It's a Jungle in There

It's a Jungle in There pursues the hypothesis that the overarching theory of biology, Darwin's theory, should be the overarching theory of cognitive psychology. Taking this approach, David Rosenbaum, a cognitive psychologist and former editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, proposes that the phenomena of cognitive psychology can be understood as emergent interactions among dumb neural elements all competing and cooperating in a kind of inner jungle. Rosenbaum suggests that this perspective allows for the presentation of cognitive psychology in a new way, both for students (for whom the book is mainly intended) and for seasoned investigators (who may be looking for a fresh way to approach and understand their material). Rather than offering cognitive psychology as a rag-tag collection of miscellaneous facts, as has generally been the case in cognitive-psychology textbooks, this volume presents cognitive psychology under a single rubric: "It's a jungle in there."Written in a light-hearted way with continual reference to hypothetical neural creatures eking out their livings in a tough environment, this text is meant to provide an over-arching principle that can motivate more in-depth study of the mind and brain.

David A. Rosenbaum is Professor of Psychology at the Pennsylvania State University. He is an award-winning researcher and teacher in the field of cognitive psychology. His research on the cognitive psychology of motor control has helped bridge these two fields. His teaching of cognitive psychology has led him to the theory offered here.

"Rosenbaum, a psychology professor at Pennsylvania State University, asserts that the entire cognitive world operates along Darwinian lines-that competition among the neural circuits underlying motor behavior, thinking, memory and perception accounts for everything we think, say and do. It's aJungle in There deserves to be selected. It presents a bold idea that puts human cognition squarely onto the shoulders of giants in the natural sciences, Darwin among them." -Robert Epstein, Scientific American