Where did this come from?! The history of Cognitive Psychology

                For those of you who don’t know, Cognitive Psychology is one branch on the “Tree of Psychology;” this branch is concerned with the scientific and empirical study of the mind. What is the mind? It’s an abstract thought to some, intangible and almost indescribable. Where is the line drawn differentiating between the mind and the brain? Is there a difference?

                Cognitive psychologists believe there is. When we think of the brain we think of that somewhat wrinkly-looking, butt-shaped mass hanging out in our heads. We think of neurotransmitters and synapses. We think biology. However, when we think of the mind we tend to think about consciousness, conscientiousness, decision-making, and perhaps spirituality: the mind-body connection.

                The mind creates and controls mental functions we use every day from perception and attention, to memory, emotions, language, and reasoning. However, aside from saying so, is there any way to truly separate the brain from the mind and vice versa? Can you have a brain and not have a mind?

                Okay, so that’s unlikely. However, a lot of things seemed unlikely not so long ago in this fairly new field. In 1868 a Dutch physiologist by the name of Franciscus Donders wanted to know just how long it takes to make a decision. How can that be measured? Donders measured reaction time (the time it takes to respond to the presentation of a stimulus, i.e. a picture or light): simple reaction time (reaction time to one stimulus) v. choice reaction time (reaction time to choose between multiple stimuli). This was the first dabble in the field of Cognitive Psychology, before it was a recognized field (or even named).

                Fast forward to the 1890s when the still unnamed field revolved around introspection. William James published a textbook based on introspections of his own mind – he basically wrote a textbook about his thoughts and feelings about his own thoughts and feelings. It was slightly roundabout, but it was progress. However, once the early 1900s hit, the “Tree of Psychology” was overpowered by behaviorism. Behaviorists believed in studying observable behavior/behavioral changes and chose to forget about the mind as an entity. They believed all behavior was caused by responses to stimuli and that introspection was entirely too flawed.

                Okay, so perhaps introspection wasn’t perfect. Neither was behaviorism. However, both were necessary to the birth of Cognitive Psychology. While John Watson evoked a fear of small, white things in a 9-month old baby (Google “Little Albert”) and B.F. Skinner made rats run around and learn to push bars, they were really leading up to the Cognitive Revolution. Chance Tolman, a self-proclaimed behaviorist, was actually a cognitive psychologist before the title existed. When Tolman studied rats as they explored a maze, he came to learn that perhaps rats are capable of developing cognitive maps – no matter where the rat is relocated, it is capable of finding the reward (food). Perhaps there is something to this whole “mind” nonsense (light bulb!).

                The 1950s marked the Cognitive Revolution, 1956 being noted as “the birthday of cognitive science.” Much curiosity spurred during this time, from Cherry’s attention and recollection experiment to the beginnings of artificial intelligence to the number of items the human mind is capable of processing (seven, plus or minus two – George Miller). Cognitive Psychology built off of behaviorism, but while it measures behavior it also infers mental processes. In 1967 Ulrich Nesser published the first Cognitive Psychology textbook.

                Think of how long ago 1967 was – likely you or your parents were alive at this time or perhaps before it. Cognitive Psychology became a more recognized and respected field after both of my parents were born – this is a baby science! Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It depends how you look at it. It can be said that because it is a newer field it does not have as much information as other fields; however this is good news to the optimist and innovator and bad news to the reader and note-taker. You have the chance to make discoveries in this field, more so than some other, more-developed fields. If you’re not interested in psychology at all, you likely have a friend or relative who is. How cool would it be to read his/her name in a textbook or see him/her on the news talking about the latest ground-breaking research? Cognitive Psychology has become a subarea where you have the chance to make a name for yourself, connect the mind and behavior, and understand why people see things, remember things, decide things the way they do. So while there may be much currently left unanswered, there is still much that has been answered and much more waiting to be discovered.

Well, I know this was a rather historical post, but without reading about the history of Cognitive Psychology and how it came to be, how could you enjoy my future posts about how it is seen in our daily lives? Keep an eye here to read more about perception, illusions, multi-tasking, etc. I promise you’ll learn at least one new thing in every post!