Cognitive Illusions: Intriguing Phenomena in Judgement, Thinking and Memory

by Rüdiger F. Pohl (Editor)

Cognitive Illusions explores a wide range of fascinating psychological effects in the way we think, judge and remember in our everyday lives. Featuring contributions from leading researchers, the book defines what cognitive illusions are and discusses their theoretical status: are such illusions proof for a faulty human information-processing system, or do they only represent by-products of otherwise adaptive cognitive mechanisms? Throughout the book, background to phenomena such as illusions of control, overconfidence and hindsight bias are discussed, before considering the respective empirical research, potential explanations of the phenomenon, and relevant applied perspectives. Each chapter also features the detailed description of an experiment that can be used as classroom demonstration.

Featuring six new chapters, this edition has been thoroughly updated throughout to reflect recent research and changes of focus within the field.

This book will be of interest to students and researchers of cognitive illusions, specifically, those focusing on thinking, reasoning, decision-making and memory.

"

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Brain

504 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Ajith · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the introduction of this book, it claims to be useful to both a professional in the field of psychology(a professor/researcher) as well as the interested layman. As a layman looking at the organization of the book I was a bit skeptical of this claim.

But all my skepticism vanished as I dug into the book, the book has the feel of a text book but it is very rewarding with highly interesting discussions on competing theories (with results and conclusions) on probable causes of many cognitive illusions which have been studied. Reading the book brought a change in the way I think about illusions and the human cognitive processes, it inculcates a discipline of rigorous fact checking and empirical data collection before coming to conclusions.

In hindsight the decision to pick up this book was one of my best decisions.