Cognition and Language: Perspectives from New Zealand

Edited by Claire M. Fletcher-Flinn and G.M. Haberman

University of Auckland and Massey University



This volume marks the first comprehensive collection of reports from research projects in cognitive psychology in New Zealand. The existence of such a book is a reflection of the remarkable and ongoing growth in cognitive inquiry in this part of the world. Although most influential models and theories on cognition have originated in North America and Europe, the last two decades have seen an upsurge of cognitive research in the Australasian region.

Cognition and Language is intended to make accessible and integrate theoretically significant outcomes of cognitive science in New Zealand research centres. Our intention was to edit the first volume on the international publishing scene reflecting the depth, quality, and some of the thematic diversity of cognitive psychology in New Zealand centres. It reflects some of the perspectives and approaches that New Zealand scientists take to internationally well recognised cognitive topics. It also indicates more unique themes that are investigated reliant on the Australasian context. In particular, the book is meant to integrate studies in the technical field of perception, the interfaces between cognition and language (psycholinguistics, psychology of communication), and cognitive- developmental studies - three domains that become increasingly salient in New Zealand cognitive science.

About the Author

Claire M. Fletcher-Flinn. Dr Fletcher-Flinn received her Ph.D from LaTrobe University, Melbourne, Australia. In 1988 she moved to take up a postdoctoral fellowship in education, and subsequently, a lectureship in psychology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Now at the University of Auckland, she teaches developmental psychology and maintains a range of research interests in literacy learning and reading disability. Gus M. Haberman Dr. Haberman's original research area is cognition and communication. He spent his apprenticeship in psycholinguistics as an assistant in the cross-cultural network of Charles E. Osgood's CCPL. His doctoral dissertation examined how readers processed two-clause sentences with complement-governing predicates. He has spent more than 13 years in Aotearoa/ New Zealand teaching cognition and language, as well as applied psychology. Among other books he is editor of Looking Back and Moving Forward: Fifty Years of New Zealand Psychology.