Cognition: The Thinking Animal

For undergraduate courses of beginning graduate courses in Introductory Cognitive Psychology. Using a unique question-and-answer format, this text comprehensively addresses many of the overarching questions that confront and motivate today's cognitive scientists. When Daniel Willingham first approached the prospect of creating his own cognitive psychology text, he did so with the knowledge that his years of teaching experience had brought him: while many texts were relatively adequate in coverage, his students never liked them. Usually underexposed to social sciences in pre-college courses, he found his students often struggled with understanding how and why cognitive psychologists approach the problems that they do. Here, by using a unique question-and-answer format, he is able to start with questions frequently asked by students, relate those to questions cognitive scientists ask in their own research, present clear answers, and frame those answers in an interesting, lively, and comprehensive coverage of the core material. Through this accessible narrative style, Willingham shows the logical connections between each section and, by means of several new pedagogical features, encourages students to apply what they have learned in their daily lives.