A Brief History of Cognitive Psychology



I. The Early Period

A. distinctions
1. structure (where cognition occurs) vs. function (why cognition occurs)

2. nature (biology) vs. nurture (learning)

3. reductionist vs. holistic
 

 B. Egyptians - heart as the locus of the mind

C. Plato - wax tablet, aviary
 

1. emphasized structure


D. Aristotle - associationism & empiricism
 

2. emphasized function II. The Middle Period A. Descartes - rationalism
  1. mundus sensibilis & mundus intellectualis-Deus
B. Locke - tabula rasa
III. The Birth of Psychology
A. Wundt & Titchener — Structuralism
1. isolate mental elements via introspection   2. sensations defined in terms of 4 properties: mode, quality, intensity, & duration   B. James — Functionalism
  1. emphasized the relevance of cognitive processes to everyday life   2. e.g., habit, stream of consciousness, primary & secondary memory
  C. the early 20th century
1. Gestalt psychology
a. psychological phenomena should be studied in its entirety
  2. Behaviorism
  a. emphasized observable stimuli and responses as the content of psychology

b. a challenge to behaviorism
1. Edward Tolman’s research on cognitive maps
2. observational learning
3. Piaget's Genetic Epistemology
a. emphasized qualitative changes in children's thinking
4. Galton's mental measurement approach
a. emphasized individual differences


IV. Antecedents of the Cognitive Revolution

A. Human Factors Engineering in WWII

B. Communications and Limited Processing Capacity

C. Noam Chomsky & Modern Linguistics

D. Computers & Artificial Intelligence
 

V. Cognitive Psychology Begins A. 1956 - George Miller's "The Magical Number Seven Plus or Minus Two"

B. 1967 - Ulric Neisser’s Cognitive Psychology

C. theme: "internal processes are the subject matter of psychology"

 VI. Current Trends
A. Information Processing Approach
1. original paradigm (intellectual framework) of cognitive psychology

2. humans as a general-purpose information processors

3. serial processing
 

 B. Connectionist Approach 1. cognition as a network of connections which work much like the neurons in the brain

2. neural networks: interconnected units or nodes

3. activation and inhibition of nodes

4. parallel processing
 

 C. Ecological Approach
1. emphasizes the everyday contexts of cognition

2. e.g., research by Jean Lave (1988) on everyday math

D. other approaches
1. Cognitive Science
a. interdisciplinary approach
2. Cognitive Neuropsychology
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Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology


I. Idiographic Methods

A. Types
1. self-report (introspection)

2. case study

3. naturalistic observation

B. Advantages and disadvantages
1. + ecological validity

2. - control

C. some improvements
1. controlled observation (field experiment)

2. clinical interviews (greater structure)

II. The Experimental Method
A. Types
1. between-subjects designs

2. within subjects designs

3. quasi-experiments

B. Advantages and disadvantages
1. + control

2. - low ecological validity

C. A note on correlational research


III. Neuropsychological Methods

A. Types
1. postmortem/lesion

2. imaging techniques

a. Electric Activity: EEGs & ERPs

b. X-rays: X-rays, Angiograms, CAT scans

c. Magnetism: MRIs, fMRIs

d. Radioactive Tracing: PET and SPECT scans

B. Advantages and disadvantages
1. + brain-behavior relationships

2. - ??? ecological validity


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