Book reviews

Gale. A., & Eysenck, M.W. (Eds.). (1992). Handbook of individual diffeences: Biological perspectives. Chicheste: Wiley. Pp. 395. ISBN 0-471-91155-0. £59.95 (Hbk.).

Honig, N. (1988). Pesonality: In seach of individuality. New York: Academic Press. Zuckeman, M. (1991). Psychobiology of Personality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McGrew, W.C (1992). Chimpanzee mateial culture: Implications fo human evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xvi + 277. ISBN 0-521-41303-6. £40.00 (Hbk.). ISBN 0-521-42371-6. £16.95 (Pk.).

McGego, P.K. (Ed.) (1992). Playback and studies of animal communication. NATOASI Series Vol. 228. New York: Plenum Press. Pp. x + 231. ISBN 0-306-44205-1. Us$90.00 (Hbk.).

Gibson. K.R., & Ingold. T. (1993). Tools, language and cognition in human evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xii + 483. ISBN 0-521-41474-1. £45.00 (Hbk.).

Amsel, A. (1992). Frustration theoy: An analysis of dispositional learning and memoy. Cambridge: Cambridge Univesity ress. Pp. xiii + 278. ISBN 0-521-24784-5. £35.00 (Hbk.).     

Evolution of Primate Cognition

Comparative analysis of the behavior of modern primates, in conjunction with an accurate phylogenetic tree of relatedness, has the power to chart the early history of human cognitive evolution. Adaptive cognitive changes along this path occurred, it is believed, in response to various forms of complexity; to some extent, theories that relate particular challenges to cognitive adaptations can also be tested against comparative data on primate ecology and behavior. This paper explains the procedures by which data are employed, and uses the best currently available evidence to derive a proposal for some of the stages through which human cognition evolved, before the last common ancestor with a nonhuman, and the reasons that cognitive adaptations were favored in primate evolution.     

Mental cookery: An illustration of fact retrieval from plans

Anyone who is able to cook a certain dish will probably also be able to list its ingredients from memory. Detailed recording of this verbal listing exposes structural regularities. These imply that people can search a representation which is essentially the same as that used in the actual cooking. In effect, the dish can be “mentally cooked” and the necessary ingredients reported when they occur. This ability to mentally simulate plans allows considerable cognitive economy.     

Book reviews

Gordon, I. E. (1989). Theories of visual perception. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 273. ISBN 0-471-92196-3. £12.50.

Shepp, B. E. & Ballasteros, S. (Eds.) (1989). Object perception: Structure and process. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Pp. 431. ISBN 0-8058-0060-3 (hardback) £44.95; ISBN 0-8058-0333-5 (paperback) £22.95.

Frith, U. (1989). Autism: Explaining the enigma. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Pp. 204. ISBN 0-631-15833-2. £25.00 (hardback); £8.95 (paperback).

Rollins, M. (1989). Mental imagery: On the limits of cognitive science. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pp. 170. ISBN 0-30-04491-7. £18.00.

Lloyd, D. (1989). Simple minds. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Pp. 266. ISBN 0-262-12140-9. £22.50.

Howard, D. & Franklin, S. (1988). Missing the meaning? A cognitive neuropsychological study of the processing of words by an aphasic patient. Cambridge, MA & London: MIT Press. Pp. xix + 171. ISBN 0-262-08178-4. £22.50.

Evans, J. St. B. T. (1989). Bias in human reasoning. Hove and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd. ISBN 0-86377-106-8. £14.95 (hardback) ISBN 0-86377-156-4. £8.95 (paperback).

Clark, A. (1989). Micorcognition: Philosophy, cognitive science, and parallel distributed processing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books. Pp. 226. ISBN 0-262-03148-5. £14.95.