This is a free, open textbook to introduce students to cognitive psychology.
This open-access textbook introduces the core topics in cognitive psychology for anyone teaching or taking a survey course on the subject. It is designed to be accessible to students from all backgrounds, including those with no prior coursework in psychology. The book covers foundational concepts such as perception, attention, memory, language, reasoning, and problem solving, introducing classic research alongside contemporary perspectives.
The textbook represents the work of dozens of authors and collaborators. The first edition aggregated multiple Open Educational Resources, which were then edited into a single book with consistent voice and formatting. For the second edition, a team of graduate student content experts comprehensively reviewed and updated the materials. The current version includes ongoing improvements and revisions.
Celeste Pilegard, Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego, leads the book project. The full list of authors and contributors appears on the About page.
The book was formatted using bookdown, an R package.
ISBN 979-8-9912306-0-5 corresponds to the PDF version of Cognitive Foundations v2.0, published July 25, 2024, permanently available at https://github.com/pilegard/cogfoundations/releases/tag/v2.0.
This ISBN is provided for instructors whose institutions require one for textbook adoption. Since ISBNs must reference a stable document, this ISBN refers to the specific v2.0 release. However, this book is continuously updated with improvements and corrections. The current version of Cognitive Foundations with ongoing improvements since v2.0 is available at https://pilegard.github.io/cogfoundations/.
Please let us know if you adopt the book in your course -- we love hearing how it's being used! To provide feedback or report errors:
- Use our feedback form to tell us about your adoption, report errors, or submit general comments
- Submit technical issues or suggestions via GitHub
- Send an email with "Cognitive Foundations OER" in the subject line for specific inquiries