Psychology

Originally published in 1981 and now considered a classic text, Psychology presents a cohesive overview of the discipline that emphasizes connections to both the natural sciences and the humanities. For the Sixth Edition, Henry Gleitman and co-authors have undertaken a comprehensive revision, reorganizing and tightening the overall chapter structure and emphasizing contemporary theories and research throughout, particularly new findings in neuroscience and culture studies.

Chapter 1 - Introduction Chapter 1 highlights the connections within psychology, showing students how different types of research contribute to our understanding of emotion. This introductory chapter now offers a full introduction to research methods. Chapter 2 - Biological Bases of Behavior New content includes transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), the human genome project and the development of the nervous system, recent discoveries about the motor cortex, the difficulties of distinguishing between Broca\'s and Wernicke\'s aphasia, expanded coverage of neurotransmitters and their relationship to commonly prescribed drugs, and the latest work on recovery from brain damage. Chapter 3 - Motivation A new discussion of recent work on sex as a crucial biological motive has been added, while the previous edition\'s sections on eating and hunger, sleep, and biological rhythms have been strengthened. Chapter 4 - Learning Chapter 4 now discusses the ways in which learning can produce structural changes in neurons. Chapter 5 - Sensory Processes This introduction to our senses has been thoroughly reorganized to focus more deeply on vision and audition. Chapter 6 - Perception The focus of Chapter 6 has shifted to highlight the active role of the perceiver Chapter 7 - Memory In revising Chapter 7, the authors concentrated on modernizing and streamlining the content. For example, encoding is described as a process of creating (or strengthening) connections, and retrieval is described as being dependent on the connections (which serve as retrieval paths). Additional content on mnemonics and eyewitness testimony has been included. Chapter 8 - Thought and Knowledge Chapter 8 includes expanded coverage of the neural bases for mental imagery, the selection task (including evolutionary accounts of performance on this task), and the neural correlates of consciousness. Chapter 9 - Language This unique chapter has been rewritten and expanded to emphasize how people understand language. Chapter 10 - Cognition and Social Behavior and Chapter 11 - Biology, Emotion, and Social Behavior The Sixth Edition condenses the three social psychology chapters of the Fifth Edition into two: Chapter 10 now focuses exclusively on social cognition, while Chapter 11 explores the ways in which social behavior is influenced both by biology and by interpersonal relationships. Chapter 12 - Physical and Cognitive Development Chapter 12 devotes more time to post-Piagetian hypotheses of cognitive development, including infants\' understanding of support, a strengthened section on the genetic roots of cognitive development, and new material on infants\' understanding of their social world. The authors discuss the biological and cultural influences on cognitive development in greater detail, expand the section on culture itself, and add a new section on cognitive development in old age. Chapter 13 - Social Development New discussions on sexual imprinting and sexual attraction highlight the role of smell in these phenomena. Major histocompatibility complex (MHC), part of the genome containing genes that code many of the important ingredients of body odor in mice, is introduced along with evidence that humans exhibit the same kind of sexual imprinting. Chapter 13 includes extensive new material on attachment, including the factors that can influence a child\'s early pattern of attachment. Chapter 14 - Intelligence: Its Nature and Measurement Updated sections include: the debate over the validity of the IQ test, the definition of g, the genetic roots of IQ (the Colorado Adoption Project), and environmental influences on IQ test performance (Steele\'s work on stereotype threat). Chapter 15 - Personality The Sixth Edition merges two personality chapters from the Fifth Edition into one while maintaining the full range of topi