Kathleen Galotti's text led the way in emphasizing the applied side of cognitive psychology. The title of the book emphasizes its "in and out" of the laboratory focus, which includes cross-cultural, individual and gender differences, as well as cognitive development through adolescence. This coverage is very unique to Galotti's text, which shows readers both the importance and the personal relevance of understanding brain function. COGNITIVE IN AND OUT OF THE LABORATORY is perfect for instructors who like to supplement their primary text with readings from additional sources. Additional study aids, review questions, InfoTrac College Edition search terms and activities, and references to the CogLab Web site encourage students to get involved with the content-and help them understand even the most abstract concepts through hands-on practice and reinforcement.
I do not like the growing "casual" (ie dumbed down) trend of university textbooks. I don't want to hear about your students' projects, or your dogs! Call me old fashioned, but I like definitions, sidebars, histories... you know, textbook content. Not to mention ACADEMIC content.
This was definitely a good read overall. The author broke down different topics and explained cognitive psychology very well. However, sometimes I did find myself getting confused by the language used to describe certain concepts. Mind you, some of these theories were very abstract and difficult to explain anyways, but I had to mainly rely on my professor's PowerPoints to understand the concepts. But, I think this was still a good read for bringing all the concepts together and it worked as a good review after I had learned about the content in class!
Kind of hard to understand, but also dumbed down fairly well. Some parts are easier than others to read. I may just be on the slower end of the intellectual spectrum.
Not bad at all for a textbook. The writing is lively and engaging and the examples and studies that illustrate the material are well chosen and carefully explained. If I knew nothing of cognitive psychology, this book would have been a key component in the foundations of HCI course material. However, it turns out that I already know quite a bit about the subject through reading of Steven Pinker, Daniel Kahneman, Daniel M. Wegner, Daniel C. Dennett, Robert Kurzban, Sam Harris, and others. So, to be honest, I was a bit put off by the somewhat introductory tone of the book, but in fact I definitely learned some things about psychological concepts and approaches that had not been directly dealt with in my reading of the more popularized writing by the authors mentioned above.
Nothing special. Fairly wordy and awkward sentences sometimes. Decent for a textbook. Not so great for a cognition book. They should be aware of how detrimental syntactical grammar, story grammar, and BORING issues can affect a person's reading, attention, memory, etc. Oh hey, maybe I did learn something.