Geoffrey Underwood - Böcker

The distinguished contributors to this volume have been set the problem of describing how we know where to move our eyes. There is a great deal of current interest in the use of eye movement recordings to investigate various mental processes. The common theme is that variations in eye movements indicate variations in the processing of what is being perceived, whether in reading, driving or scene perception. However, a number of problems of interpretation are now emerging, and this edited volume sets out to address these problems. The book investigates controversies concerning the variations in eye movements associated with reading ability, concerning the extent to which text is used by the guidance mechanism while reading, concerning the relationship between eye movements and the control of other body movements, the relationship between what is inspected and what is perceived, and concerning the role of visual control attention in the acquisition of complex perceptual-motor skills, in addition to the nature of the guidance mechanism itself.The origins of the volume are in discussions held at a meeting of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCOP) that was held in Wurzburg in September 1996. The discussions concerned the landing effect in reading, an effect, that if substantiated, would provide evidence of the use of parafoveal information in eye guidance, and these discussions were explored in more detail at a small meeting in Chamonix, in February 1997. Many of the contributors to this volume were present at the meeting, but the arguments were not resolved in Chamonix either. Other leaders in the field were invited to contribute to the discussion, and this volume is the product. The argument remains unresolved, but the problem is certainly clearer.

Just as our transport systems become more and more important to our economic and social well-being, so they become more and more crowded and more at risk from congestion, disruption, and collapse. Technology and engineering can provide part of the solution, but the complete solution will need to take account of the behaviour of the users of the transport networks.

The role of psychologists in this is to understand how people make decisions about the alternative modes of transport and about the alternative routes to their destinations, to understand how novice and other vulnerable users can develop safe and effective behaviours, how competent users can operate within the transport system optimally and within their perceptual and cognitive limitations.

The contributions to this volume address these issues of how the use of our transport systems can be improved by taking into account knowledge of the behaviour of the people who use the systems. Topics discussed include driver training and licensing, driver impairment, road user attitudes and behaviour, enforcement and behaviour change, driver support systems, and the psychology of mobility and transport mode choice.

This work will be of value not only to psychologists but to all transport professionals interested in the application of psychology to traffic.

"Implicit cognition" describes the fascinating learning, memory, and performance processes which take place without the subject's "explicit" awareness. A well known example is patients under anaesthetic who, without being able to verbally recall the surgeons' conversation, do show some retention of the conversation. How much of what we "know" has been learned implicitly? How much of our problem-solving abilities are founded on unconscious processes? Researchers disagree widely over the inmportance, and even the existence, of implicit cognition as an issue in human psychology. This book brings together several internationally known authors with conflicting views on the subject, providing a lively and informative overview of this controversial area.

Whether reading, looking at a picture, or driving, how is it that we know where to look next - how does the human visual system calculate where our gaze should be directed in order to achieve our cognitive aims? Of course, there is an interaction between the decisions about where we should look and about how long we should look there. However, our eyes do not just move randomly over the visual field - whether we are reading, driving, or solving a problem. There are systematic variations not only in the duration of each eye fixation, but also in what we are looking at. It is these variations in eye movements that can tell us much about the cognitive processes involved in the performance of these activities. Within reading research, great progress has already been made in understanding these processes and there are now a number of competing and well-formed models. In some other areas of perception, the development of formal theories and the search for critical evidence is less advanced. This book brings together leading vision scientists studying eye movements across a range of activities, such as reading, driving, computer activities, and chess. It provides groundbreaking new research that will help us understand how it is that we know where to move our eyes, and thereby better understand the cognitive processes underlying these activities.

Reading and Understanding presents a review of current thinking about the psychology of reading, introducing the nature of problems facing the reader who is to extract meaningful information from printed symbols. It is suitable for use as an advanced text for psychology, education and linguistics students.The volume includes a description of text and of the cognitive processes and changes necessary for transforming visible characters into meanings, and introduces the notion of the "computational problem" facing the skilled reader - what kinds of information are available, and what are the processes necessary for recovering that information? It also deals with the development of reading skills in readers of differing ability, including development dyslexics, poor readers, skilled readers and speed readers.

This set presents the most important articles in the psychology of attention, divided into the following areas: Early Data and Early (and Late) Selection Theories Automated Input Recognition The Breakthrough of the Unattended and Two-Channel Processing Multi-Task Performance: Attention as a Mental Resource Attention, Consciousness and Subliminal Attention, Visual Space and the Direction of Gaze Articles in these volumes have been drawn from various books and from the following journals: Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Psychological Review, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Information Processing and Cognition: The Loyola Symposium, Acta Psychologica, Perception and Psychophysics, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Memory and Cognition, Cognition, Canadian Journal of Psychology, British Journal of Psychology, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, Aspects of Consciousness, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, and Behavioral and Brain Sciences

This set presents the most important articles in the psychology of attention, divided into the following areas: Early Data and Early (and Late) Selection Theories Automated Input Recognition The Breakthrough of the Unattended and Two-Channel Processing Multi-Task Performance: Attention as a Mental Resource Attention, Consciousness and Subliminal Attention, Visual Space and the Direction of Gaze Articles in these volumes have been drawn from various books and from the following journals: Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Psychological Review, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Information Processing and Cognition: The Loyola Symposium, Acta Psychologica, Perception and Psychophysics, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Memory and Cognition, Cognition, Canadian Journal of Psychology, British Journal of Psychology, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, Aspects of Consciousness, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, and Behavioral and Brain Sciences