Historical Roots of Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive psychology is the study of the mental processes that contribute to behavior, including the internal behaviors of thinking and feeling (Kellogg, 1995, p. 4-5). Much of what the mind does can be compared to a computer processing sensory information and responding by moving the muscles of the body; however, the mind also performs other important functions such as assigning meaning to events and objects and reacting emotionally to external and internal stimuli. An important assumption in cognitive psychology is that the mind is a product of biological processes that have emerged during evolutionary history. Given this grounding in empirical science, it should come as no surprise that cognitive psychologists are interested and engaged in the discoveries being made using modern brain imaging technologies (Parsons, 2001). To better understand the roots of cognitive psychology this essay will review several key milestones in the history of this discipline and discuss the importance of behavioral observation.

Key Milestones

Although the field of psychology has always contained elements that would later be claimed by cognitive psychologists, the first historical milestone was the creation of structural psychology by Edward Bradford Titchener in America in 1892 (Kellogg, 1995, p. 8-9). This model proposed that consciousness was the product of different processes, including sensation and feelings. The main assumption is that mental structures or elements represent the workings of the mind and these can be best understood through self-observation. Although self-observation (introspection) was developed by Tichener and Wilheim Wundt in Wundt's laboratory, this method proved to be too unreliable to fit within the scientific method.

Influenced by Darwin, William James published Principles of Psychology in 1890 and introduced Functionalism to a limited audience (Kellogg, 1995, p. 9-10). In contrast to structuralism and its mental elements, functionalism focuses on the mind's purpose and the mental operations that serve that purpose. James world view was that of an evolutionary biologist; therefore, functionalism assumed that evolutionary selection had determined the processing capabilities of contemporary brains. In other words, functionalism assumes that the mind adapts to the demands of the environment to increase the chances of a species survival. James Angell, then president of the American Psychological Association, brought wider attention to functionalism during an address to members in 1906. Accordingly, functionalism dominated American thinking during this period.

In 1913, James B. Watson ushered in the era of behaviorism in America (Kellogg, 1995, p. 11-12). The goal of behaviorism was to limit psychological research to objective measures of behavior; therefore, the concepts of consciousness and introspection were thrown into the waste bin. For example, Watson respected Ivan Pavlov's research into gastronomical reflexes in dogs, because only objective measures were used. What eventually emerged was the assumption that the behavioral choices of any organism, including humans, could be predicted if enough of an organisms learning history could be known. Clark Hull went so far as to propose that all behaviors could be reduced to mathematical equations. The most famous behaviorist by far was B.F. Skinner, who developed the principles of operant conditioning. Although behaviorism marginalized the importance of cognition, its influence helped make careful, objective approaches to research the cornerstone of cognitive psychology.

During World War II, information processing emerged as the solution to behaviorism's limits in explaining cognitive processes like thinking, memory, and language production (Kellogg, 1995, p. 13-14). The information processing model assumes mental processes are not that different from a computer capable of sensing and responding to environmental changes, but this discipline also suggested that it would be eventually possible to create machines that 'think.' A.M. Turing pioneered this work with computational theory, which eventually led to the development of the computer, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. Information processing therefore helped counter behaviorism's rejection of the mind and thinking as important to behavioral outcomes and helped build the foundation upon which modern cognitive psychology would emerge.

Importance of Behavioral Observation