Cognition: The Thinking Animal

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desertcart.com: Cognition: The Thinking Animal eBook : Willingham, Daniel T., Riener, Cedar: Kindle Store Review: The text is written in a conversational style, very easy to read even when covering difficult or controversial topics. It is a joy reading it, providing a good overview of current cognitive science but do not expect it to handle more than the surface, not delving into details. Hence, it is good to gain an overview or refresh the status of what was already known on the subject, but it is not a comprehensive reference. However, the outline it provides is brilliant, yet streamlined. There are plenty of references to papers and books covering some parts in more detail, but going through the book gives the feeling that there is a lot more that could be said and remains under the surface. It is not clear how to handle the references provided. It might have been useful to provide notes associated to the references or the most difficult concepts for those readers desiring to deepen their understanding. There are many illustrations but most of them seem to be there to make things look nice and are not essential for understanding the text. Some other drawings are very good and helpful. Certain complicated topics are not handled much in depth (for instance Bayesian inference or Mental Model theory), so that the reader gets an intuition of what is behind it rather than a more or less solid understanding. Nevertheless, the book is outstanding by its coverage and clarity. The intro to methodology in cognitive science and history of psychology is quite good. All in all, it is an enjoyable experience to go through the book. Details or advanced theories ought to be searched in other books. This book would be an excellent introduction to these further readings.