Towards a Theory of Thinking: Building Blocks for a Conceptual Framework (On Thinking)

Hardcover, xxix + 395 pages, NOT ex-library. Book is clean and bright throughout with unmarked text and firm binding, free of inscriptions and stamps. Rear board shows gentle indentations above the lower edge; issued without a dust jacket. -- Contents: 1. Perspectives on Thinking -- Problem Solving / Michael Öllinger & Vinod Goel; Heuristic Bias, Conflict, and Rationality in Decision-Making / Wim De Neys; Analogical Processes in Human Thinking and Learning / Dedre Gentner & Julie Colhoun; A Gestalt Perspective on the Psychology of Thinking / Michael Wertheimer; Thought and Reality: A Philosophical Conjecture About Some Fundamental Features of Human Thinking / Albrecht von Müller; 2. Components of Thinking -- Categorization and Object Shape / Markus Graf; Comparison / Robert L. Goldstone, Sam Day & Ji Y. Son; Causal Thinking / Michael R. Waldmann; Conditionals: Their Meaning and Their Use in Reasoning / Klaus Oberauer; Thinking and Memory / Matthias Brand & Hans J. Markowitsch; Perception and the Brain / Nikos Logothetis; 3. Onto- and Phylogenetic Considerations -- A Developmental Perspective on Modularity / Annette Karmiloff-Smith; Theory of Mind / Beate Sodian & Susanne Kristen; Development of Metacognitive Competences / Wolfgang Schneider; Understanding Apes to Understand Humans: The Case of Object-Object Relations / Josep Call; 4. Language, Emotion, Culture -- Socializing Cognition / Anne Böckler, Günther Knoblich & Natalie Sebanz; Thinking and Language: A View from Cognitive Semio-Linguistics / Per Aage Brandt; Thinking and Emotion: Affective Modulation of Cognitive Processing Modes / Annette Bolte & Thomas Goschke; Cultural Differences in Thinking Styles / Shihui Han; 5. Modeling and Neurobiological Aspects -- Natural Selection in the Brain / Chrisantha Fernando & Eörs Szathmáry; Value and Self-Referential Control: Necessary Ingredients for the Autonomous Development of Flexible Intelligence / Olaf Sporns & Edgar Körner; Cortical Connectivity: The Infrastructure of Thoughts / Giorgio M. Innocenti; Models as Tools to Aid Thinking / Helge Ritter; Index -- "What is Thinking? Trying to Define an Equally Fascinating and Elusive Phenomenon Human thinking is probably the most complex phenomenon that evolution has come up with until now. There exists a broad spectrum of definitions, from subsuming almost all processes of cognition to limiting it to language-based, sometimes even only to formalizable reasoning processes. We work with a "medium sized" definition according to which thinking encompasses all operations by which cognitive agents link mental content in order to gain new insights or perspectives. Mental content is, thus, a prerequisite for and the substrate on which thinking operations are executed. The largely unconscious acts of perceptual object stabilization, categorization, emotional evaluation - and retrieving all the above from memory inscriptions - are the processes by which mental content is generated, and are, therefore, seen as prerequisites for thinking operations. In terms of a differentia specifica, the notion of "thinking" is seen as narrower than the notion of "cognition" and as wider than the notion of "reasoning". Thinking is, thus, seen as a subset of cognition processes; and reasoning processes are seen as a subset of thinking. Besides reasoning, the notion of thinking includes also nonexplicit, intuitive, and associative processes of linking mental content. According to this definition, thinking is not dependant on language, i.e. also many animals and certainly all mammals show early forms of thinking.". …