IV. Developmental & Social Psychology: Simona Ghetti (Volume Editor) (Topics covered include development of visual attention; self-evaluation; moral development; emotion-cognition interactions; person perception; memory; implicit social cognition; motivation group processes; development of scientific thinking; language acquisition; development of mathematical reasoning; emotion regulation; emotional development; development of theory of mind; category and conceptual development; attitudes; executive function.)
First published in English in 1969, the book opens with a chapter by Pierre Oléron on intellectual activities. These fall into three groups: inductive activities (the apprehension of laws, relations and concepts), reasoning and problem solving. It describes typical methods and essential results obtained by relevant experiments. There are two chapters by Jean Piaget and his collaborator Bärbel Inhelder. The first, on mental images, breaks new ground: it describes original experiments carried out by Piaget and associates with children of various ages. Piaget examines the relations between images and motor activity, imitation, drawing and operations. He also classifies images according to their degree of complexity and show why children have inadequate images of some processes. The second chapter is on intellectual operations and Piaget gives a summary of the main findings of a number of his earlier books, on the child’s notions of conservation, classification, seriation, number, measurement, time, speed and chance. In the last chapter, Pierre Gréco discusses learning and intellectual structures. He describes the work of psychologists with rats in mazes and formulating theories of animal learning. Gestalt psychology and various other interpretations are examined and Greco also pays attention to Piaget’s view of ‘structural learning’ based on experience.
This book is about the tactics and tools of experimental psychology. Its purpose is to provide students with practical, thoughtful, and organized guidelines on how to conduct psychological research. Is dominant methodological concerns are placed within broad philosophical and historical perspectives, shedding light on the many ways in which psychology, as a scientific discipline, can add to our storehouse of knowledge. Each chapter is followed by a section with questions to gauge reception of the material.
Cognitive psychology deals with information processing, and includes a variety of thinking processes including perception, attention, memory, knowledge representation, categorisation, language, problem-solving, reasoning, and judgement. It is also concerned with the structures and representations involved in cognition. Cognitive psychology has significant applications of all areas of human endeavour. It is also the subject of intensive study when applied to health and ageing in the absence of a significant health problem as well as education and human-computer interaction. Other examples are eyewitness memory, autobiographical memory, spatial cognition, skill training, suggestibility, expertise and skilled behaviour.
From the initial investigation of a crime to the sentencing of an offender, many everyday practices within the criminal justice system involve complex psychological processes. This volume analyzes the processes involved in such tasks as interviewing witnesses, detecting deception, and eliciting eyewitness reports and identification from adults and children. Factors that influence decision making by jurors and judges are examined as well. Throughout, findings from experimental research are translated into clear recommendations for improving the quality of evidence and the fairness of investigative and legal proceedings. The book also addresses salient methodological questions and identifies key directions for future investigation.
