Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a great intro to the field of cognitive psychology and helped me take my very basic understandings of the practice to a deeper level.

A concise yet comprehensive introduction to the field of cognitive psychology. Covering everything from the pioneering theories of Galton, Freud, and Pavlov to modern understandings of memory, perception, and decision-making, this compact guide packs a collection of introductory information into an accessible format.

Saul's writing is clear, breaking down complex concepts in a way that makes them easy to understand, even for readers with little prior exposure to the subject matter. Good for students who are looking for an introduction to core concepts of cognitive psychology.

A reasonable introduction to the field. It covers a wide range of topics, and explains the basics about how we observe and understand the world around us. She explains that we can't consciously process everything we perceive, and that the brain has to develop short cuts to make sense of everything and make unconscious decisions about how to behave. It won't have anything new for anyone who's delved into the field, and it only takes a shallow look at the field, but as a primer, it's a good start.

The thing I found most irritating was that the illustrations felt like something you'd put on a Powerpoint presentation to liven up the text. So in a section talking about how the stressing different words in the phrase <i>Murder, She Wrote</i> changes the meaning, we have a picture of Angela Lansbury. At one point she explains that when climbing a hill, sometimes you have to go down to go up, then gives us a picture of a hill. In a section talking about memory, she gives an example of how you have to remember where to find items on a shelf when you're shopping, complete with a picture of a supermarket. They're almost all banal Shutterstock images, and they add nothing to the text.

This piece began to look at a range of topics under cognitive psychology. Some very interesting ideas were raised and discussed in this book and it could be a good introduction to cognitive psychology for some.

However, like others have mentioned at times this piece seemed a bit disorganised (jumping from one idea to another) and some ideas/theories seem to be explained in an overly simplistic manner. It could definitely be a good overview of the field for someone new to the topic though.

This book was not what I expected, and it's all my fault I didn't realize that when requesting an ARC. Cognitive therapy has always interested me and I was happy to find a book on it, because I have only read newspaper and magazine articles about it. The problem was I was erroneously expecting case studies and how such therapy helped individuals. This book doesn't concentrate on case studies, but is about the nuts and bolts of cognitive psychology--memory, thinking, perception, attention, etc. It also introduces some of the influential thinkers in the field.

I wish I had been assigned this type of book in a college class, because then I would have had to learn all in it to pass the course. It would have made me a much smarter person. Alas, my college years were many years ago, and I now only read what I really want to read. I'm afraid I didn't really want to read this entire book at the present time, even though it is easy to read and easy to understand.

Really good insight into cognitive psych field! Definitely recommend to anybody wanting to know about the field.

I requested this because I’m a psychology major but I found this hard to read. It was very sterile and kind of jumbled. It wasn’t for me.

Not what I expected, and not my cup of tea - a bit simplistic in my opinion. Hope other readers get more value out of this.