The Oxford Dictionary of Psychology, Second Edition, by Andrew M. Colman is a great resource to consult for patrons needing to look up specific terms related to psychology, psychiatry, neurology, psychobiology, etc. One of the main benefits of this dictionary (over the other ones we have at my library) is its inclusion of various large black-and-white illustrations and diagrams. For example, in addition to the definition or description of the lipid bilayer an image is given resembling what you'd see in a biology textbook. Above the entries for both the Hering illusion and the Hermann grid the optical illusions are clearly pictured. (There's even a particularly grotesque image of a somatosensory homunculus, somthing that looks kind-of disturbing but enables you to see how the neural activity in the brain is distributed among different body parts and senses.)
One problem that I have with the way the "see" references are shown within each entry is that they are indicated with an asterisk (*) in front of the first word in the term or phrase. This is confusing because you don't know if you're looking for the word "significance" or "significance test"--you just see the asterisk in front of "significance." It bothered me, but it might not be an annoyance to someone else.
But one of the pluses about it is that very difficult theories and concepts are explained in easy terms for the layperson. Overall, I think it a very good reference for whatever you need to know about psychology.
Dewey Decimal Number: 150.3
Rating: 4Q, 3P
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