Cognitive psychology is the basis of many applications in almost every area of technology, business, industry, and education. This book provides workers in applied arenas with presentations of research aimed directly at the problems and issues that confront them. It will cover key areas including business and industry, computers and technology, education and information, and health and law.

Some of today's educational experts were asked to envision the year 2020, when technology has assumed a major role in elementary and secondary education. The informed conjecture that followed is contained in this volume; contributors offer visions of the future as well as specific steps that could turn those visions into realities. Innovative ideas for research, development, hardware, software, teacher training, technical assistance, organizational and cultural change are offered as a means to illuminate the potential role of technology in the educational systems of tomorrow.
...

The problem of environmental change, especially environmental change that results directly from human behavior, is among the more serious problems we face as individuals, as a nation, and as a species. Believing that there are many significant opportunities and challenges for work by applied psychologists in the area of environmental change, the author decided to write this book. He stimulates thinking on the topic of detrimental environmental change, especially on the question of how research psychologists can help to address the problem. In addition to reporting environmentally relevant...

This book stimulates thinking on the topic of detrimental environmental change and how research psychologists can help to address the problem. In addition to reporting environmentally relevant psychological research, the author identifies the most pressing questions from an environmental point of view. Psychology and Environmental Change:
*focuses on ways in which human behavior contributes to the problem;
*deals with the assessment and change of attitudes and with studies of change of behavior;
*proposes ways in which psychological research can contribute to making...

Lack of ability to think probabilistically makes one prone to a variety of irrational fears and vulnerable to scams designed to exploit probabilistic naivete, impairs decision making under uncertainty, facilitates the misinterpretation of statistical information, and precludes critical evaluation of likelihood claims. Cognition and Chance presents an overview of the information needed to avoid such pitfalls and to assess and respond to probabilistic situations in a rational way. Dr. Nickerson investigates such questions as how good individuals are at thinking probabilistically and how...

The ability to think probabilistically is important for many reasons. Lack of it makes one prone to a variety of irrational fears and vulnerable to scams designed to exploit probabilistic naivete, precludes intelligent assessment of risks, ensures the operation of several common biases, impairs decision making under uncertainty, facilitates the misinterpretation of statistical information, precludes critical evaluation of likelihood claims, and generally undercuts rational thinking in numerous ways. Cognition and Chance presents an overview of the necessary information needed to make educated...

First published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

What does it mean to be rational - to reason well and effectively? How does rationality, broadly conceived, relate to the knowledge one acquires, the beliefs one forms, the explanations one constructs or appropriates, the judgments and decisions one makes, the values one adopts? What is the character of human reasoning and, in particular, does it tend to be rational?

Much has been written about human rationality - or lack thereof. In recent years, some writers have focused attention on the numerous ways in which people appear not to be rational, at least if being rational is taken...

Conditional reasoning is reasoning that involves statements of the sort If A (Antecedent) then C (Consequent). This type of reasoning is ubiquitous; everyone engages in it. Indeed, the ability to do so may be considered a defining human characteristic. Without this ability, human cognition would be greatly impoverished. "What-if" thinking could not occur. There would be no retrospective efforts to understand history by imagining how it could have taken a different course. Decisions that take possible contingencies into account could not be made; there could be no attempts to...