The student's guide to cognitive neuroscience - Jamie Ward

Reflecting recent changes in the way cognition and the brain are studied, this book provides a comprehensive and student-friendly guide to cognitive neuroscience. Following an introduction to neural structure and function, all the key methods and procedures of cognitive neuroscience are explained, with a view to helping students understand how they can be used to shed light on the neural basis of cognition.

The second part of the book goes on to present an up-to-date overview of the latest theories and findings in all the key topics in cognitive neuroscience, including vision, attention, memory, speech and language, numeracy, executive function and social and emotional behaviour. Throughout, case studies, newspaper reports and everyday examples are used to provide an easy way in to understanding the more challenging ideas that underpin the subject.

In addition each chapter includes:

• Summaries of key terms and points
• Example essay questions to aid exam preparation
• Recommended further reading
• Feature boxes exploring interesting and popular questions and their implications for the subject.

Written in an engaging style by a leading researcher in the field, this book will be invaluable as a core text for undergraduate modules in cognitive neuroscience. It can also be used as a key text on courses in cognition, cognitive neuropsychology or brain and behaviour. Those embarking on research will find it an invaluable starting point and reference.

We offer CD-ROM-based resources free of charge to instructors who recommend The Student's Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience by Jamie Ward. These resources include:

• A chapter-by-chapter, illustrated slideshow lecture course
• An innovative bank of multiple-choice questions, graded according to difficulty and which allow for confidence-weighted answers
• Comprehensive lecture planning advice tailored to different length courses.

Jamie Ward has researched and taught extensively in many areas of cognitive neuroscience. He is a leading authority on the subject of synaesthesia and has contributed to a wider understanding of it in both academic and lay circles.

Jamie Ward is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Sussex, UK.

"The Student's Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience is an excellent resource for anyone who is keen to understand the contribution that neuroscience can make to education, psychology and other related disciplines... However, perhaps more importantly than this, the reader is provided with information to allow them to go on to explore neuroscience research in the future; ... The book has been written in a clear and readable style that should make it accessible even to those without a background in the area. ... This book provides and excellent new addition to the growing dicsipline of cognitive neuroscience, and is sure to be of great use to anyone seeking to know more about this area. It will be of great value use to teachers of courses that involve a neuroscience component, such as psychology, as a central text in this area." - Dr. Sue Pickering, University of Bristol, in ESCalate

"Jamie Ward manages to explain complicated features of cognitive neuroscience by introducing examples, articles from the media, historical cameos and case studies to provide an engaging and challenging book. ... This is a seminal text that is all the more impressive for bringing cognitive neuroscience to life for subject students and non-experts alike." - Dr. Judith Whitmarsh, University of Wolverhampton,in ESCalate

"This is a terrific book. It is timely, up-to-date, written in a lively and engaging style and full of helpful guides and illustrations. It is particularly useful in including chapters on methods as well as on more traditional topic areas, in integrating work from neuropsychology with electrophysiological and imaging studies, and in covering social and emotional processes as well as cognitive processing." - Glyn Humphreys, Professor of Cognitive Psychology, University of Birmingham

"The Student's Guide To Cognitive Neuroscience is unique in that there are no comparable textbooks aimed at this level and it does an excellent job of providing a solid grounding in this broad field." - Charvy Narain, in Nature Neuroscience

"Jamie Ward has done a great service to the neuroscience community: he has written an easy to read, enjoyable introduction to cognitive neuroscience that will attract many students to the discipline. The concepts, results and methods of basic neuroscience, clinical neuropsychology, neuroimaging and cognitive pyschology are explained in simple direct language; many examples and illustrations bring the sciences of the mind and brain to life.
Perhaps the best feature of the book is the seamless weaving of the various research areas that jointly define cognitive neuroscience into a coherent whole. I will certainly use this book for my courses." - Professor Alfonso Caramazza, the Cognitive Neuropsychology Laboratory, Harvard University.