Interdisciplinary approach. This text offers a balanced survey of the development, research findings, and issues of the core cognitive science disciplines, including cognitive psychology, neuroscience, language, philosophy, and artificial intelligence.

Historical and contemporary balance. For each of the core disciplines of cognitive science, the historical development and classic research studies are presented in one chapter and current research development and issues follow in a second chapter. The student is given insight into the way each discipline has contributed to the growth of cognitive science and what directions research is taking in the future.

Accessibility. Through the author’s lively and engaging writing style, sophisticated concepts are brought to life and explained with ease. This text was written as an introduction to the cognitive sciences and assumes no background on the part of the reader.

Abundant examples and applications. Throughout each chapter, the author integrates examples of cognitive processes drawn from everyday experiences and shows how these can be applied to a study of the cognitive sciences. These examples allow students an understanding of how research insights can be understood by observing everyday behavior.