M I N D_I n t r o d u c t i o n t o C og n i t ive S c i e n c e

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence,
embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience,
linguistics, and anthropology. Its intellectual origins are in the mid-1950s
when researchers in several fields began to develop theories of mind based
on complex representations and computational procedures. Its organizational
origins are in the mid-1970s when the Cognitive Science Society was
formed and the journal Cognitive Science began. Since then, more than sixty
universities in North America and Europe have established cognitive
science programs and many others have instituted courses in cognitive
science.

Teaching an interdisciplinary course in cognitive science is difficult
because students come to it with very different backgrounds. Since 1993,
I have been teaching a popular course at the University of Waterloo called
Introduction to Cognitive Science. On the one hand, the course attracts
computationally sophisticated students from computer science and engineering
who know little psychology or philosophy; on the other, it attracts
students with good backgrounds in psychology or philosophy but who
know little about computation. This text is part of an attempt to construct
a course that presupposes no special preparation in any of the fields of cognitive
science. It is intended to enable students with an interest in mind
and intelligence to see that there are many complementary approaches to
the investigation of mind.

There are at least three different ways to introduce cognitive science to
a multidisciplinary audience. The first is to concentrate on the different
fields of psychology, artificial intelligence, and so on. The second is to organize
the discussion by different functions of mind, such as problem
solving, memory, learning, and language. I have chosen a third pproach,
systematically describing and evaluating the main theories of mental representation that have been advocated by cognitive scientists, including
logic, rules, concepts, analogies, images, and connections (artificial neural
networks). Discussing these fundamental theoretical approaches provides
a unified way of presenting the accomplishments of the different fields of
cognitive science to understanding various important mental functions.

My goal in writing this book is to make it accessible to all students likely
to enroll in an introduction to cognitive science. Accomplishing this goal
requires, for example, explaining logic in a way accessible to psychology
students, computer algorithms in a way accessible to English students,
and philosophical controversies in a way accessible to computer science
students.

Although this book is intended for undergraduates, it should also be
useful for graduate students and faculty who want to see how their own
fields fit into the general enterprise of cognitive science. I have not written
an encyclopedia. Since the whole point of this exercise is to provide an
integrated introduction, I have kept the book relatively short and to the
point, highlighting the forest rather than the trees. Viewing cognitive
science as the intersection rather than as the union of all the relevant fields,
I have omitted many topics that are standard in introductions to artificial
intelligence, cognitive psychology, philosophy of mind, and so on. Each
chapter concludes with a summary and suggestions for further reading.

The book is written with great enthusiasm for what theories of mental
representation and computation have contributed to the understanding of
mind, but also with awareness that cognitive science has a long way to go.
The second part of the book discusses extensions to the basic assumptions
of cognitive science and suggests directions for future interdisciplinary
work.

I have been grateful for the reception of the first edition of this book,
especially its translation into Italian, German, Czech, Portuguese, Japanese,
Korean, and two variants of Chinese. For this second edition, I have
brought part I up to date and substantially revised part II, adding new chapters
on brains, emotions, and consciousness. Other additions include a list
of relevant Web sites at the end of each chapter, and a glossary at the end
of the book. My anthology, Mind Readings: Introductory Selections on Cognitive
Science (MIT Press, 1998) remains a useful accompaniment.


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GETTING TO YES

The authors of this book have been working together since 1977.
Roger Fisher teaches negotiation at Harvard Law School, where he is Williston Professor
of Law and Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project. Raised in Illinois, he served in World
War II with the U.S. Army Air Force, in Paris with the Marshall Plan, and in Washington, D.C.,
with the Department of Justice. He has also practiced law in Washington and served as a
consultant to the Department of Defense. He was the originator and executive editor of the
award-winning series The Advocates. He consults widely with governments, corporations, and
individuals through Conflict Management, Inc., and the Conflict Management Group.
William Ury, consultant, writer, and lecturer on negotiation and mediation, is Director of
the Negotiation Network at Harvard University and Associate Director of the Harvard
Negotiation Project. He has served as a consultant and third party in disputes ranging from the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict to U.S.-Soviet arms control to intracorporate conflicts to labormanagement
conflict at a Kentucky coal mine. Currently, he is working on ethnic conflict in the
Soviet Union and on teacher-contract negotiations in a large urban setting. Educated in
Switzerland, he has degrees from Yale in Linguistics and Harvard in anthropology.
Bruce Patton, Deputy Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, is the Thaddeus R. Beal
Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, where he teaches negotiation. A lawyer, he teaches
negotiation to diplomats and corporate executives around the world and works as a negotiation
consultant and mediator in international, corporate, labor-management, and family settings.
Associated with the Conflict Management organizations, which he co founded in 1984, he has
both graduate and undergraduate degrees from Harvard.




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Investment Madness

WARNING: Allowing emotion to invade your investment decisions can be hazardous to your wealth.

* Think about your investments more clearly
* How overconfident investors trade too much, take too many risks, and earn lower returns
* The investment impact of your self-image
* Why avoiding feelings of regret now will cause you even greater regrets later
* Yesterday's trade, today's emotions, tomorrow's mistake
* Placing your recent investment experiences in realistic perspective
* The devil you know versus the devil you don't
* Familiarity breeds investment—but not necessarily profit
* Is your memory playing tricks with you?
* You're not alone. We'll tell you what to do about it
* Not all information is alike
* Avoiding herd mentality: your chat room, your brother-in-law, and other temptations. Remember when dotcoms were going to end business as we know it?

How your psychology reduces your profits and increases your risks-and what to do about it!

* Why'd you fall for that Internet stock?
* Why'd you keep money in cash when it could've earned far better returns elsewhere?
* Why haven't you fully funded your retirement plan when you know you should?
* Why do you always seem to buy high and sell low?
* Why does it look like everyone else is getting rich but you?

It's your psychology. It's your emotions. As an investor, they're your biggest obstacles. They cut your returns, and raise your risks. It's about time you did something about it. Investment Madness will show you how. Drawing on the new science of behavioral finance, Dr. John Nofsinger shows you how to:

* See through the "illusion of control" that makes you overconfident about your investments
* Objectively evaluate the stocks and financial instruments you've inherited
* Recognize the feelings of pride, regret, and herd behavior that lead to disaster
* Improve your "mental accounting"—and your portfolio's diversification

With today's instantaneous Internet-based trading, your psychological biases have become more dangerous than ever. Investment Madness delivers expert techniques and mental strategies that will empower you with true self-control—the decisive factor in investment success.



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