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Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience

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Bruce Goldstein's COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY connects the study of cognition to your everyday life. This accessible book introduces you to landmark studies as well as the cutting-edge research that defines this fascinating field. To help you further experiment with and understand the concepts in the text, you can use COGLAB 2.0: THE ONLINE COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY LABORATORY. Available at www.academic.cengage.com, COGLAB contains dozens of classic experiments designed to help you learn about cognitive concepts and how the mind works.

552 pages, Hardcover

First published July 18, 2010

44 people are currently reading
628 people want to read

About the author

E. Bruce Goldstein

45 books19 followers
E. BRUCE GOLDSTEIN is an Associate Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona. He received the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of Pittsburgh for his classroom teaching and textbook writing. He received his bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University and his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Brown University. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the Biology Department at Harvard University before joining the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Goldstein has published papers on a wide variety of topics, including retinal and cortical physiology, visual attention and the perception of pictures. He is the author of SENSATION AND PERCEPTION, 10th Edition (Cengage, 2017), and the editor of the BLACKWELL HANDBOOK OF PERCEPTION (Blackwell, 2001) and the two-volume SAGE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PERCEPTION (Sage, 2010).

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5 stars
166 (27%)
4 stars
215 (35%)
3 stars
168 (28%)
2 stars
32 (5%)
1 star
18 (3%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
Profile Image for Lauren McDonald.
423 reviews18 followers
November 24, 2020
Also actually a fantastic textbook for my cognitive psychology course, really informational with great examples, diagrams and explanations, but just don't want Goodreads recommending more like this to me haha got to keep the algorithm going
Profile Image for Christina.
86 reviews15 followers
June 1, 2016
I read the whole damn thing from cover to cover so I'm sure as hell gonna include it in my book count for this year.
Good book, though, clear and not too dense, would probably be comprehensible even to someone who has not studied psychology before.
Profile Image for Emmi.
30 reviews
May 31, 2024
Read whole thing in two nights for an exam. Lost cognition while reading this and I can't feel my brain anymore.
Profile Image for Amanda.
60 reviews1 follower
January 29, 2014
This the first actual textbook that I have reviewed, and overall, it was alright. There was a lot of good information included, and overall, the text was clear and easy to read. Some of the personal examples included by the author were informative, but many of them felt extraneous. The one issue that I noticed was that there were a lot more spelling, grammar, and typing errors than I normally come across in textbooks. Overall, this is not a bad choice for an introductory course in Cognitive Psychology.
Profile Image for Brandon.
33 reviews
November 29, 2021
I used this as the textbook when I taught a class on cognitive psychology. It does a decent job summarizing the history and modern state of the field. It is well organized and easy to read. However, the writing is indirect at times and could be shortened (especially the fictional anecdotes). There are also several typos, some of which cause confusion (e.g., mislabeled figure numbers). I would use it again for my class, but I would not hesitate to switch to another textbook if there is a cheaper option.
13 reviews60 followers
December 8, 2014
Good textbook. Lots of images to break up the dread of how many terms there are to memorize in every page (typical psyc). It explains things well and tries to not make the book constant heavy reading, i had little difficulty understanding any concepts save the visual imagery chapter which was somewhat confusing. Per usual it was the memorizing of terms which was the challenge but the book has a good definition dictionary in the back which helps.
Profile Image for Lizzy Li.
230 reviews6 followers
December 22, 2021
3.49 because i refuse to round up to a 4 for this one

yum psych

very digestible! cool facts and i liked the writing style -- it was very clear and easy to take notes on, with fun facts and good examples

too long <3
Profile Image for Xeon.
39 reviews354 followers
January 12, 2023
Read and reviewed with Cognitive Psychology 7e by Sternberg and Cognitive Psychology 8e by Eysenck: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Conclusion: Sternberg is a comparable textbook to this, however I prefer Eysenck as it had the amount of depth I was seeking
Profile Image for Carley.
16 reviews
December 1, 2020
One of the more interesting and explanatory texts I've read
Profile Image for Dominique Hall.
10 reviews
July 30, 2024
This was a dope read. One of few textbooks I actually enjoyed consuming; never felt laborious or like I was being “forced” to get through assigned readings.
Profile Image for estefi .
20 reviews1 follower
Read
December 8, 2024
lo leí hasta el cap 4 nms, lo seguiré cuando tenga la traducción oficial jfnsjdsknd
Profile Image for 202 unknown.
691 reviews32 followers
October 30, 2025
dù dễ đọc nhưng nhận thức vẫn gây lú cho newbie mới học lần đầu như thường :D
Profile Image for Brianna.
615 reviews6 followers
April 29, 2022
It was a fine introduction to cognitive psychology. Nothing particularly stood out to me, but it was informative and gave me a good basis for the subject matter. I liked the interactive portions that allowed you to see what experiments would feel like. I disliked how many anecdotes there were, or rather how long they were, when I would prefer get into the important details.
Profile Image for Sebastian Eisenheim.
1 review
July 21, 2013
Ich bin erstaunt, wie anschaulich, umfangreich, und kurzweilig ein Lehrbuch der Psychologie sein kann. Das Lehrbuch ist didaktisch äußerst gut aufbereitet, und bietet neben einer guten, verständlichen Strukturierung der Thematiken, auch Übungsaufgaben, um das gelesene zu rekapitulieren. Dienlich der Sache sind ebenso die ausgesuchten und cleveren Experimente, welche den Stoff einem näherbringen und leichter verständlich machen. Trotz des relativ großen Umfanges, fehlte mir hier ein wenig mehr Tiefe - so zum Beispiel wurde nicht, oder nur indirekt die Hyperkolumnen und die Blobs in den okulären Dominanzsäulen erwähnt, deren Entdeckung, wie auch die der K-Zellen, der Koniobahn, doch schon länger bekannt ist. Auch der ausführliche mathematische Teil fehlte hier. Nichtsdestotrotz sollte man nicht außer Acht lassen, dass es sich hierbei um einen Grundkurs handelt, und die Erwartungen dessen erfüllt dieses kleine Meisterwerk allemal.
Profile Image for Josh.
160 reviews8 followers
March 19, 2015
A decent introduction to the field of cognitive psychology. Provides a clear overview of most of the major areas of research as well as priming one to read the literature in the field. A lot of the research is basic and not exactly groundbreaking but that's probably to be expected given how little we really know about how the mind functions.
Profile Image for Emma Hagman.
21 reviews13 followers
November 19, 2015
Interesting and important facts, somewhat pedagogic layout with a bit of self test questions, pictures and graphs. Summaries are a bit too long. The stories about Rachel were terrible and boring. Who orders a pizza with broccoli on it?
Profile Image for Jamie.
560 reviews82 followers
tbr-owned-physical
September 16, 2017
Typo on page 304
"For exam0ple"
Profile Image for Alan.
720 reviews287 followers
April 18, 2016
Decently organized textbook, introduced the big ideas in well proportioned little bites.
Profile Image for Chelsie.
121 reviews40 followers
December 12, 2016
This textbook was easy to understand and even easier to read.
Profile Image for Heather.
106 reviews
December 13, 2016
Average textbook, highly informative. Gives lots of examples and diagrams that make the information easy to follow for students.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews

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