Amazon.co.uk Review
The state-of-the-art knowledge about knowledge is contained within the MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences. Its 471 comprehensive entries cover topics as diverse as "Hemispheric Specialization," "Epiphenomenalism" and "Algorithms" in 1000-1500 words each, thoroughly cross-indexed and extensively referenced to launch further research. A few biographical entries are also included, highlighting such giants as Alan Turing and Santiago Ramon y Cajal. The editors selected their contributors well, assigning "Neurobiology of Consciousness" to Christof Koch and Francis Crick, for example. Even better, six longer essays introduce the Encyclopedia, each providing an overview of one of the six disciplines that overlap to form cognitive science: computational intelligence; culture, cognition and evolution; linguistics and language; neurosciences; philosophy, and psychology. These are enormously helpful to the researcher, as they are general enough to allow easy entry while still being meaty enough to be useful themselves as well as pointers to specific entries. The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences, while not a casual entry into the field, is an essential addition to the reference shelf for anyone seriously interested in AI, consciousness, or other aspects of natural and artificial brains. --Rob Lightner, Amazon.com

Synopsis
Since the 1970s the cognitive sciences have offered multidisciplinary ways of understanding the mind and cognition. This reference work aims to represents the methodological and theoretical diversity of this changing field. It contains 471 concise entries, from acquisition and adaptationism to Wundt and X-bar theory. Each article provides an introduction to an important concept in the cognitive sciences, as well as references or further readings. Six extended essays provide overviews of each of six major areas of cognitive science: philosophy; psychology; neurosciences; computational intelligence; linguistics and language; and culture, cognition and evolution.