Ruth M. J. Byrne

How People Create Alternatives to Reality (Bradford Books)

The Rational Imagination

Stephen E. Newstead

Jonathan St. B. T. Evans

Seductive reasoning is widely regarded as an activity central to human intelligence, and as such has attracted a large amount of psychological study. In this book, the authors provide a detailed and balanced review of all the main kinds.

The Psychology of Deduction

Human Reasoning

Kinga Morsanyi

Collection to provide insight into the cognitive processes that underlie typical characteristics of autism. Focusing on research with high-functioning adolescents and adults, the book considers the long-term consequences of these characteristics, providing in-depth analyses of particular areas of cognitive functioning

Thinking, Reasoning, and Decision Making in Autism

Jonathan St. B. C. Evans

The human imagination remains one of the last uncharted terrains of the mind. This accessible and original monograph explores a central aspect of the imagination, the creation of counterfactual alternatives to reality, and claims that imaginative thoughts are guided by the same principles that underlie rational thoughts. Research has shown that rational thought is more imaginative than cognitive scientists had supposed; in The Rational Imagination, Ruth Byrne argues that imaginative thought is more rational than scientists have imagined. People often create alternatives to reality and imagine how events might have turned out "if only" something had been different. Byrne explores the "fault lines" of reality, the aspects of reality that are more readily changed in imaginative thoughts. She finds that our tendencies to imagine alternatives to actions, controllable events, socially unacceptable actions, causal and enabling relations, and events that come last in a temporal sequence provide clues to the cognitive processes upon which the counterfactual imagination depends. The explanation of these processes, Byrne argues, rests on the idea that imaginative thought and rational thought have much in common.

Ruth M. J. Byrne

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