Reasoning as Memory

There is a growing acknowledgement of the importance of integrating the study of reasoning with other areas of cognitive psychology. The purpose of this volume is to examine the extent to which we can further our understanding of reasoning by integrating findings, theories and paradigms in the field of memory. Reasoning as Memory consists of nine chapters that make explicit links between basic memory process, and reasoning and decision-making. The contributors address a number of key topics including: * the relationship between semantic memory and reasoning * the role of expert memory in reasoning * recognition memory and induction * working memory and reasoning * metamemory in reasoning. In addition, the chapters provide broad coverage of the field of thinking, and invite the intriguing question of how much there is left to explain in the field of reasoning when one has extracted the variance due to memory. This book will be of great interest to advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers interested in reasoning or decision making, and to researchers interested in the role played in cognition by a variety of memory processes.

Aidan Feeney is Senior Lecturer at Queen's University Belfast, UK. His research interests include thinking in children and adults, including inductive reasoning, decision making, and counterfactual thinking and regret. Valerie A. Thompson is Professor of Psychology at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Her research interests include intuitive judgments, thinking and decision making, and metacognition.

'Reasoning has been largely studied using abstract materials unconnected to prior knowledge, and yet much (and probably most) real life reasoning does involve meaningful materials that connect to episodic and semantic memory contents. Feeney and Thompson have assembled an impressive range of contributors to examine the influence of such knowledge on reasoning. The volume is a major contribution and I recommend it strongly.' - Ken Gilhooly, University of Hertfordshire and Brunel University London, UK