An Invitation to Cognitive Science: Visual Cognition

An Invitation to Cognitive Science provides a point of entry into the vast realm of cognitive science, offering selected examples of issues and theories from many of its subfields. All of the volumes in the second edition contain substantially revised and as well as entirely new chapters.Rather than surveying theories and data in the manner characteristic of many introductory textbooks in the field, An Invitation to Cognitive Science employs a unique case study approach, presenting a focused research topic in some depth and relying on suggested readings to convey the breadth of views and results. Each chapter tells a coherent scientific story, whether developing themes and ideas or describing a particular model and exploring its implications.The volumes are self contained and can be used individually in upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses ranging from introductory psychology, linguistics, cognitive science, and decision sciences, to social psychology, philosophy of mind, rationality, language, and vision science.

Stephen M. Kosslyn is Founding Dean and Chief Academic Officer of the Minerva Schools at KGI (the Keck Graduate Institute) and John Lindsley Professor of Psychology in Memory of William James, Emeritus, at Harvard University. He is the coauthor of Cognitive Psychology: Mind And Brain and the author of Image and Brain: The Resolution of the Imagery Debate (MIT Press).

Daniel N. Osherson is at MIT.

Martha J. Farah is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Natural Sciences in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she directs the Center for Neuroscience & Society. She has worked on many topics within neuroscience, including vision, prefrontal function, emotion, and development. In her three decades of research she has witnessed the advent of functional neuroimaging, the burgeoning of cognitive neuroscience, and its expansion into the study of social and affective processes. She is now focusing her attention on the ethical, legal and social implications of these developments.

Melvyn A. Goodale is a university researcher in psychology at the University of Western Ontario.

Fred Dretske is Senior Research Scholar in the Department of Philosophy, Duke University.