Author Profile

Michael Phillip Parsons obtained his BSc in Psychology from the University of Aberdeen, UK in 1976, and his PhD in Psychology from University College London in 1981. From 1980-1986 he was a post-doctoral researcher at the Medical Research Council Applied Psychology Unit, Cambridge, UK, and from 1987-2003 he returned to the Psychology Department at the University of Aberdeen as a lecturer, then senior lecturer, then Anderson Professor and Head of Department (1997-2002). From 1995-2006, he was also adjunct Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Bergen, Norway. From 2004-2023 he was Professor of Human Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh, UK. His teaching and research are in the area of human memory and how it changes across the adult lifespan, with a special interest in working memory. In 2015 he was Chair of the European Research Council panel for Human Mind and Its Complexity, was the first non north-American to be elected Chair of the Governing Board of the Psychonomic Society, and was made an Honorary Life Member of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology. In 2021 he was appointed as member of the Psychology, Psychiatry, and Neuroscience panel for the UK-wide evaluation of research, the REF. In 2022 he was elected by the UK Experimental Psychology Society as the 51st Bartlett Lecturer for lifetime contributions to Experimental Psychology.

About The Book

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of human mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which held from the 1920s to 1950s that unobservable mental processes were outside the realm of empirical science. This break came as researchers in linguistics, cybernetics, and applied psychology used models of mental processing to explain human behavior. Work derived from cognitive psychology was integrated into other branches of psychology and various other modern disciplines like cognitive science, linguistics, and economics. Findings from cognitive psychology help us understand how people think, including how they acquire and store memories. By knowing more about how these processes work, psychologists can develop new ways of helping people with cognitive problems. Fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology explores how humans perceive, think, and act. It bridges classic cognitive research with modern cognitive neuroscience, offering an accessible, practical approach to topics like memory, perception, and problem-solving. This book offers coverage of perception, attention, memory, knowledge, problem solving, and emotion, in a friendly and accessible style. By discussing selected experiments rather than exhaustively surveying the empirical literature, the author encourages students to appreciate the intricacies of problem-solving activity in cognition. The text incorporates real world examples, case studies, and key experiments on significant topics.

Table of Contents

Preface
1. INTRODUCTION TO COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
2. COGNITION AND THE BRAIN: BASIC PRINCIPLES
3. PERCEPTION
4. ATTENTION
5. SHORT-TERM AND WORKING MEMORY
6. LONG-TERM MEMORY: BASIC PRINCIPLES
7. EVERYDAY MEMORY AND MEMORY ERRORS
8. KNOWLEDGE
Bibliography
Index