Biomedicine has become one of the best-modeled domains from several perspectives - artificial intelligence, psychology, and the social sciences; yet few studies have combined these points of view. In this book, the interdisciplinary strengths of cognitive science offer fresh insights into biomedical problem solving.

Cognitive Science in Medicine presents current research that focuses on issues and results in applying techniques from cognitive science to problems in biomedicine. It includes material by researchers who have worked in both areas and is unique in linking models of physician knowledge with models of physician behavior.

David Evans discusses issues of cognitive science in medicine in his introduction; and in a chapter with Cindy Gadd and Harry Pople, deals with the problem of managing coherence and context in medical problem-solving discourse. Vimla Patel, Evans, and Guy Groen provide experimental data that illuminates the role of biomedical knowledge in clinical reasoning; and Patel, Evans, and David Kaufman offer a cognitive science framework for analysis of clinical interviews.

Other contributors and subjects include Clark Glymour on the empirical and representational issues in cognitive and medical science; Alan Lesgold on multilevel models of expertise; Arthur Elstein, James Dodd, and Gerald B. Holzman on the analysis of estrogen replacement decisions among residents; Kenneth R. Hammond, Elizabeth Frederick, Nichole Robillard, and Doreen Victor on the features of the student-teacher dialog in medicine; Naomi Rodolitz and William J. Clancey on tutoring for strategic knowledge; Paul J. Feltovich, Rand J. Spiro, and Richard L. Coulson on the foundations of misunderstanding in established medical knowledge; John K. Vries, Evans, and Peretz Shoval on the development of semantic networks for medical information retrieval; and John Bruer, with a preface on the implications of cognitive-scientific studies for medical education.

David A. Evans is Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University and Vimla L. Patel is Associate Professor of Medicine and Educational Psychology at McGill University. A Bradford Book.