www.ebook3000.com COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY First published in 1967, this seminal volume by Ulric Neisser was the fi rst attempt at a comprehensive and accessible survey of cognitive psychology; as such, it provided the fi eld with its fi rst true textbook. Its chapters were organized so that they began with stimulus information that came “inward” through the organs of sense, through its many trans- formations and reconstructions, and fi nally through to its eventual use in thought and memory. The volume inspired numerous students to enter the fi eld of cognitive psychology and some of today’s leading and most respected cognitive psychologists cite Neisser’s book as the reason they embarked on their careers. Ulric Neisser (December 8, 1928 – February 17, 2012) was a German-born American psychologist and member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was a signifi cant fi gure in the development of cognitive science and the shift from behaviorist to cognitive models in psychology. He earned a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1950, a master’s at Swarthmore College, and a doctorate from Harvard’s Department of Social Relations in 1956. He then taught at Brandeis and Emory universities, before establishing himself at Cornell. www.ebook3000.com Psychology Press Classic Editions The Psychology Press Classic Editions series celeb rates a commit ment to excel- lence in schol ar ship, teach ing, and learn ing within the fi eld of Psychology. The books in this series are widely recog nized as time less clas sics, of continu ing import ance for both students and research ers. Each title contains a completely new introduc tion which explores what has changed since the books were fi rst published, where the fi eld might go from here and why these books are as relev ant now as ever. Written by recog nized experts, and cover ing core areas of the subject, the Psychology Press Classic Editions series presents funda mental ideas to a new gener a tion. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (Classic Edition) By James J. Gibson Essentials of Human Memory (Classic Edition) By Alan Baddeley Uncommon Understanding (Classic Edition): Development and Disorders of Language Comprehension in Children By D.V.M. Bishop Essential Cognitive Psychology (Classic Edition) By Alan J. Parkin Human Cognitive Neuropsychology (Classic Edition) By Andrew W. Ellis and Andrew W. Young Lev Vygotsky (Classic Edition): Revolutionary Scientist By Fred Newman and Lois Holzman The New Psychology of Language (Classic Edition): Cognitive and Functional Approaches To Language Structure, Volume I Edited by Michael Tomasello The New Psychology of Language (Classic Edition): Cognitive and Functional Approaches To Language Structure, Volume II Edited by Michael Tomasello Principles of Learning and Memory (Classic Edition) By Robert G. Crowder Psychologists on Psychology (Classic Edition) By David Cohen www.ebook3000.com Attention and Emotion (Classic Edition) By Adrian Wells and Gerald Matthews Cross-Cultural Roots of Minority Child Development (Classic Edition) Edited by Patricia M. Greenfi eld and Rodney R. Cocking Mind and Media: The Effects of Television, Video Games, and Computers (Classic Edition) Patricia M. Greenfi eld www.ebook3000.com This page intentionally left blank www.ebook3000.com COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY Classic Edition Ulric Neisser www.ebook3000.com Classic Edition published 2014 by Psychology Press 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Psychology Press 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA Psychology Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa busi ness © 2014 Taylor & Francis The right of Psychology Press to be iden ti fi ed as Publisher of this work has been asser ted by them in accord ance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprin ted or repro duced or util ised in any form or by any elec tronic, mech an ical, or other means, now known or hereafter inven ted, includ ing photo copy ing and record ing, or in any inform a tion storage or retrieval system, without permis sion in writing from the publish ers. 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First published by Meredith Publishing Company, 1967 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-84872-693-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-84872-694-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-73617-4 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Refi neCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk, UK www.ebook3000.com for Arden www.ebook3000.com This page intentionally left blank www.ebook3000.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface xiii Introduction to the Classic Edition xv PART I Introduction 1 1 The Cognitive Approach 3 PART II Visual Cognition 13 2 Iconic Storage and Verbal Coding 15 Transient Iconic Memory 16 Backward Masking 22 Effects of a Masked Stimulus 27 Verbal Coding 34 Perceptual Set as a Coding Variable 37 The Span of Apprehension 39 Ease of Coding 42 3 Pattern Recognition 44 The Nature of the Problem 45 Empirical Observations: Displacement and Rotation 49 www.ebook3000.com x Contents Empirical Observations: Ill-Defi ned Categories and Expectancies 55 Theories of Pattern Recognition: Template-Matching 58 Empirical Observations: Decision-Time and Visual Search 62 Theories of Pattern Recognition: A Simple Feature-Analyzing Model 67 Theories of Pattern Recognition: Features and Parts 70 Empirical Observations: Features and Parts 75 4 Focal Attention and Figural Synthesis 82 Focal Attention 83 Preattentive Control 87 Figural Synthesis 89 Familiarity 92 Search and Reaction Times Again 94 Analysis-By-Synthesis 96 Two Theoretical Summaries 97 5 Words as Visual Patterns 99 The Word-Apprehension Effect 100 Mechanisms of Recognition: Spelling Patterns 104 Mechanisms of Recognition: Figural Synthesis 107 Mechanisms of Recognition: The Fragment Theories 109 The Distinction Between Perception and Response 112 The Effect of Repeated Exposures 117 Perceptual Defense 119 Subception 121 Reading for Meaning 126 6 Visual Memory 130 Visual Snapshots and their Integration 131 Visual Imagery and Visual Synthesis 137 Dreaming and Related States 141 The Functions of Imagery 145 The Experimental Control of Dreaming 149 Special Kinds of Imagery: Drugs, Schizophrenia, Hypnosis 153 Electrically Induced Imagery and Other Evidence for “Hypermnesia” 158 Contents xi PART III Auditory Cognition 163 7 Speech Perception 165 Some Very Elementary Acoustics 166 Auditory Mechanisms 168 Phonemic Description 171 Segmentation 174 Theories of Speech Perception 181 The Analysis-by-Synthesis Model 184 8 Echoic Memory and Auditory Attention 189 Echoic Memory 189 The Shadowing Experiments 196 The Filter Theory 197 The Filter-Amplitude Theory 200 Attention as Auditory Synthesis 202 9 Active Verbal Memory 208 Recoding 209 Auditory Characteristics of Verbal Memory 212 Slots or Associations? 215 Rhythm and Structure in Auditory Memory 220 Decay vs. Interference 223 Two Kinds of Memory or One? 227 10 Sentences 231 Linguistics and Gestalt Psychology 233 Grammatical Structure: General Considerations 235 Phrase-Structure Grammars 241 Cues to Phrase Structure 246 Transformational Grammar 253 PART IV The Higher Mental Processes 263 11 A Cognitive Approach to Memory and Thought 265 The Reappearance Hypothesis 266 The Utilization Hypothesis 270 Cognitive Structures 271 xii Contents The Problem of the Executive 277 The Multiplicity of Thought 282 Primary and Secondary Processes Reconsidered 284 A Summing Up 288 References 291 Illustration Credits 315 Index 318 PREFACE Two years have passed since I settled down to write a dispas sionate survey of cognit ive psychology. The result is not quite what I had expected. It is still a survey of sorts—I have done my best to review the relevant mater ial—but it is by no means as neutral or as eclectic as had been planned. More precisely, I am the one who is not so neutral, who discovered in writing this book that he has a defi n ite commit ment to a partic u lar kind of psycho logy. Did I come to this commit ment because the facts reviewed here allow of no other interpret a tion? Or did I fi nd no other interpret a tion because this was the one I had uncon- sciously set out to make? The reader will draw his own conclu sions on this point. My own view, as will appear in other contexts later, is that rational iz a- tion and discov ery can never be entirely separ ated, even in the simplest cognit ive act. In Chapter 5 I argue that even reading a book is a constructive process rather than a simple absorption of inform a tion from the pages; this must apply far more obvi ously to writing one. The organ iz a tion of this book follows a sequence which is logic ally implied by the defi n i tion of cognit ive psycho logy given in the fi rst chapter. It follows stim u lus inform a tion “inward” from the organs of sense, through many trans- form a tions and recon struc tions, through to even tual use in memory and thought. Whatever the merits of this organ iz a tion may be, it surely has at least one disad vant age. Many readers will be interested in particu lar topics that cut across the sequence; topics which are clas sic ally treated as single units in text- books. Such a reader may want to review the present status of atten tion, or reac tion time, or eye move ments, or “sublim inal percep tion”; he may not want to read the book as a whole. To make the volume of some value to him, I have tried to see that such topics are adequately refer enced in the index.