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Vision and Brain

How We Perceive the World
By James V. Stone

In this accessible and engaging introduction to modern vision science, James Stone uses visual illusions to explore how the brain sees the world. Understanding vision, Stone argues, is not simply a question of knowing which neurons respond to particular visual features, but also requires a computational theory of vision.

Ecopsychology

Science, Totems, and the Technological Species
Edited by Peter H. Kahn, Jr. and Patricia H. Hasbach

We need nature for our physical and psychological well-being. Our actions reflect this when we turn to beloved pets for companionship, vacation in spots of natural splendor, or spend hours working in the garden. Yet we are also a technological species and have been since we fashioned tools out of stone. Thus one of this century’s central challenges is to embrace our kinship with a more-than-human world--“our totemic self”--and integrate that kinship with our scientific culture and technological selves.

Evolution and Human Behavior, Second Edition

Darwinian Perspectives on Human Nature
By John Cartwright

Evolutionary psychology occupies an important place in the drive to understand and explain human behavior. Darwinian ideas provide powerful tools to illuminate how fundamental aspects of the way humans think, feel, and interact derive from reproductive interests and an ultimate need for survival. In this updated and expanded edition of Evolution and Human Behavior, John Cartwright considers the emergence of Homo sapiens as a species and looks at contemporary issues, such as familial relationships and conflict and cooperation, in light of key theoretical principles.

Introduction to Cognition and Communication

By Keith Stenning, Jo Calder and Alex Lascarides

This introduction to the interdisciplinary study of cognition takes the novel approach of bringing several disciplines to bear on the subject of communication. Using the perspectives of linguistics, logic, AI, philosophy, and psychology—the component fields of cognitive science—to explore topics in human communication in depth, the book shows readers and students from any background how these disciplines developed their distinctive views, and how those views interact.

Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience

Understanding the Mind by Simulating the Brain
By Randall C. O'Reilly and Yuko Munakata

The goal of computational cognitive neuroscience is to understand how the brain embodies the mind by using biologically based computational models comprising networks of neuronlike units. This text, based on a course taught by Randall O'Reilly and Yuko Munakata over the past several years, provides an in-depth introduction to the main ideas in the field. The neural units in the simulations use equations based directly on the ion channels that govern the behavior of real neurons, and the neural networks incorporate anatomical and physiological properties of the neocortex.

Where Biology Meets Psychology

Philosophical Essays
Edited by Valerie Gray Hardcastle

A great deal of interest and excitement surround the interface between the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of psychology, yet the area is neither well defined nor well represented in mainstream philosophical publications. This book is perhaps the first to open a dialogue between the two disciplines. Its aim is to broaden the traditional subject matter of the philosophy of biology while informing the philosophy of psychology of relevant biological constraints and insights.

Concepts

Core Readings
Edited by Eric Margolis and Stephen Laurence

Concepts: Core Readings traces the develoment of one of the most active areas of investigation in cognitive science. This comprehensive volume brings together the essential background readings from philosophy, psychology, and linguistics, while providing a broad sampling of contemporary research. The first part of the book centers around the fall of the Classical Theory of Concepts in the face of attacks by W. V. O. Quine, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Eleanor Rosch, and others, emphasizing the emergence and development of the Prototype Theory and the controversies it spurred.

Social Cognition

Making Sense of People
By Ziva Kunda

How do we make sense of other people and of ourselves? What do we know about the people we encounter in our daily lives and about the situations in which we encounter them, and how do we use this knowledge in our attempt to understand, predict, or recall their behavior? Are our social judgments fully determined by our social knowledge, or are they also influenced by our feelings and desires?

Vision Science

Photons to Phenomenology
By Stephen E. Palmer


This book revolutionizes how vision can be taught to undergraduate and graduate students in cognitive science, psychology, and optometry. It is the first comprehensive textbook on vision to reflect the integrated computational approach of modern research scientists. This new interdisciplinary approach, called "vision science," integrates psychological, computational, and neuroscientific perspectives.

Sources of Power

How People Make Decisions
By Gary Klein

Anyone who watches the television news has seen images of firefighters rescuing people from burning buildings and paramedics treating bombing victims. How do these individuals make the split-second decisions that save lives? Most studies of decision making, based on artificial tasks assigned in laboratory settings, view people as biased and unskilled. Gary Klein is one of the developers of the naturalistic decision-making approach, which views people as inherently skilled and experienced.

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