I posted this message to the other teaching list in psychology in regards to a request for advice on textbooks for cognitive psychology. It got no takers on the philosophical issues, so I post it here for philosophical discussion. I have greater confidence in my tips friends picking up on the core issues. Sorry to say but I find the other list very shallow. ========================================== Timely question as I have been musing lately over the question "where has cognitive psychology gone?" It seems to me that judging by the newest texts and by the job ads that I see advertised in the Monitor and Observer for a "cognitive psychologist" that the mainstream definition has shifted away from an examination of behaviors from which we can infer that some kind of thought process is going on, to include things like sensation, perception, attention, sensory memory, short term (working, active) memory, long term memory, concept formation, semantic organization, problem solving, decision making, to a more biologically-based field. The mainstream definition seems to me to have shifted to looking at how we can link brain processes to various behaviors that had previously, partially allowed us to infer certain cognitive processes.
So, with that long-winded preface, I was schooled in information processing and am sort of behind the times I think, as for undergraduates I like that good old-fashioned approach to cognitive "psychology" as relying primarily on behavior. So I like the Reed text. It is not as heavily based in neuroscience as some of the newer texts. For me personally, I enjoy the neuroscience slant, but I'm not sure that's a good point of departure for the students. I sometimes wonder where the dividing line is between some texts in biological psychology and some in cognitive psychology as the two approach one another (with a little bit of mathematical modeling thrown in) in cognitive neuroscience. But I'm not sure what I want to teach my students these days. Are we in the midst of a revolution? Or is this just a tweek, a bump in the paradigm that has dominated for the last 50 years? Clearly there are many anomalies, but is neuroscience the new normal science? Is it too soon to tell? I don't know. About two decades ago I was sure we were going to a neural network model paradigm dominating cognitive psychology but it has not happened. Why? I think the model was too "hard" for most people in the field-- the mathematical models went over many clinicians heads, who apply the cognitive field to therapy models. So I guess the text you select will need to address your conception of where you see the field and what your students will need to know, and how much you want to rely on the "psychology" and how much on the neuroscience. Sorry for the digression but it's been on my mind a lot lately. Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 619-260-4006 [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
