurement, and data analysis.

The main objective of the research presented in this book is to broaden the scope of attachment theory by stressing the importance of a social network approach to the study of attachment. This approach forms the integrating theme of this volume, as is testified by various studies of attachment as it develops in an "extended" rearing context over and beyond the limits of the traditional mother-child dyad. In this connection attention is paid to the importance of sibling relationships, attachment relationships with professional caregivers, the role of the father in caring and rearing young children, and the (short-term and long-term) effects on attachment quality of maternal employment in infancy. Also, the cross-cultural validity of Ainsworth's Strange Situation is discussed, with reference to the USA, Sweden, Israel, Japan, The Netherlands, etc. In adopting a social network approach, the attachment theory proves to be a particularly useful instrument for reflecting on the consequence of social change (maternal employment, symmetrical families, socialisation of childrearing) for child development.

This book reviews progress and describes original research in the cognitive psychology of the arts. The invited contributors are leading authorities, and the topics which they cover include psychological approaches to symbols and meaning in art, issues in experimental aesthetics, the development in children of artistic production and appreciation, and the perception of musical and pictorial material.

Theory and data on various aspects of cognition, communication and handicap are presented here, related to two sorts of psychological compensation. On the one hand, basic principles of cognition are employed with the purpose of helping to overcome communicative difficulties among handicapped people, and on the other, various sorts of technical aids used for compensatory purposes are examined. Many of the papers presented here stem from a conference held in Stockholm in 1985, sponsored by the Swedish Council for the Planning and Coordination of Research, as part of a large-scale project on handicaps. Although researchers in psychology were in the majority, students of other disciplines also took part.

Based upon a conference held in Bethesda in 1985, this volume brings together the research and theoretical perspectives of experts in the developmental aspects of motor control, coordination, and skill in the mentally handicapped. This is accomplished within the context of cognition. Section I deals with the dynamics of controlling movement skill and the nature of the variables that mediate the learning of motor skills. Sections II and III examine the traditional area of research in motor behavior, i.e., the speed of information processing and reaction time paradigms. The last section discusses the issue of training to minimize the effects of mental retardation on motor behavior.

The volume applies to the study of the motor system the computational approach developed by David Marr for the visual system. Accordingly, understanding movement is viewed as an information processing problem, centred on the representation of appropriate computational structures. In particular, the book deals with the representation of objects, concurrent parallel processes, trajectory formation patterns and patterns of interaction with the environment. A number of modeling techniques are discussed, ranging from computational geometry to artificial intelligence, integrating very different aspects of movement, especially those which are not directly motoric.