Reading and language processing: An introduction.

Introduces this special issue of the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, which is devoted to reading and language processing, an area that has been central to the study of human cognition since the inception of modern cognitive psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comportement d'attention du nourrisson et modulation du langage maternel.

Studied the relationship between the attentional behaviors of infants and the prosodic modulations of their mothers' speech. Ss were 14 mothers (aged 27 yrs) and their infants (aged 4 mo). Mother–infant dyads were observed during face-to-face interactions. Mothers' speech prosody was analyzed in relation to the gaze behaviors of their infants. (English abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The mind’s we: Contextualism in cognitive psychology.

Reviews the book, The mind's we: Contextualism in cognitive psychology by Diane Gillespie (1992). In this text the author has both expanded on several of the key insights previously outlined in the critical literature and provided a congenial introductory text for the newcomer; a text to serve as a conceptual bridge between traditional cognitive psychological approaches and their newly emergent contextualist alternatives. As stated in her preface, Gillespie's purpose in preparing this book was to "bring together the work of psychologists who are interested in telling the contextualist story of cognition" and to "reveal and strengthen their insights and perspectives" (p. xiv). Given the philosophical range and theoretical diversity of those interested in telling such a story, the task is certainly a formidable one, but it is nonetheless one that she accomplishes with a commendable degree of elegance. Gillespie clearly articulates the diverse work of a large number of psychological theorists into a coherent and meaningful account that will do much toward imposing order on a field that is, by its very nature, somewhat scattered and contentious. Each of the book's six chapters proceeds carefully through a detailed and representative historical and conceptual analysis of traditional mechanistic approaches to human cognition prior to advancing their contextualist critiques and alternatives. Through a systematic analysis of the manner in which this "contextualist story" has arisen within the mechanistic milieu of traditional scientific psychology, she is able to clarify both the implications and relative merits and liabilities of two, quite often antithetical, conceptualizations of human cognitive phenomena. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rendement en lecture et vitesse du traitement de l'information chez les enfants de 6 à 8 ans.

The following study aims at testing information processing rate (IPR) measurements by verifying their potential relationship with the reading performance of children between 6 and 8 years old. One hundred and five children were involved in the study. Rate measurements were done with three tools, namely the Tests de rendement cognitif pour adultes présentant une déficience intellectuelle (Cognitive performance test for mentally retarded adults) (TRCA; Loranger & Pépin, 1997), the Temps de réaction des Tests de rendement cognitif pour enfants (TRCE; Loranger & Pépin, 1998) (Response time of cognitive performance tests for children) and the Rapid automatized naming test (RAN Test; Denckla & Rudel, 1976b). The reading performance as such is evaluated with the Test d'habiletés en lecture (THAL; Pépin & Loranger, 1999) (Reading skills test) and with the Test phonologique (Melan?on, Ziarko & Gagnon, dans Melan?on, 1997) (Phonological Test). The results of the canonical correlations analyses indicate the existence of moderate relations (0.66 and 0.55) between the different rate measurement and reading performance groupings. Results show that the IPR maintains significant relations with reading performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Cognition.

Reviews the book, Cognition by John G. Benjafield, et al. (2010). Cognition (4th ed.) provides a comprehensive introduction to cognitive psychology for undergraduate students and others who require an overview of the area. New in the fourth edition is a chapter on cognitive neuroscience. The reviewer only has one criticism of Benjafield et al.: Citations for published works in every chapter that also appeared in the third edition stop around 2007 or earlier (when the third edition was published). Cognition is a book that will appeal to those looking for a high-level, scholarly survey of cognitive psychology. It is this aspect of Cognition that sets it apart from most other textbooks that cover cognitive psychology. Yet, despite its scholarly approach, it remains an engaging text that makes the reader want to keep reading more: a delicate balance, but one that Benjafield et al. manage with aplomb. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Cognitive psychology.

Reviews the book, Cognitive Psychology by Guy Claxton (1980). This is a bold attempt to provide a well-integrated review of the problems and prospects of modern cognitive psychology. In general, the book succeeds although one may disagree with the directions that are foreseen. The book consists of nine papers by eight authors. Six chapters plus an overview cover traditional topics within cognition while two excellent chapters extend the discussion to motor control and cross-cultural perspectives. Together the chapters are '... meant to be a guidebook to organizing one's thoughts, and a life-raft to cling on to when in danger of drowning in the sea of detail'. This is an excellent overview for graduate students or scientists in related fields; it will prove difficult for all but the brighter undergraduates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automaticité du traitement de l'information et évaluation du retard mental.

The goal of this study was to show the usefulness of data concerning reaction time (RT) and its variability on simple psychometric items in the context of intellectual assessment of mentally retarded individuals. Two experiments compared the response time data for 2 groups of normal 7- and 9-yr-old children with data for 2 groups of mentally retarded persons whose mental ages compared to that of the children. The joint analysis of response time and variability resulted in indications regarding not only the effectiveness of information processing but the development of skills as reflected in degree of automaticity. In fact, analysis of response time variability enables the distinction of cases in which a specific skill leads to the restructuring of information processing, i.e., automation, from those which do not have such restructuring. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Human Cognition and a Pile of Sand: A Discussion on Serial Correlations and Self-Organized Criticality.

Recently, G. C. Van Orden, J. G. Holden, and M. T. Turvey (2003) proposed to abandon the conventional framework of cognitive psychology in favor of the framework of nonlinear dynamical systems theory. Van Orden et al. presented evidence that "purposive behavior originates in self-organized criticality" (p. 333). Here, the authors show that Van Orden et al.'s analyses do not test their hypotheses. Further, the authors argue that a confirmation of Van Orden et al.'s hypotheses would not have constituted firm evidence in support of their framework. Finally, the absence of a specific model for how self-organized criticality produces the observed behavior makes it very difficult to derive testable predictions. The authors conclude that the proposed paradigm shift is presently unwarranted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In search of the links.

Reviews the book, Cognition, metacognition, and reading by D. L. Forrest-Pressley and T. G. Waller (1984). In the introduction to this monograph the authors point out that, in spite of receiving much recent attention, metacognition is only vaguely defined in the literature, and its relationship to cognition and cognitive activities such as reading is particularly unclear. Further, they claim that the difficulties that researchers have encountered in understanding reading is attributable to their failure to understand properly the complexity of the reading process. The solution offered by the authors is to assign metacognition a central role in reading by defining the reading process as the interaction of at least three skills--decoding, comprehension, and mature reading strategies--each of which has a cognitive and metacognitive component. The potential contribution of this volume depends upon the extent to which this approach succeeds in clarifying the concept of metacognition and advancing our understanding of the cognitive basis of reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Exploring the psychology of interest.

Reviews the book, Exploring the psychology of interest by Paul J. Silvia (see record 2006-03939-000). As Silvia observes, the study of interest has been extensive. However, it has been scattered across many subfields including the specialized and somewhat isolated areas of aesthetics, educational psychology, and vocational psychology. There exists a further divide between models of interest as an emotional experience and the personality-based study of interests and their idiographic development over time. Thankfully, Silvia's book brings a sense of order and coherence to this otherwise fractured body of work. The book's unifying theme is that cognition plays a singular role in generating, as well as interpreting, the experience of any emotion, including interest. Silvia wields his cognitivism skillfully, using it to advance a compelling case that interest is a function of cognitive appraisal. He then presents a related attributional analysis of how individuals develop particular interests and avocations over time. These two theoretical models organize the first two sections of the book, and they nicely integrate the existing literatures concerning interest and the development of interests, respectively. A final section of the book concludes with a comparison of models of interest followed by Silvia's suggested directions for future research. This is a great example of what the psychology of emotion needs. It is a successful "second-generation" effort to organize the proliferation of emotion research and theorizing that has occurred over the past few decades (Detweiler-Bedell & Salovey, 2002). Emotion researchers who read the book will benefit as much from Silvia's method as from the richness of his subject. In particular, this would be an ideal book for graduate students and faculty to hash over as part of a weekly reading group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Connaissance et exécution de la musique: Introduction.

Here the issue of the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology devotes its knowledge to the execution of music. The interest and research on the knowledge and execution of music have increased considerably during the last decades. This field now has become one of the most dynamic sub-disciplines of psychology and musical thinking. To present such a concentration of articles offers many advantages. By presenting the work of several of the best researchers in this field, this issue offers an excellent general introduction to the readers who do not know this discipline well. As for the experts, they will find a concentration of practical results from very recent research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Psychologie génétique et sciences cognitives.

Reviews the book, IPsychologie génétique et sciences cognitives by J. Montangero and A. Tryphon (1991). The chapters which form this book, individually taken, are of good quality. Nevertheless, the book suffers from two defects. The first, like many books of this style, concerns the lack of cohesion of the subjects, which are indeed very disparate. The second, which is more critical, touches the lack of theoretical coherence demonstrated by the authors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Psychology of language.

Reviews the book, Psychology of Language by Allan Paivio and Ian Begg (1981). The present volume constitutes a well-organized and sometimes provocative contribution that merits careful consideration. From the start, the authors set to work toward achieving their stated goals of emphasizing "historical and interdisciplinary concerns". They present a careful analysis of the three positions which they contrast throughout the book: the linguistic, the behavioural, and the cognitive. The particular version of the cognitive view that receives the most detailed consideration is Paivio's dual-coding theory. After the basic principles of these orientations are presented, they are brought to bear upon the central problems of language, including meaning, comprehension, memory and acquisition. Who will benefit from this book? The authors state that they hope it will be useful to upper year undergraduate and graduate students. It is the reviewer's feeling that most undergraduates would find this to be a difficult text. It is the serious and even sophisticated student of language for whom it will be of greatest value. Omissions notwithstanding, Psychology of Language presents many thoughtful and scholarly ideas. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of How the mind works.

Reviews the book, How the mind works by Steven Pinker (see record 1997-30233-000). In this book, the author writes with optimism and excitement about recent progress in psychology, but with despair about the human condition. The scope of the book is stated briefly: I will try to explain what the mind is, where it came from, and how it lets us see, think, feel, interact, and pursue higher callings like art, religion, and philosophy (p. 3). The reader will be disappointed in many of these explanations: the book dwells on the already-expansive topics of what the mind is, and where it came from. As for the rest, we are told that humans have innate knowledge of optics, logic, mathematics, physics, botany (p. 377), and even psychology (p. 329). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the special section on cognitive processes and psychotherapy.

Theoretical models featuring cognitive processes have played a fundamental role in advancing knowledge of psychopathology and its treatment and have emphasized the importance of cognition in psychotherapy. Recognition of the importance of cognition in psychotherapy has led to a number of questions that are addressed by the articles in this special section of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Cognitive therapy is well represented in the articles in this special section, but therapeutic procedures that do not represent typical cognitive therapy are also examined. The articles in this special section focus on homework in the modification of cognition, cognition in the treatment of anxiety in adults and in children, change in depressive cognitions in children, cognition and rapid change in the treatment of depression, and the role of cognition in the treatment and prevention of depression that is recurrent. Examination of these types of questions holds the possibility of advances in existing treatments and the possibility of innovations in new treatments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The 1990 Banff Annual Seminar in Cognitive Science.

The Banff Annual Seminar in Cognitive Science (BASICS) was founded in 1982 and has met each spring since then in Banff, Alberta. BASICS was originated to provide an informal atmosphere for the in-depth discussion of a wide variety of research topics within the broadly defined domain of cognitive psychology. Topics covered in this year's seminar included visual spatial attention and target detection, attention and eye movements during reading, the integration of information across eye movements, language production and its dependency on structure, and parallel distributed processing models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A study in language and cognition.

"The Whorf thesis on the relationship between language and thought is found to involve the following two propositions: (a) Different linguistic communities perceive and conceive reality in different ways. (b) The language spoken in a community helps to shape the cognitive structure of the individuals speaking that language… . An experiment is described which investigates a part of proposition (a)—the idea that lexical differences are indicative of cognitive differences." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive screening in geriatric rehabilitation.

Objective: To aid rehabilitation psychologists' selection of brief measures of cognition for use in geriatric rehabilitation. Design: Literature review of neuropsychological screening measures that have been used and researched in geriatric rehabilitation, along with some newer instruments that have potential efficacy. Conclusions: All of the cognitive screening measures reviewed have varying degrees of strength and weakness in a geriatric rehabilitation setting. Thus, choosing the appropriate instrument often hinges on both pragmatic (e.g., administration time, nature of the referral, availability of population-specific norms) and psychometric concerns. Although tests are valuable tools, the lack of available research for many tests must be corrected before the practicing clinician can feel comfortable using them as integral aspects of geriatric rehabilitation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction and overview of the special issue on Aristotle.

Aristotle's scientific legacy underlies much of what is currently considered mainstream psychology. Surprisingly, however, only a paucity of writings have elucidated this fact. To be sure, history of psychology texts register him as one of our intellectual ancestors, but unfortunately most psychologists appear to view Aristotle as an anachronism with little but the most indirect of influences upon modern theory and practice. The present issue of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology is part of the effort begun by scholars such as Robinson to dispel this misconception. The six articles that follow not only show the continuing relevance of Aristotelian thinking, but they also employ Aristotelian conceptual tools to analyze and advance modern psychology still further. Each of the articles covers a unique aspect of Aristotle vis-a-vis psychology. Robinson delves into Aristotle's naturalism and ontology, and attempts to help readers find their way through some rather sticky theoretical issues for psychologists. Williams critically examines aspects of Aristotle's physics (or metaphysics) from a post-modernist's perspective. Silverstein, Howard, and Rychlak each discuss a different facet of Aristotle's teleology: Silverstein on developmental implications, Howard on philosophy of science ramifications, and Rychlak on cognitive considerations. Waterman then extends some of Aristotle's ethics through his empirical studies of happiness. Whereas the first four articles are primarily theoretical in nature, the final two (Waterman and Rychlak) demonstrate how theorizing compatible with Aristotle can be experimentally tested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)