Editing Cognitive psychology (section)

==History==
Philosophically, ruminations on the human mind and its processes have been around since the times of the [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greeks]]. In 387 BCE, [[Plato]] had suggested that the brain was the seat of the mental processes.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/courses/1010/mangels/neuro/history/history.html |title=Mangels, J. History of neuroscience |publisher=Columbia.edu |access-date=2014-08-13}}</ref> In 1637, [[René Descartes]] posited that humans are born with [[innate]] ideas and forwarded the idea of [[Dualism (philosophy of mind)|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).<ref name="Malone">Malone, J.C. (2009). ''Psychology: Pythagoras to Present''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. (a pp. 143, b pp. 293, c pp. 491)</ref> From that time, major debates ensued through the 19th century regarding whether human thought was solely experiential ([[empiricism]]), or included innate knowledge ([[Psychological nativism|nativism]]). 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.<ref name="Anderson">Anderson, J.R. (2010). ''Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications''. New York: Worth Publishers.</ref>

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,<ref name="Malone" /> and [[Carl Wernicke]]'s discovery of an area thought to be mostly responsible for comprehension of language.<ref>Eysenck, M.W. (1990). ''Cognitive Psychology: An International Review''. West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. (pp. 111)</ref> 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 [[Expressive aphasia|Broca's aphasia]] and [[Receptive aphasia|Wernicke's aphasia]].{{cn|date=July 2024}}

From the 1920s to the 1950s, the main approach to psychology was [[behaviorism]]. Initially, its adherents viewed mental events such as thoughts, ideas, attention, and consciousness as unobservable, hence outside the realm of a science of psychology. One early pioneer of cognitive psychology, whose work predated much of behaviorist literature, was [[Carl Jung]]. Jung introduced the hypothesis of [[Jungian cognitive functions|cognitive functions]] in his 1921 book ''[[Psychological Types]]''.<ref name="PsychTypes">{{Cite book |title=Psychological Types |last=Jung |first=C. G. |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1971 |isbn=978-1-4008-5086-0 |series=Collected Works of C. G. Jung |volume=6 |translator-last=Adler |translator-first=Gerhard |jstor=j.ctt5hhqtj |orig-year=1921 |translator-last2=Hull |translator-first2=R. F. C. }}</ref> Another pioneer of cognitive psychology, who worked outside the boundaries (both intellectual and geographical) of behaviorism, was [[Jean Piaget]]. From 1926 to the 1950s and into the 1980s, he studied the thoughts, language, and intelligence of children and adults.<ref name="AboutPiaget">Smith, L. (2000). About Piaget. Retrieved from http://piaget.org/aboutPiaget.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190824192513/http://piaget.org/aboutPiaget.html |date=2019-08-24 }}</ref>

In the mid-20th century, four main influences arose that would inspire and shape cognitive psychology as a formal school of thought:
* With the development of new warfare technology during [[World War II|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. [[Behaviorism]] 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.<ref name="Anderson" />
* Developments in computer science would lead to parallels being drawn between human thought and the computational functionality of computers, opening entirely new areas of [[Computationalism|psychological thought]]. [[Allen Newell]] and [[Herbert A. Simon|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,<ref name="Anderson" /> and it opened an important doorway for [[Cognitivism (psychology)|cognitivism]].
* [[Noam Chomsky]]'s 1959 critique<ref name="Chomsky 1959">Chomsky, N. A. (1959), ''A Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior''</ref> of behaviorism, and empiricism more generally, initiated what would come to be known as the "[[cognitive revolution]]". Inside psychology, in criticism of behaviorism, J. S. Bruner, J. J. Goodnow & G. A. Austin wrote "a study of thinking" in 1956. In 1960, [[George Armitage Miller|G. A. Miller]], [[Eugene Galanter|E. Galanter]] and [[Karl H. Pribram|K. Pribram]] wrote their famous "Plans and the Structure of Behavior". 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 Behavioral Sciences.<ref name=Mandler>Mandler, G. (2002). Origins of the cognitive (r)evolution. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 38, 339–353.</ref>

{{anchor|Neisser}}[[Ulric Neisser]] put the term "cognitive psychology" into common use through his book ''Cognitive Psychology'', published in 1967.<ref name=Neisser>Neisser, U. (1967). ''Cognitive Psychology''. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Neisser's definition on page 4.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|date=2012-04-27|title=Remembering the Father of Cognitive Psychology|url=https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/remembering-the-father-of-cognitive-psychology|journal=APS Observer|language=en-US|volume=25|issue=5}}</ref> Neisser's definition of "cognition" illustrates the then-progressive concept of cognitive processes:

<blockquote>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. [[Psychodynamics|Dynamic psychology]], which begins with motives rather than with sensory input, is a case in point. Instead of asking how a man's actions and experiences result from what he saw, remembered, or believed, the dynamic psychologist asks how they follow from the subject's goals, needs, or instincts.<ref name=Neisser/></blockquote>