Introduction

The fact that you’re reading this book implies that you have an interest in cognitive psychology or you’re studying it for a course. In either case, you probably think that you know what cognitive psychology is: the study of all mental abilities and processes about knowing. Clearly, the subject covers a huge range whose contents would barely fit into 50 books the size of this one – with more being written every day!

We think that everybody should be interested in cognitive psychology, because it’s fascinating. We know that all aficionados say that (from bell ringers to beer-mat collectors), but cognitive psychology really is! By scientifically studying how people see, remember, know, speak and think, you can truly understand what being human means and what makes all humans special.

About This Book

Cognitive Psychology For Dummies is designed as an introduction to the subject. We cover the historical perspective on cognitive psychology, but also draw on interesting, more recent work.

We adopt an informal writing style, but one that remains technically appropriate and scientifically accurate. We write in plain English (which is tricky, because cognitive psychologists love jargon!). Where we do use technical language you can assume that it’s the only way to express something, but overall we make the tone as friendly as possible. We even include some jokes (if you don’t spot any, it’s because we’re not very funny!). At no point are we making fun of anyone (except ourselves).

We endeavour to relate everything in this book to everyday reality, using real-world examples to anchor the more technical information. Nevertheless, cognitive psychologists like to create highly controlled, laboratory-based experiments that, on the surface, bear little resemblance to the real world. Don’t fear though; everything cognitive psychologists study has some benefit to humanity.

Most chapters also cover instances of ‘when things go wrong’. These discussions show how a particular cognitive ability can go haywire in healthy people (such as visual illusions) or those with brain damage.

This book is for people who need and want to know about cognitive psychology. For the former, we present all the information covered in school and the first year of a university course (anywhere in the world) in a highly accessible way. We map the content onto the most common courses of cognitive psychology. If you simply want to know about cognitive psychology, we present some of the most interesting and fun psychology here too. We pack the book with examples and exercises you can try out and demonstrate on your friends and family to amaze them!

Conventions Used in This Book

We use conventions to help you find your way around this book easily:

• Italic text highlights new, often specialist, terms that we always define nearby. These include elements of jargon we just can’t escape, though we also use italics for emphasis.
• Boldfaced text indicates part of a list or numbered steps.

Unlike most textbooks in psychology, we don’t include references or in-text citations. We mention the name of a researcher when we feel that the person’s work is important and worth remembering.

We sometimes describe a few of the most important and influential studies, but not always. Be assured, however, that all the results and effects we describe in this book are based on empirical research – we simply don’t want to get bogged down in such detail too often.

We also provide a number of sidebars, containing additional information with more detailed theories, methodologies or clinical examples. You can skip over these without missing anything essential, but we think they’re interesting and add a lot to the text.

Foolish Assumptions

Hundreds of books on cognitive psychology exist. Many are technical, long, dry, specialised or cover a very narrow area of cognition. We wrote Cognitive Psychology For Dummies assuming the following:

• You want to understand how people think, see and remember things.
• You have questions about how the human mind works.
• You’re starting a course in cognitive psychology and haven’t studied it before.
• You’ve found other textbooks too complicated, dry or technical.
• You’re simply interested in people.
• You have a basic understanding of psychology, probably from an introductory course or reading Psychology For Dummies.
• You want to discover a few tips on improving your own cognition.

Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book, we use icons in the margins to help you find certain types of information. Here’s a list of what they mean.

When you see this icon, we’re giving you a bit of information that may come in handy someday.

Don’t forget the information by this icon! It shows what you need to pick up from the particular paragraph.

Like most sciences, cognitive psychology has a lot of terms and particular usages. We highlight them with this icon so that you can join in the conversation wherever cognitive psychologists gather.

This icon flags text that rises above what you need for a basic understanding of the topic at hand. You can skip these paragraphs if you prefer without harming your comprehension of the main point. We often use this icon when describing studies in detail or the brain regions involved in cognition.

We use this icon to point out how the information under discussion has applications or is observed in reality.

This icon indicates a task or exercise to perform on yourself or someone you know. The exercises are based on examples we provide in the text or on an Internet resource.

Beyond the Book

The area of cognitive psychology is so vast that its contents would fill far more than this book. Given that it’s really interesting and exciting, we want to give you as much chance to learn about it as possible, and so we put some extras on the Internet. In addition to the printed chapters, you can find loads more (free!) Cognitive Psychology For Dummies information at www.dummies.com/extras/cognitivepsychology.

In an online cheat sheet found at www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/cognitivepsychology, we include a quick guide to some central cognitive psychology ideas on memory, language and problem solving, among other topics.

Where to Go from Here

We organise this book in a logical representation of how the human brain works (information comes in, is remembered, spoken and thought about), but each chapter is self-contained so that you can dip in and out at your leisure. Except for the first and last parts, each part deals with a different element of cognitive psychology, so you can pick out the sections that you’re most interested in or are struggling with the most.

Use the table of contents and index to find what’s most relevant to you. If you’re new to the subject, you may want to start with Chapter 1 and read the book in sequence, but you don’t have to read it cover to cover.

We hope that you find the book educational, informative and entertaining. We think that you’ll like it and learn a lot about yourself as you go. If you do, tell your friends about it!