UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION STUDIES

FACULTY OF EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY

COURSE TITLE : COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

COURSE CODE : BPS 423

LECTURER : DR. IVY KESEWAA NKRUMAH

GROUP ASSIGNMENT 1

Major historical researches that have contributed to the field of cognitive psychology

SEPTEMBER, 2022

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 GROUP MEMBERS
NAME INDEX NUMBER
CHRISTOPHER FENU EF/BPS/18/0114

EMMANUEL ABABIO EF/BPS/18/0115

ESTHER BORKOM EF/BPS/18/0118

IRENE YEBOAH AGYEMANG EF/BPS/18/0117

JENNIFER EMEFA SEBUAFOR EF/BPS/18/0120

LEONARD BERNARD AIKINS EF/BPS/18/0112

MAUD BAWERICHO BAWIINA EF/BPS/18/0121

MERCY GRACE GYENI EF/BPS/18/0122

SAMUEL ASANTE EF/BPS/18/0116

MOHAMMED BADUON BALEBE EF/BPS/18 /0113

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 COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

INTRODUCTION

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of the mind as an information processor. Cognitive

psychologists try to build up cognitive models of the information processing that goes on inside

people’s minds, including perception, attention, language, memory, thinking, and consciousness.

Learning more about how people think and process information helps researchers understand

how the human brain works. It also allows psychologists to develop new ways of helping people

deal with psychological difficulties.

INFLUENCES ON COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Historical Roots: History of Cognition

Philosophically, ruminations of the human mind and its processes have been around since the

times of the ancient Greeks. In 387 BCE, Plato is known to have suggested that the brain was the

seat of the mental processes. In 1637, René Descartes posited that humans are born with innate

ideas, and forwarded the idea of mind-body dualism, which would come to be known as

substance dualism (essentially the idea that the mind and the body are two separate substances).

From that time, major debates ensued through the 19th century regarding whether human thought

was solely experiential (empiricism), or included innate knowledge (rationalism). Some of those

involved in this debate included George Berkeley and John Locke on the side of empiricism, and

Immanuel Kant on the side of nativism. Also, Aristotle (384–322 BCE) The Greek philosopher

Aristotle was interested in many fields, including the inner workings of the mind and how they

affect the human experience. He also placed great importance on ensuring that his studies and

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ideas were based on empirical evidence (scientific information that is gathered through

observation and careful experimentation).

With the philosophical debate continuing, the mid to late 19th century was a critical time in the

development of psychology as a scientific discipline. Two discoveries that would later play

substantial roles in cognitive psychology were Paul Broca's discovery of the area of the brain

largely responsible for language production,[3] and Carl Wernicke's discovery of an area thought

to be mostly responsible for comprehension of language.[5] Both areas were subsequently

formally named for their founders, and disruptions of an individual's language production or

comprehension due to trauma or malformation in these areas have come to commonly be known

as Broca's aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia.

Early Psychology

Some early psychologists are of particular interest for cognitive psychology. They are Wilhelm

Wundt, Edward Titchener, Hermann von Ebbinghaus, and William James and so on.

STRUCTURALISM

 Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920)

Wilhelm Wundt is considered one of the founding figures of modern psychology; in fact,

he was the first person to call himself a psychologist. Wundt believed that scientific

psychology should focus on introspection or analysis of the contents of one’s own mind

and experience. Though today Wundt’s methods are recognized as being subjective and

unreliable, he is one of the important figures in the study of cognition because of his

examination of human thought processes.

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 To a large extent, the early psychologists were students of Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920).

Beginning in 1875, Wundt directed more than 200 doctoral theses on psychological

topics (Leahey, 2000). Wundt continually updated his book Principles of Physiological

Psychology, reporting new results from his laboratory. He also founded the first

psychology journal, Philosophical Studies (neither of these titles matches its modern

connotations). Unfortunately, Wundt’s later interests went largely unrecognized until

recently (Leahey, 2000). His work on language, child psychology, and other applied

topics foreshadowed some modern insights but was rejected or ignored at the time. In

terms of psychology, Wundt believed that the study of psychology was “of conscious

processes and immediate experience”—what today we consider areas of sensation,

perception, and attention. To study these, in addition to extensive use of response time

measures, Wundt used the method of self-observation. This generally is known as

introspection, a method in which one looks carefully inward, reporting on inner

sensations and experiences. Wundt intended this to be a careful, reliable, and scientific

method in which the observers (who were also the participants) needed a great deal of

training to report only the elements of experience that were immediate and conscious.

Reports in which memory intruded were to be excluded.

 EDWARD TITCHENER

Edward also studied the structure of the conscious mind, sensations, images, and feelings

that were the very elements of the mind’s structure. He called this structuralism.

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FUNCTIONALISM

William James and Functionalism

American philosopher and psychologist, William James, a contemporary of Wundt, Titchener,

and Ebbinghaus, provided at Harvard an alternative to Titchener’s rigid system. His approach,

functionalism, was influenced by the writings of Darwin, in which the functions of

consciousness, rather than its structure, were of interest. Thus, James asked questions such as

“How does the mind function?” and “How does it adapt to new circumstances?” James’s

informal analyses led to some useful observations. For example, he suggested that memory

consists of two parts: an immediately available memory that we are currently aware of and a

larger memory that is the repository for past experience. The idea of memory being divided into

parts, based on different functions, is popular today. Indeed, the first serious models of human

cognition included the two kinds of memory James discussed in 1890. Probably because of his

personal distaste for experimentation and his far-reaching interests, James did not do much

research. However, his far-reaching ideas were more influential than any of Titchener’s work, as

evidence by his classic 1890 book Principles of Psychology. James’s influence on the

psychology of memory and cognition was delayed, however, for it was John B. Watson, in 1913,

who solidified a new direction in American psychology away from both the structuralist and

functionalist approaches. This new direction was behaviorism.

BEHAVIOURISM

Behaviorism is a theory of learning based on the idea that all behaviors are acquired through

conditioning, and conditioning occurs through interaction with the environment. Behaviorists b

According to this school of thought, also known as behavioral psychology, behavior can be

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studied in a systematic and observable manner regardless of internal mental states. Behavioral

theory also says that only observable behavior should be studied, as cognition, emotions, and

mood are far too subjective. Strict behaviorists believe that any person—regardless of genetic

background, personality traits, and internal thoughts— can be trained to perform any task, within

the limits of their physical capabilities. It only requires the right conditioning believe that our

actions are shaped by environmental stimuli.

 J. B. Watson

Most people who take introductory psychology know of John B. Watson, the early

behaviorist who stated in his 1913 “manifesto” that observable, quantifiable behavior was

the proper topic of psychology, not the fuzzy and unscientific concepts of thought, mind,

and consciousness. Attempts to understand the “unobservables” of mind were inherently

unscientific, in his view, and he pointed to the unresolved debates in structuralism as

evidence. As a result, psychology was redefined as the scientific study of observable

behavior, the program of behaviorism.

 B. F. Skinner

when B. F. Skinner emerged as a vocal, even extreme, advocate. In keeping with

Watson’s earlier sentiments, Skinner also argued that mental events such as thinking have

no place in the science of psychology—not that they are not real, but that they are

unobservable and hence unnecessary to a scientific explanation of behavior.

GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

Originating from the work of Max Wertheimer, Gestalt psychology formed in part as a response

to the structuralism of Wilhelm Wundt. Gestalt psychology is a school of thought that looks at

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the human mind and behavior as a whole. When trying to make sense of the world around us,

Gestalt psychology suggests that we do not simply focus on every small component. Instead, our

minds tend to perceive objects as elements of more complex systems. A core belief in Gestalt

psychology is holism, or that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This school of

psychology has played a major role in the modern development of the study of human sensation

and perception. While followers of structuralism were interested in breaking down psychological

matters into their smallest possible parts, Gestalt psychologists wanted instead to look at the

totality of the mind and behaviour. Guided by the principle of holism, Wertheimer and his

followers’ identified instances where perception was based on seeing things as a complete whole,

not as separate components.

ASSOCIATIONISM

Hermann Von Ebbinghaus

In contrast to Titchener’s structuralism, there was the theoretically modest but eventually more

influential work of Hermann von Ebbinghaus (see Chapter 6) . Ebbinghaus was a contemporary

of Wundt in Germany, although he never studied with Wundt in person. Ebbinghaus’s

achievements in studying memory and forgetting are all the more impressive because he worked

outside the establishment of the time. Historical accounts suggest that Ebbinghaus read Wundt’s

book, decided that a study of the mind by objective methods was possible, and set about the task

of figuring out how to do it.

Lacking a formal laboratory and in an academic position with no like-minded colleagues,

Ebbinghaus had to rely on his own resources, even to the extent that he alone served as a subject

in his research. Ebbinghaus’s aim was to study memory in a “pure” form. To do this, he needed

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materials that had no preexisting associations, so he constructed lists of nonsense syllables,

consonant– vowel–consonant (CVC) trigrams that, by definition, had no meaning. Ebbinghaus

would learn a list (e.g., of 16 items) to a criterion of mastery (e.g., two perfect recitations), then

set the list aside. Later, he would relearn the same list, noting how many fewer trials he needed

to relearn it. His measure of learning was the “savings score,” the number (or proportion) of

trials that had been saved in memory between the first and second sessions. With this method,

Ebbinghaus studied forgetting as a function of time, degree of learning or overlearning, and even

the effect of nonsense versus meaningful material (he compared forgetting curves for nonsense

syllables and meaningful poetry). Ebbinghaus’s work, described in his 1885 book, was

acclaimed widely as a model of scientific inquiry into memory; for instance, Titchener praised

Ebbinghaus’s work as the most significant progress since Aristotle It is difficult to point to

another psychologist of his day whose contributions or methods continue to be used. The field of

verbal learning owed a great deal to Ebbinghaus

THE “COGNITIVE REVOLUTION” AND THE BIRTH OF COGNITIVE SCIENCE

On September 11, 1956, Neisser, Miller, and Simon presented seminar papers at an MIT

symposium, giving birth to cognitive psychology. In 1957, Neisser published the pioneering

book on cognitive psychology. He outlined the ways in which people acquire, organize, store,

and apply knowledge in His work.

It is often difficult to determine precisely when historical change takes place. Still, many

psychologists look kindly on the idea that there was a cognitive revolution in the mid- to late

1950s, with a relatively abrupt change in research activities, interests, and the scientific beliefs, a

definitive break from behaviorism (Baars, 1986). Because of the nature and scope of these

changes, the current approach is seen by some as a revolution in which behaviorism was rejected

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and replaced with cognitive psychology, although some historians claim that this was not a true

scientific revolution but merely “rapid, evolutionary change” (Leahey, 1992). In either case, the

years from 1945 through 1960 were a period of rapid reform in experimental psychology.

In the mid-20th century, three main influences arose that would inspire and shape cognitive

psychology as a formal school of thought: With the development of new warfare technology

during WWII, the need for a greater understanding of human performance came to prominence.

Problems such as how to best train soldiers to use new technology and how to deal with matters

of attention while under duress became areas of need for military personnel. Behaviourism

provided little if any insight into these matters and it was the work of Donald Broadbent,

integrating concepts from human performance research and the recently developed information

theory, that forged the way in this area.

Developments in computer science would lead to parallels being drawn between human thought

and the computational functionality of computers, opening entirely new areas of psychological

thought. Allen Newell and Herbert Simon spent years developing the concept of artificial

intelligence (AI) and later worked with cognitive psychologists regarding the implications of AI.

This encouraged a conceptualization of mental functions patterned on the way that computers

handled such things as memory storage and retrieval, and it opened an important doorway for

cognitivism.

Noam Chomsky's 1959 critique of behaviourism, and empiricism more generally, initiated what

would come to be known as the "cognitive revolution". Inside psychology, in criticism of

behaviourism, J. S. Bruner, J. J. Goodnow & G. A. Austin wrote "a study of thinking" in 1956.

In 1960, G. A. Miller, E. Galanter and K. Pribram wrote their famous "Plans and the Structure of

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Behaviour". The same year, Bruner and Miller founded the Harvard Center for Cognitive

Studies, which institutionalized the revolution and launched the field of cognitive science.

Formal recognition of the field involved the establishment of research institutions such as

George Mandler's Center for Human Information Processing in 1964. Mandler described the

origins of cognitive psychology in a 2002 article in the Journal of the History of the Behavioural

Sciences Ulric Neisser put the term "cognitive psychology" into common use through his book

Cognitive Psychology, published in 1967. Neisser's definition of "cognition" illustrates the then-

progressive concept of cognitive processes:

The term "cognition" refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced,

elaborated, stored, recovered, and used. It is concerned with these processes even when they

operate in the absence of relevant stimulation, as in images and hallucinations. ... Given such a

sweeping definition, it is apparent that cognition is involved in everything a human being might

possibly do; that every psychological phenomenon is a cognitive phenomenon. But although

cognitive psychology is concerned with all human activity rather than some fraction of it, the

concern is from a particular point of view. Other viewpoints are equally legitimate and

necessary.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, it can be noted that, from the various transitions of psychology, cognitive

psychology happens to be a young discipline that has gone through several changes and schools

of thoughts and has helped in our ever-expanding knowledge about how we think, modify and

process information from the grass root. That is the Greek philosophers to our contemporary

times.

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References

Chomsky, N. (1959) Review of Verbal Behavior, by B.F. Skinner. Language 35: 26-57.

Chomsky, N. (1965) Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. |

Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity

for processing information. Psychological Review, 63 (2): 81–97.

Neisser, U (1967). Cognitive psychology. Appleton-Century-Crofts: New York

Newell, A., & Simon, H. (1972). Human problem solving. Prentice-Hall.

Skinner, B. F. (1950) Are theories of learning necessary? Psychological Review 57: 193-216.

Tolman E. C. (1948). Cognitive maps in rats and men. Psychological Review. 55, 189–208

Tolman, E. C., Hall, C. S., & Bretnall, E. P. (1932). A disproof of the law of effect and a

substitution of the laws of emphasis, motivation and disruption. Journal of Experimental

Psychology, 15(6), 601.

Treisman, A. M. (1969) Strategies and models of selective attention. Psychological Review 76:

282-299.

Watson, J.B. (1913) Psychology as the behaviorist views it, Psychological Review 20: 158-177.

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