Language

I think that the study of language is the most exciting frontier in human cognition, a true bellweather for the rest of cognitive psychology. So it gets its own section.

The following books and papers have been recommended to me:

• Bloom, Paul (2000) "How Children Learn the Meanings of Words"

• Jackendoff, Ray (2004) "Foundations of Language"

And here are a few that I can recommend personally:

• Chomsky, Noam (1957) "Syntactic Structures"

• Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch (2002) "The Evolution of the Language Faculty" Science 288: 349-351

• Pinker, Steven (1994) "The Language Instinct"

Evolution & Evolutionary Psychology

A good bibliography on cognitive evolution was developed by Becca Coughlin and Brian Hare: click here to download it.

The following books and papers have been recommended to me:

• Mayr, Ernst (2002) "What Evolution Is"

• Sterelny & Griffiths (1999) "Sex and Death"

• Weiner (1995) "The Beak of the Finch"

And here are a few that I can recommend personally:

• Dawkins, Richard (1982) "The Extended Phenotype"

• Wilson, E.O. (1975) "Sociobiology"

Animal Behavior and Cognition

The following books and papers have been recommended to me:

• Bekoff, ed. (2002) "The Cognitive Animal"

• Caro (1994) "Cheetahs of the Serengeti"

• Cheney, D. and R. Seyfarth (1990) "How Monkeys See the World"

• Ryan (1985) "The Tungura Frog"

• Gallistal, R. (1990) "The Organization of Learning"

• Tinbergen, N. (1963) "On aims and methods of ethology" Zeitgraft fur tierpsychologie 20:410-433

And here's one that I can recommend personally:

• Hauser, Marc (2000) "Wild Minds"

 

Morality & Cooperation

At last a topic about which I know something! This is my list of stuff to read if you're interested in moral cognition, the evolution of cooperation, and their interface. If one day I should happen to have students, this is where they ought to begin browsing.

• Axelrod, Robert (1984) "The Evolution of Cooperation"

• Blair, R.J.R. (1995) "A cognitive developmental approach to morality: investigating the psychopath" Cognition 57:1-29

• Clutton-Brock, T.H. & Parker, G.A. (1995) "Punishment in Animal Societies" Nature 373:209-216

• Damasio, Antonio (1994) "Descartes' Error" (not about morality per se, but an important perspective on emotion that guides thought about the interface between affect and moral decision making)

• Greene, Josh (2004) "The Neural Basis of Cognitive Conflict and Control in Moral Judgment" Neuron 44:389-400

• Haidt, Jonathan (2001) "The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail" Psychological Review 108(4):814-834

• Nichols, Shuan (2002) "Norms with feeling: towards a psychological account of moral judgment" Cognition 84 (2002) 221-236

• Piaget, Jean (1965) "The Moral Judgment of the Child "

• Trivers, Robert (1971) "The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism" The Quarterly Review of Biology 46:35-57

• Wright, Robert (1994) "The Moral Animal" (a good starting point -- this is the book that sparked my interest way back in junior high).

 

Buy me a book!

Want to get on my good side? Here are some books I would love to own:

• Bloom, Paul (2000) "How Children Learn the Meanings of Words"

• Carey & Gelman "Epigenisis of Mind"

• Chomsky, Noam (1957) "Syntactic Structures"

• Gallistal, R. (1990) "The Organization of Learning"

• Gazzaniga, Michael (2004) "The Cognitive Neurosciences III "

• Marcus, Gary (2004) "The Birth of the Mind"

• Mayr, Ernst (2002) "What Evolution Is"

• Sterelny & Griffiths (1999) "Sex and Death"

• Tufte, Edward (1983) "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information"