Nelson Cowan - Böcker

Memory is essential for every day life. The understanding and study of memory has continued to grow over the years, thanks to well controlled laboratory studies and theory development. However, major challenges arise when attempting to apply theories of memory function to practical problems in society. A theory might be robust in explaining experimental data but fail to capture all that is important when taken out of the lab. The good news is that the application of memory in science to challenges in society is rapidly expanding, and Memory in Science for Society bridges that gap. Inspired by the synergy between theory and application in memory research, leading international researchers share their passion for combining memory in science with applications of that science to a wide range of challenges in society. Chapters demonstrate how that scientific passion has addressed challenges in education, life attainment, second language learning, remembering life events and faces of strangers, future planning and decision making, lifespan cognitive development and age-related cognitive decline, following instructions, and assessment and rehabilitation of cognitive impairment following brain damage.Written and edited by the leading researchers in the field, the book will be an important and influential addition to the memory literature, providing a new and comprehensive focus on the connection between theory and practice in memory and society.

This book brings together and assesses past and present research on information processing, and formulates a new general model of this entire system. Throughout his discussion, Cowan emphasizes that memory and attention cannot be considered independently and presents new research in psychophysiology, visual perception, cognitive development, and individual differences to support his thesis. This book offers both a review of the literature and a new model, and it will appeal to both the student and the professional interested in memory, attention, and cognitive psychology.

Working memory refers to how we keep track of what we are doing moment to moment throughout our waking lives. It allows us to remember what we have just done, focus on what we are doing now, to solve problems, be creative, think about what we will be doing in the next few seconds, and continually to update in our mind changes around us throughout the day.This book brings together in one volume, state-of-the-science chapters written by the most productive and well known working memory researchers worldwide. Chapters cover different approaches to understanding how working memory works, using behavioural experimental techniques, neuroimaging, computational modelling, how it changes from childhood through to healthy old age, how it is affected by dementia and brain damage, and how it is used in everyday life. A unique feature of the book is that each chapter starts with answers to a set of common questions for all authors. This allows readers very rapidly to compare key differences in theoretical assumptions and approaches to working memory across chapters, and to understand the theoretical context before going on to read each chapter in detail. Uniquely, all authors consider evidence that is not consistent with their theoretical assumptions, whereas it is common for authors to ignore contradictory evidence. This approach leads to new interpretations and new hypotheses to test in future research and greatly enhances our understanding of this crucial human ability.Written and edited by the leading researchers in the field, the book will be an important and influential addition to the memory literature.

The Development of Memory in Infancy and Childhood provides a thorough update and expansion of the previous edition and offers new research on significant themes and ideas that have emerged in the past decade such as the cognitive neuroscience of memory development, autobiographical memory and infantile amnesia, and the cognitive and social factors that underlie memory for events. In this volume, Courage and Cowan bring together leading international experts to review the current state of the science of memory development in their own research areas. They note questions of theory and basic science addressed in their research, highlight the real-world applications of those findings, and propose an agenda for future research. The book also considers the implications of their work for the development of atypical children, specifically, how these new findings might be adapted to enrich the lives of those children and to inform and validate our current expectations of individual differences in the development of typical children. The first of three groups of chapters focuses on basic neurobiological, perceptual, and cognitive processes that underlie memory and its development (i.e., encoding, consolidation and storage, retrieval). The second group focuses primarily on the social, contextual, and cultural factors that enable, shape, and mediate these basic processes, while the rest of the chapters focus on practical applications of this knowledge to real-world settings and issues.The book provides a new look at memory development, including new topics such as spatial representation and spatial working, prospective memory, false memories, and memory and culture. This classic yet contemporary volume will appeal to senior undergraduate and graduate students of developmental and cognitive psychology, as well as to developmental psychologists who want a compendium of key topics in memory development.

The Development of Memory in Infancy and Childhood provides a thorough update and expansion of the previous edition and offers new research on significant themes and ideas that have emerged in the past decade such as the cognitive neuroscience of memory development, autobiographical memory and infantile amnesia, and the cognitive and social factors that underlie memory for events. In this volume, Courage and Cowan bring together leading international experts to review the current state of the science of memory development in their own research areas. They note questions of theory and basic science addressed in their research, highlight the real-world applications of those findings, and propose an agenda for future research. The book also considers the implications of their work for the development of atypical children, specifically, how these new findings might be adapted to enrich the lives of those children and to inform and validate our current expectations of individual differences in the development of typical children. The first of three groups of chapters focuses on basic neurobiological, perceptual, and cognitive processes that underlie memory and its development (i.e., encoding, consolidation and storage, retrieval). The second group focuses primarily on the social, contextual, and cultural factors that enable, shape, and mediate these basic processes, while the rest of the chapters focus on practical applications of this knowledge to real-world settings and issues.The book provides a new look at memory development, including new topics such as spatial representation and spatial working, prospective memory, false memories, and memory and culture. This classic yet contemporary volume will appeal to senior undergraduate and graduate students of developmental and cognitive psychology, as well as to developmental psychologists who want a compendium of key topics in memory development.

The idea of one's memory "filling up" is a humorous misconception of how memory in general is thought to work; it is actually has no capacity limit. However, the idea of a "full brain" makes more sense with reference to working memory, which is the limited amount of information a person can hold temporarily in an especially accessible form for use in the completion of almost any challenging cognitive task.This groundbreaking book explains the evidence supporting Cowan's theoretical proposal about working memory capacity, and compares it to competing perspectives. Cognitive psychologists profoundly disagree on how working memory is limited: whether by the number of units that can be retained (and, if so, what kind of units and how many?), the types of interfering material, the time that has elapsed, some combination of these mechanisms, or none of them. The book assesses these hypotheses and examines explanations of why capacity limits occur, including vivid biological, cognitive, and evolutionary accounts. The book concludes with a discussion of the practical importance of capacity limits in daily life.Incorporating the latest from the recent surge in research into working memory capacity limits and the remarkable new insights provided by neuroimaging techniques, this book serves as an invaluable resource for all memory researchers and is accessible to a wide range of readers.

The idea of one's memory "filling up" is a humorous misconception of how memory in general is thought to work; it actually has no capacity limit. However, the idea of a "full brain" makes more sense with reference to working memory, which is the limited amount of information a person can hold temporarily in an especially accessible form for use in the completion of almost any challenging cognitive task.This groundbreaking book explains the evidence supporting Cowan's theoretical proposal about working memory capacity, and compares it to competing perspectives. Cognitive psychologists profoundly disagree on how working memory is limited: whether by the number of units that can be retained (and, if so, what kind of units and how many), the types of interfering material, the time that has elapsed, some combination of these mechanisms, or none of them. The book assesses these hypotheses and examines explanations of why capacity limits occur, including vivid biological, cognitive, and evolutionary accounts. The book concludes with a discussion of the practical importance of capacity limits in daily life.This 10th anniversary Classic Edition will continue to be accessible to a wide range of readers and serve as an invaluable reference for all memory researchers.

The idea of one's memory "filling up" is a humorous misconception of how memory in general is thought to work; it actually has no capacity limit. However, the idea of a "full brain" makes more sense with reference to working memory, which is the limited amount of information a person can hold temporarily in an especially accessible form for use in the completion of almost any challenging cognitive task.This groundbreaking book explains the evidence supporting Cowan's theoretical proposal about working memory capacity, and compares it to competing perspectives. Cognitive psychologists profoundly disagree on how working memory is limited: whether by the number of units that can be retained (and, if so, what kind of units and how many), the types of interfering material, the time that has elapsed, some combination of these mechanisms, or none of them. The book assesses these hypotheses and examines explanations of why capacity limits occur, including vivid biological, cognitive, and evolutionary accounts. The book concludes with a discussion of the practical importance of capacity limits in daily life.This 10th anniversary Classic Edition will continue to be accessible to a wide range of readers and serve as an invaluable reference for all memory researchers.