Cognitive Psychology and its Implications [Hardcover]

John P. Anderson's latest edition of Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications is unfortunately lagging behind the field. Although I personally appreciated the shift away from a solely classical information-processing approach (i.e. humans as computers model) to include cognitive neuroscience, his survey of the field of cognitive psychology fails to take into account recent contributions from dynamical systems theory. Despite Anderson's explicit statement that "in some cases, considerable information processing takes place outside the brain" (p. 13), no reference is made to a nonlinear dynamical systems approach of cognitive psychology and only little is said on the similarly-related embodied perspective (p.129-130). The environmental situatedness of human cognition appears to be an afterthought in Anderson's review of the field; he finally gives a limited and elementary account of the Empiricist-Nativist debate in his last chapter on cognitive development. This is the extent of his discussion on the interactions between cognitive developmental processes and environmental, social, and cultural factors.

In addition, given that Anderson specifically proposes to address the implications of cognitive psychology in his title and the initial chapter, I was disappointed that the "Practical Implications" sections were used so sparingly, appearing only once every chapter or two. However, these small sections were well written, interesting, and enlightening. These and other examples used throughout the book were helpful in allowing me to interact with the material and attempt to apply the information to clinical practice. For example, the research provided by Anderson on flashbulb memories, or "particularly good memory" for important events, suggests that there is better retention of information when learned in a state of high arousal. This may have implications for why traumatic flashbacks are so vivid and difficult to forget. Psychoeducation is a common therapeutic technique used during the initial stages of treatment with trauma victims in which clients are provided with such information as the nature of their symptoms, course of treatment, prognosis, etc. Helping clients understand and expect traumatic memory recurrences may offer a source of control and empowerment over these flashbacks.

Although this textbook is not a difficult read, I am concerned that it seems too cursory a review for the advanced student of psychology and yet, too technically-detailed for beginners without a background in neuroanatomy. The textbook format perhaps makes this book best suited as an outline guide with more information to be supplemented by a professor and/or other readings rather than as a standalone book on the field of cognitive psychology. Finally, the appalling prevalence of typos in this book was terribly distracting.

After slogging through many dense readings and highly theoretical books for grad school, Anderson's Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications is a refreshing change of pace in its layout, presentation, and ease of comprehension, if not topic. It's a textbook about cognitive psychology and appears to be aimed toward an undergraduate population. Anderson appears to want to give an overview of the important areas of cognitive psychology and its relevant research and evolution through the years (and first six editions of the text) and does so in this survey book.

I must admit, one of the main things I appreciated about this book was the layout. Like a traditional textbook, it has wide margins, color, helpful illustrations and tables, bolded vocabulary words, and clear headings. The book not only made the topic of each section clear, but also included a bulleted take home point that was separately bracketed at the end of each section in case I missed the point. The tables and visual aids were helpful in assisting in understanding if the concept was particularly hard to grasp right away and the occasional "Implications" box discussed real-world examples and usages of the concepts. The text is easy to read and breaks down the ideas in an organized way to assist in comprehension. However, due to the manner in which the topics are approached and discussed, it may be deigned too simplistic for an advanced cognition course or for researchers or clinicians already in the field of neuropsychology and cognitive psychology.

The book covers topics such as mental imagery, perception, attention, judgment, decision making, and language. As Anderson states, "the basic mechanisms governing human thought are important in understanding the types of behavior studied by other social science" (p. 3), which includes clinical psychology, social psychology, political science, sociology, linguistics, and economics. It is important as clinicians to understand the research and theoretical pinnings of cognitive psychology to inform our practice and ensure that what we do in the therapy room is appropriate and helpful to the client. The concepts that the book covers is relevant to clinicians who are learning about the basic tenants of cognitive psych to increase their skills in diagnosing, conceptualizing, and treating their clients. Understanding conceptual knowledge and schemas can help a clinician explore how a client internalizes certain events or memories that may be affecting their outlook on life or their problematic behaviors. Learning about memory may help a clinician tailor interventions for a client who has trouble remembering what is learned in sessions or has trouble accessing certain memories. Problem solving and decision making are two skills important to anyone's everyday life and understanding the underlying processes and theories behind them may be helpful in assisting a client increase these skills. However, Anderson did not include how these processes may differ in other cultures. I would have like to explore how culture plays a role in language acquisition (has anyone done studies about English-speaking children abroad who are acquiring other languages?), memory, learning, and cognitive development. Anderson discussed Piaget's theory of development, but as Piaget mainly based this theory on males, it would have been interesting to see if there were not only cultural differences, but gender differences in Piaget's theory. I appreciated Anderson noting that immigrants often fare poorly on standardized IQ tests due to cultural biases and that "the very concept of intelligence is culturally relative" (p. 410). However, I did wish there was more information regarding how intelligence may be assessed in a culturally-respectful manner and what culturally- appropriate assessments are available.

Overall, this book is a good survey textbook for undergraduate cognition classes or clinicians who need a basic background in cognitive psychology. It has good examples, relevant issues and implications, and is easy to read. For those who already have a basic foundation in cognitive psychology, this book may be a bit simplistic and redundant.

I am probably not a fair judge of this book since I loved the class that I used it for, and find the subject simply fascinating. But even for those who are less interested, I think Anderson does a good job of covering concepts with just the right amount of detail. The more difficult ideas are explained multiple times, which can be tedious if you understand them the first time, but very helpful if you don't. The only real complaint I have is the number of typos, especially in figures and graphs.