Cognitive Psychology and History

Cognitive Psychology History

PSY/355

March 12, 2013

Norma Turner

Cognitive Psychology and History

The American Psychological Association (APA) defines cognitive psychology as “ The study of higher mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, and thinking. " (2002, APA) This branch of psychology is a mixture of disciplines, including neuroscience, linguistics, and philosophy. •The formal discipline of “Cognitive Psychology” started in the mid-1900s during the cognitive revolution, and the term ‘cognitive psychology’ did not emerge until the late1960’s. There were a large amount of physiologist and scientists, which contributed to this formal discipline such, as Franciscus Cornelis Donders, Wilhelm Wundt, B.F. Skinner, and James. Cognitive psychology is broken down into four main areas; 1) perception processes (acquiring information via stimuli 2) memory processes (learning = putting something in memory, recalling facts = fetching from memory) 3) Thought processes (reasoning, analyzing, problem-solving) 4) Language processes (communication with others) from the environment: vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, One of the best ways to view the brain is a Computed Tomography Scan Or CT Scan, which gives a three dimensional view of the structure. Another way is a fMRI or MRI, which is a magnetic resonance imaging provides better resolution than a CT scan. There are many was to research cognitive psychology such as natural observation, case studies, and psychobiological research.

The first milestone occurred in 1868, by a philosopher named Franciscus Cornelis Donders, who deliberated how long it took the average person to come to a decision. Donders used (RT) or Reaction