Cognitive Perspective

1
Cognitive Perspective

• Historical and Cultural Conditions
• Assumptions

2
Historical and Cultural Contexts

• Reaction against Behavioralism
• By the 1950 and 1960s many psychologists believed
  that the Behavioralist perspective had reached a
  dead end.

3
Historical and Cultural Contexts

• Why?
• The focus on observable behavior was too narrow
  and reductionist. (Chomsky challenge to Skinner.)
• Work by Kohler and Tolman suggested the
  importance of internal mental processes

4
Historical and Cultural Contexts

• World War 2
• The need to assign millions of men to various
  roles in the military service focused attention
  of performance.

5
Historical and Cultural Contexts

• Development in computer science
• Advances in computer science gave psychologist a
  metaphor needed to investigate the human mind.

6
Historical and Cultural Contexts

• Development in computer science
• The computer became a model of the mind and
  various models of information processing
  generated huge interest and extensive
  experimentation to test the validity of theses
  models.

7
Historical and Cultural Contexts

• Brain Imaging
• Developments in brain imaging helped cognitive
  psychologists uncover links between biological
  and cognitive processes.

8
Historical and Cultural Contexts

• Development
• By the 1980s it emerged as the dominant
  perspective in psychology

9
Assumption

• Cognitive Psychologists assume that
• Mental processes can and should be investigated
  scientifically.
• This was a rejection of the Behavioralist view
  that only observable behavior can be studied
  scientifically

10
Assumptions

• Cognitive Psychologists assume that
• Cognitive processes actively organize and
  manipulate information that we receive.
• This was also a rejection of Behavioralists who
  believed that humans are shaped by the
  environment.

11
Assumptions

• Cognitive psychologists assume that psychological
  processes like memory can be modeled and
  experimentation undertaken on the basis of these
  models.

12
Assumptions

• Cognitive psychologists assume that
• Animals can be studied to help us understand
  human behavior.