Psychology, Department of
Date of this Version
1994
Abstract
I believe this volume will stimulate new research ideas, provide readers with some unique historical and philosophical perspectives, and raise important basic theoretical issues about both measurement and cognitive structure. Additionally, several of the chapters provide useful topical reviews (e.g., Baird and Hubbard on imagery, Algom on memory psychophysics, and Rollman on pain). The volume makes a compelling case that cognitive effects are an important component of psychophysical judgment even within the sensory realm and that psychophysical techniques can and should be used to tell us more about aspects of cognition. Whether the latter message will be heard by those cognitive psychologists who, according to Algom, view sensory psychology as “the last bastion of fixed mechanistic (i.e., psychologically trivial) properties, best left to those unprepared or uninterested enough to deal with real psychology” (p. 10), remains to be seen.
Comments
Published in Contemporary Psychology 39:4 (1994), pp. 368-369. Copyright © 1994 American Psychological Association. Used by permission. “This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.” http://www.apa.org/journals/cp/