The attempt to understand and engineer these abilities constitutes the new interdisciplinary field of artificial psychology, which is characterized by contributions from philosophy, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, computer science, and robotics. This work is intended for use as a main or supplementary introductory textbook for a course in cognitive psychology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, or the philosophy of mind. It examines human abilities as operating requirements that an artificial person must have and analyzes them from a multidisciplinary approach.

The book is comprehensive in scope, covering traditional topics like perception, memory, and problem solving. However, it also describes recent advances in the study of free will, ethical behavior, affective architectures, social robots, and hybrid human-machine societies.