Spin-off for Psychology

Reviews the book, Mathematical Thinking in Behavioral Sciences: Readings from Scientific American edited by David M. Messick (1968). The volume is a collection of articles from the Scientific American. The high quality, style, and level of communication consistently found in that publication is well known. For the most part, the selections are introductory discussions of topics in mathematics and computer science that are in the general scientific Zeitgeist and are of particular interest to the behavioral sciences. The purpose of the volume, as stated by the editor, is to communicate to students with poor mathematic backgrounds some of the important ideas of probability, game theory, computer science, and control theory, and to illustrate the application of these ideas to some interesting problems. The book very admirably fulfills its purpose. This volume should help to arouse the interest of the student as well as to offer a mathematically painless introduction to these ideas. The volume will also be useful in pointing up the possibilities of further "spin-off" to psychology from developments in the mathematical sciences. One minor criticism of the book: Because events have been moving swiftly in the computer sciences, some of the discussion is out of date. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)