Synopsis
Behavioral scientists use computers in virtually all their work—from data collection to analysis, presentation, and simulation. However, there has been no book written to date specifically for behavioral scientists on how to program with a general-purpose programming language. MATLAB for Behavioral Scientists is a tremendously valuable textbook that walks behavioral scientists through the computer programming process, using terms that are relevant to their concerns and appreciating their special programming needs.
Author David A. Rosenbaum, a cognitive psychologist with a Ph.D. in experimental psychology, introduces Matrix Laboratory (MATLAB), a powerful computer programming language with an active community of users engaged in many branches of science and engineering. Among its many attractive features, MATLAB offers high-level commands for performing calculations with large as well as small data sets and for generating publication-quality graphics. Throughout the text, Rosenbaum presents each new principle with one or more illustrations of usable code. In addition, each chapter begins with suggestions regarding which actions to perform, followed by the commands required to do so. The book easily functions as a reference source so that readers can turn to a section of interest and quickly obtain the information desired. An accompanying Web site lists programs and code output, complete with color, motion, and sound.
This textbook will grant behavioral scientists the intellectual freedom to perform virtually any computational function in solving problems, and consequently may allow practitioners to think, write, and speak more clearly.
About the Author
David A. Rosenbaum is a cognitive psychologist specializing in the planning and control of voluntary movements, especially those related to reaching and grasping. He attended Swarthmore College (B.A., 1973) and Stanford University (Ph.D., 1977). Then he worked at Bell Laboratories (1977-1981), Hampshire College (1981-1987), and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1987-1994). Since 1994 he has been at Pennsylvania State University, where he is Distinguished Professor of Psychology. He was a recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship (1973-1976), a National Institutes of Health Research Career Development Award (1985-1990), and a National Institutes of Health Research Scientist Development Award (1992-1997). His research has been described in five books, 81 journal articles, 31 book chapters, and 137 invited addresses. His work been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Rosenbaum is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (elected 1987), the American Psychological Society (elected 1991), the American Psychological Association (elected 2004), and the Society of Experimental Psychologists (elected 2005). He was a fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences from 1989 to 1990, and served as editor of Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance (a publication of the American Psychological Association) from 2000 to 2005.
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