COGNITIVE

PSYCHOLOGY
History of Psychology
The Cognitive Movement

■ By 1976, psychology was changing – refocus on consciousness

■ Psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes
■ Antecedent influences on cognitive psychology
– Wundt, Tolman (intervening variables), Gestalt school
– Jean Piaget – important work in children’s cognitive stages
– Physics – discard idea of total objectivity – knowledge is highly dependent on the
observer
George Miller

■ Miller was raised by Christian Scientists – psychology is a sin.

■ Majored in history and speech, but married a psychology major
■ PhD – 1946 – Harvard – Language and Communication (1951)
■ “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two” (1956)
■ With Bruner, establishes the Center for Cognitive Studies – 1960
■ Did not consider cognitive to be a revolution – “accreation”
■ President of the APA - 1969
Ulric Neisser

■ Started at Harvard in physics, but met Miller, switched to psychology

■ Masters at Swarthmore with Kohler, PhD at Harvard – 1956
■ Saw no escape from behaviorism if he wanted academic career
■ Cognitive Psychology – 1967 – extremely popular, new approach
■ Cognition and Reality – 1976 – growing dissatisfaction with cognitive
■ Spent 17 years at Cornell, then moved to Emory, then back to Cornell
From clocks to computers

■ Computers emerge as the new model for mental functioning.

■ Storage is memory, programming codes are language, etc.
■ Psychologists interested in how mind processes information.
■ Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC) – The first computer
■ 17.468 vacuum tubes – weighed 30 tons
■ Mathematical and Numerical Integrator and Calculator (MANIAC) - 1951
Alan Turing

■ PhD from Princeton – 1938 – founder of computer science

■ Bletchly Park – 1942 – break the German Enigma code
■ Turing Test – are you communicating with a person or computer?
■ Chinese Room problem – Searle – no intelligence
■ Loebner Gold Prize Medal – 1990 – Turing Test competition
■ Arrested for “gross indecency” – suicide by poisoned apple
Nature of cognitive psychology

■ Focus on the process of knowing rather than responding to stimuli

■ Interest in how the mind organizes experience – meaningful wholes
■ People actively and creatively arrange incoming stimuli
■ Cognitive neuroscience – hybrid discipline – mapping the brain
■ Neuroprosthetics – control robotic arm with the mind
■ Nonconscious processing – much information processing is nonconcious
Animal cognition

■ Return of animal consciousness – Animal Cognition – 1998

■ Animals are able to learn diverse and sophisticated concepts
■ Example – cause-and-effect, creating cognitive maps, reasoning ability
■ Parrots and dogs intellectually comparable to 2-4 year old human
■ Personality? Sure, in fish, spiders, farm animals, chimps, dogs
■ Behaviorists – animal consciousness is ridiculous
Current status of cognitive

■ More than 40 journals dealing with cognitive psyholocy

■ Cognitive science – multidisciplinary approach to knowledge acquisition – psychology,
linguistics, anthropology, etc.
■ Embedded cognition – perceptual and motor response systems affect, direct, and
determine cognitive processes – proprioception
■ Criticism – what do all cognitive psychologists agree on?!
Evolutionary psychology

■ “Second wave of the cognitive revolution”

■ Based on the assumption that people with certain behavioral, cognitive, and affective
tendencies survive and raise kids.
■ We are shaped as much or more by biology than learning.
■ Antecedent influences – Darwin, Harlow, Seligman.
■ Sociobiology: A New Synthesis – 1975 – Wilson – human nature
There is no end to psychology.

■ New schools are born – that’s the process of any science.

■ No completion, no finish, no final state.
■ Psychology is an never-ending process.
There is no end to psychology.

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