Robert Rieber - Böcker

This unprecendented volume assembles the writing of several Asian scholars who present distinctive contributions to psychology concerning the Asian continent, and the Philippines. Drawing freely from the Eastern intellectual traditions, this volume is organized around several themes: the distinctive characteristics of Asian societies; Asian contributions to psychology; and the need for relevant psychological research including indigenous modes of human behavior.

Originally published in 1979, this book represents an effort to bring together the two disciplines at the core of psycholinguistics, psychology and linguistics. It discusses a broad variety of theoretical approaches to psycholinguistics as well as covering a wide range of topics. At the time the book had four goals: to discuss many of the important contemporary issues in psycholinguistics; to explore the different views on major theoretical controversies; to provide an analysis of background literature as a framework in which to evaluate the issues and controversies; and to describe interesting high-quality research currently being done by the authors and some of their colleagues.Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context, with many of the chapters still relevant in psycholinguistic research today.

The scope and variety of interest areas identified with psy­ cholinguistic research have grown enormously during the last decade or two. Although this recent flourishing has brought a great deal of new knowledge and interdisciplinary cooperation to the field, it has also brought its share of controversy and confusion as con­ flicting views on a number of important topics are hotly debated by their proponents. It is for this reason that we have put together this book, a collection of interviews with a number of leading scholars within the field, all of whom differ--sometimes widely-­ in their respective points of view. The idea of using a uniform set of questions as points of de­ parture for each interview seemed to us a choice method for pro­ viding readers with a better understanding .of the complexities of the field. The questions we have chosen to work with are crucial questions for psycho linguistics since they form the framework for knowledge and research within the field. It is our hope that by offering several different points of view on psycholinguistic re­ search, this volume will provide readers with a better sense of the similarities and differences of opinion within these different points of view. We would like to extend our thanks to the various contributors to this book for their cooperation and patience during the prepara­ tion of this book, and to the publishers for their steady encour­ agement during our work.

The essays in this volume have been gathered together to honor Eric H. Lenneberg. Together they represent the broad range of topics in which he took some interest. For one of the distinguishing features of Eric Lenneberg's theoretical work was its synthesizing quality. He was interested in all of the scientific domains that might touch on the study of the mind and brain, and he carefully prepared himself in each of the pertinent disciplines. Beginning with his M. A. degree in linguistics from the University of Chicago in 1951, he went on to complete his doctoral studies in both linguistics and psychology at Harvard in 1955. This was followed by three years of postdoctoral specialization at Harvard Medical School in both neurology and chil­ dren's developmental disorders. This preparation and additional expe­ rience at the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Boston led directly to his now-classic monograph on the neuropsychology of language, The Biological Foundations of Language, which was published in 1967. It is interesting to note that while each of the essays grows out of empirical evidence, all without exception attempt to attain a level of theoretical explanation and generalization which is frequently missing from experimental work per se. Here again Lenneberg's work was no­ table for the vigor with which he sought out explanations and theories from neuropsychological data. In particular, hjs thesis that "language is the manifestation of species-specific cognitive propensities" was a hypothesis which he drew from necessarily indirect evidence.

The creation of this book stems largely from the current centennial cele­ bration of the founding in Leipzig of Wundt's psychological laboratory. Wundt is acknowledged by many as one of the principal founders of experimental psychology. His laboratory, his journal, and his students were all influential in the transmission of the new psychology from Germany to all parts of the world. Nevertheless, until recently, psychol­ ogists and historians of science hardly recognized the scope and breadth of Wundt's influence, not to mention his contributions.! It was first through E. B. Titchener, and then through Titchener's student, E. G. Boring, that psychology got to know the somewhat biased and distorted picture of this great German psychologist. The picture painted by Titch­ ener and Boring was unquestionably the way they saw him, and the way they wished to use him as a part of the scientific psychological Zeitgeist of their time.