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Cogn~t~on
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W H AT I S C O G N I T I V E PSYCHOLOGY?
Cognitive psychology is the study of thinking, or of"mind." More specifically, it is the
branch of psychology that studies mental processes such as perception, attention, memory, concept formaUon, problem solving, and similar facets of thinking. Ir emerged as
a distinct subdiscipline of psychology in the 1940s, 1950s, and 190s as a result of the
The Innate Mind and Acquired Mind: The Rationalist and Empiricist Traditions
converging interests of psychologists, anthropologists, computer programmers, engineers, linguists, philosophers, and other sciensts.
This chapter traces some of the major roots of modern cognitive psychology
through the development ofmodels of the mind as rational, as empirical, as associational,
as brain, as neural networks, as strucmral, as holistic and constructive, as ftmctiona]
and adaptive, as a language processor, and as an information processor and computational device. The arbitrary dividing lines between these models of mind and their roots
are drawn for convenience. They reflect different themes in the historical roots of cognitive psychology. These themes ate illustrated in Figure 1.1.
T H E I N N AT E M I N D A N D A C Q U I R E D M I N D : T H E R AT I O N A L I S T
AND EHPIRICIST TRADITIONS
Our first records o.f philosophers pondering th~se quesuons in ah organized manner go
back to 400 BCE. The fundamental direcfions that their answers took, empiricism and
rationalism, continue to drive modern theory and research in cognitive psychology.
These two enduring philosophical perspectives began with the Greeks Socrates
(c. 470 BCE-399 BCE) and Plato (c. 428 BCE-348 BCE), who laid the foundation for
rauonalism, and Plato's smdent, Aristotle (384 BCE-322 BCE), who developed empiricism. Rauonalism, derived from the Latn word for reason, is the philosophical posiuon
that knowledge is primarily of entirely derived f-com "reason." This worldview argues
that reason shapes our organization of experience. RaUonalists often argue that we
possess innate ideas, organizing tendencies, or innate cogniUve mechanisms, which
determine the namre of human knowledge.
The Greek and Laun roots of empiricism mean experience. Accordingly, empirical theories ofknowledge attribute a greater role to the acquisition ofknowledge from
sensory experience. Often the empieist posiuon is called the "blank slate" posiuon,
taken from the philosopher John Locke's argument that we ate born with the mechanism for forming assoeiations, but that the initial source ofknowledge about the organizafion of the external world is through sensory information.
Plato and Soerates (ir is difficult to know which ideas ate attributable to either)
developed a view of knowledge that provides the intellectual precursor to rationalism.
An early exposition of rationalism is found in one of Plato's works, Meno, which presents a dialogue between Socrates and a slave boy. Meno, ah aristocrat, has asked Socrates
whe~er virme is something that is taught or is present in all humans. To demonstrate
the innateness of knowledge, Socrates conducts a diatogue with one ofMeno's uneducated slave boys. Socrates draws a figure in the sand and demonstrates that the boy
does not know how to mathemafically compute twice the atea of a square. In the dialogue Socrates asks the slave a series of questions, which ultimately lead to the boy's discovery of the correct mathematical pr'mciple.
Socrates and Plato proposed that the dialogue with the boy provided the experience to reveal innate knowledge. A weak forro of this posifion is that the boy, by vlrtue
of being human, inherited cognitive mechanisms capable of the reasoning necessarv to
TABLE I. I
Table of Rationalist and Empiricist Beginnings
c. 47013cE-399 BCE)
Socrates
c. 428 BCE-348 BCE
Plato
c. 384 BCE-322 BCE
Aristotle
Rationalism: The mind is innately prepared

to construct reality
Empiricism: Experience constructs the mind
attain and org~/nize knowledge. A strong form of this position is that all knowledge or
particular cognitive skills, such as language, are inherited as knowledge mechanisms.
In contrast to his teacher, Aristotle proposed that knowledge is derived from experience, or from sensory informafion. He was aware that the information provided to the
mind was transformed by the sensory apparatus, and he argued that reasoning was used
to make sense of the external world. However, Aristotle took the position that the physical world as we imagine it was the real world and that sensory information provided
an accurate representation of ir. He agreed with Plato that the mind abstracted ideas
from sensory information but proposed that the mind did so merely by identifying the
similarities and differences between and among things.
From Aristotle's point ofview, experiencing many "dogs" resuhs in the acquisition
of their common features. The common features are "associated," and that association
becomes the general concept of"dog." Aristotle's concept of"innate" cognitive capacity was the mind's ability to associate events and objects that occur together in time
(contiguity) and have commonalities (similarity) or differences (contras@. For Aristotle
the objects of the mind's consciousness were "images," of either imagined objects or
images obtained as a result of sensory stimulation by external objects (perception).
Thus, his model of mind, similar to that of the associationist psychologists discussed
later, was a model of associations among internalized images. These images were the
elements of thought.
Aristofle also developed a formal, syllogistic reasoning system. Perhaps the most
well known example is as follows: All men ate mortal; Socrates is a man; tberefore. Socrates
ir mortal. This type ofreasoning became the fotmdation for studies of logic and reasoning
for thousands of years and, uhimately, for the development of artificial intelligence.
This is covered in more detail in Chapter 13.
The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages refers to a division ofEuropean history ffom approximately the fall
of the Roman Empire in the 5th cenmrv to the beginning of the Renaissance in the 15th
cenmry, during which explosive growda in the arts, sciences, and education occurred.
The Roman Catholic Church held great polical power in Europe during the Mddle
Ages, and most scholarship occurred within the confines of the church. During this
CHAPTER l Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

FIGURE 1.2
Aristotle and Plato in the Center of Raphael's "School of Athens."
Plato represents philosophy, rationalism, poetry, and abstract thinking, and
Aristotle represents era piricism, Iogic, and science.The remainder of the painting
places the classical philosophers and scientists on Plato or Aristotle's side, representing the fundamental division between rationalism (Plato) and empiricism
(Aristotle).
period, church scholars, called the scholastics, debated a number of issues that are of
significance for the development of modern cognitive psychologT. The scholastics continued to develop variations on the rationalist and empiricist themes identified by Plato
and Aristode. They debated the nature of knowledge and in so doing hy-pothesized the
nature of the mind's representations of the world.
A key scholastic debate that remains relevant for current models of concept formation was the issue of"particulars" (e.g., individual dogs) versus "universals" (the concept of dog). Plato argued that universals, such as "dogg3rness," existed outside our
minds and that we could not even experience ir. Aristotle had argued that universals were
a mental association, an abstraction of common features. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274),
TABLE 1.2
The Middle Ages Summary
The Middle Ages
c. 1200-1400
Thomas Aquinas and the scholastics
Abstraction ofinternal representafions from

experience
Roger Bacon
Proposed the experimental method
William of Ockham
Ockham's razor: do not propose unnecessary

entities in your theory
indisputably the most influential of the scholastics, took Astotle's associauonal model
a step fin*_her. He argued that "singular incidents" (e.g., the sight ofyour ca0 were converted into a generalized internal representauon--a coneeptual category (e,g., the general category "cat"). This model of mind proposed that sensory experience was
transformed by the mind into an internal object, what today eogniuve psychologists
call a representation. This provided the foundauon for modern eoncepts of the representation of knowledge as internalized objects that could be related, combined, and
organized without any need for external stimulaUon.
Toward the end of the Middle Ages, two scholasUes, Roger Bacon and William of
Ockham, also laid the philosophieal foundations for experimental scienee. Roger Bacon
(c. 1214-1294) agreed that the two modes of acquiring knowledge are reasoning and
experience. However, he argued that reasoned knowledge, the top-down, abstractions
of expefienee, might not be true or testable. He proposed that the only method of
explong this problem is carefullyconstrueted experiments; reasoned beliefs must be
verified through systemaUc experimentation. His position provided the foundation for
the modern "scientific method." William of Ockham (c. 1288-c. t348) is best known
for what later became known as "Ockham's Razor,, a posiuon that stated, "It is vain
to do with more what can be done with less." In other words, don't overly complieate
your theory; do not propose enuties that are unnecessary of that add nothing to your
ability to describe or predict those phenomena in which you ate interested. His dictum
"
e stabhshes
crxtena beyond Bacon s experimental method. As we shall see, this posuon
is consistent with the later development of lo#cal positivism and behaviorism.
The Continuing Debate: Descartes' Mincl as Rational
and Locke's Mind as Empirical
The debate between rationalism and empiricism arose again in the 17th century.
Though many philosophers joined the arguments, two of the primary figures were
Ren Descartes and John Locke.
Ren Descartes (1596-1650) and the Innate Mind. The scholasucs often
attempted to bridge Platonic raonalism, with its emphasis on top-down construction
of external reality with Aristotelian empiricism's bottom-up emphasis on sensory
CHAPTER I Introduction:to Cognitive Psychology

FIGURE 1.3
Ren Descartes (I 596-1650), the Rationalist and John Locke ( 1632-1704),
the Empiricist.
Ren Descartes (1596-1650)
John Locke (1632-1704)
informationas the foundation for an internal construcUon of the world. Ren Descartes,
almost 2,000 years after Plato, formalized radonalism and rejected Aristotelian
empifieism and the attempts to bridge rationalism with empiricism. Though Descartes
eontended that knowledge must be obtained through systemtie invesUgauon, he was
a raonalist. He proposed that our world is construeted, at least parUally, as a result of
innate ideas--inborn ways of extraeting knowledge from experience.
Deseartes argued that reasoning must proeeed systematically. The first principle of
hisposion, ealled methodological doubt, proposed that everything must be doubted.
Ultimately, he eoneluded that only the existenee of doubt proved our own existente.
Fundamen~tally, this was an argument that we cannot trust our senses, However, the
most cmpelling argument for his posiuon may not be his carefuf, methodical analysis
of how he reached this conclusion, but his "what-if" story. What if there were an allpowerful evil genius set on fooling us?
Recognizing that we can have dreams that seem as real as the experienees of our
waking life and that our senses can be fooled, he asked how we would know what was
real and not real. The evil genius may have provided us with flawed eognitive abilities
and experiences such that we ould never know what was real and not real. Ultimately
Descartes concluded that there would be no way to distinguish reality from unreality.
This leaves only knowledge that does not require experience. An example is mathematical knowledge. Descartes argued that we don't have to eneounter all "twos of
things" and "fours of things" to know that two plus two equals four. However, even
mathematieal knowledge is at risk; there is always the danger that the evil genius might
be also toying with our logical processes. Therefore what is left? He eoncluded, "I think
TABLE 1.3
Descartes and Locke Empiricism Summary
Descartes' Rationalism
1225-1274
Ren Descartes
Methodological Doubt: Al1 we can know is

consciousness
Innate Constructionism: we possess an innate
capacity to construct the external world
Locke's Empiricism
c. 1214-1294
John Locke
Assoeiation of Ideas: Reason and knowledge

are derived from expenence
Complex Ideas are pereeptual abstraetions of
sensory experience
therefore I am"; only the existence of selfwas left because one could not doubt ir there
were no doubter.
Descartes argued that the mind establishes ah internal representation of things in
the outside world. We do not know the world "out there." We only know the world in
our mind. This is analogously the same as a man pointing to a photograph and saying,
"That is my wife." His is actually making reference to an internal idea, his wife, rather
than to an objeet. Thus, although he recognized sensory expeence as the source of a
great deal of knowledge, Deseartes concluded that what is learned by means of the
senses could not be u-usted. He coneluded that the foundation for reasoning was innate
and distincfly human.
Descartes was aware of the need to explain the complex behaviors of animals. He
did so by viewing them as automata; he saw them as a mere collection of reflex ares
without a soul or mind. He knew of Harvey's discovery of the heart as a pump and the
vascular system as a hydraulie system. He imagined that the sensory system connected
to the mind and then back to the motor system so that, for instante, a burning sensation on the hand might iniuate a motor response; the sensation was "reflected" by the
brain back to the musdes of the hand and arre, thus forming a reflex are. In this respect,
Descartes' thinking can be traced back to the automata of 400 BCE, statues that moved
their heads, arras, and eyes in a humanlike fashion. Nevertheless, Descartes saw no
connuum between animals and man. He reserved reason for humans.
John Locke U 632-1704). and the Blank Slate
All ideas come from sensation of reflection.-Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say,
white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished? Whence
comes ir by that vast store, which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on ir
with an almost endless variety? Whence has ir all the materials of reason and knowledge?
To this 1 answer, in one word, From experience. (Locke, 1690)
CHAPTER ]
[ntroduction to Cognitive Psychology
FIGURE 1.4
Descartes' Illustration of a Reflex Arc.
A number of philosophers, in contrast to Descartes, argued that sensation, or

experience, created knowledge; and knowledge was represented in the mind as a state
of associaons. Ir was Locke, however, who coined the term "association of ideas" and
firmly established associaonism as a comprehensive philosophical model. His Essay
Concerning Human Understanding, one of the most influential works of the 17th cenmry, was a direct response to Descartes' concept of innate ideas (Locke, 1690). Locke
argued that the belief in innate ideas was intellectuaUy lazy, .permitting avoidance of
the hard work of determining the external source experience. He proposed that
prior to experience, the mind is a "blank date." Events occurring together in time or
space form associations. Ideas emerged from combinaons of sensory information and
their subsequent associations. And more abstract ideas resulted from combinations of
simpler ideas.
Mind as Associations
!!
Locke was aware that in the act of percepon we infer a more complete, or
expected, image than is immediately present in the sensory informaon. Thus, a
globe seen in shadow is still perceived as a complete ball, rather than a set ofparts of
a potential ball. However, Locke took the position that it was the histo~ of personal
sensations that formed the expectafions for perception. From his perspective, we see
the complete figure because we have experienced the parts together in time and space
previously; the mind has established a "habit" of perceiving certain sensory configurations as a whole.
H I N D A S A S S O C l AT I O N S
By the 1800s the fundamental notion of"mind as associations" was widely accepted.
A group of English psychologists developed a systematic associational model of mind.
They proposed expar~, ding the simple descriptions ofassociations to consideraon of
more complex thoughts, often conceptualized as an internal "mental chemistrv."
James Mili (1773-1836), a British philosopher, economist, and historian, proposed ~at
sensations, in the associationist tradition, were the building blocks of more complex
associaons. Mill grouped mental events into sensations and ideas. An idea, he postulated, is an afterimage of a sensation, a "representation or trace of the sensation."
He further suggested that these traces varied in strength according to their history
of arousal. Vivid associations were associated with emotion and pleasure or pain. A
history of frequent association, and degree of vividness of the associations, determined their strength. He theorized that frequent and vivid associations could "spring
up" as though they were independent of the chain of associations that stimulated
their appearance. Further, when associations are frequently combined, it becomes
difficult for one to occur without reference to the other, thus establishing a universal representation of the object or idea. Thus the idea of an orange always includes
both color and shape.
James Mill's son, John Stuart Mili (1806-1873), suggested that the mechanistic
conception of bis father's association theory was better understood as a "chemical"
combination. When two chemicals, or associations, unite, they form a new compound
with its own characteristics. This results in an inseparability of the components of an
idea. Thus, complex ideas ate formed and generated from simpler ideas, but complex
ideas do not consist of simpler ones. We don't conceive of an orange as a composite of
color, shape, taste, texture, weight, and so on. We conceive of ir as a whole, a coalescing of the components. We do not experience green as a combinaon of blue and yellow; their combinafion creates a new color--an emergent characteristic not seen in
either of its parts.
Most associationist theories assumed some fundamental brain system that accomplished these tasks of making, changing, and organizing associations. Understanding how this might be accomplished required developments in neurology and
neurophysiology.
12
CHAPTER I Introduction to Cognive Psychology
M I N D A S B R A I N : N E U R O L O G Y, P H R E N O L O G Y,
AND NEUROPSYCHOLOGY
Ah archeologist, Edwin Smith, discovered an Egyptian surgical text written in the "Old
Kingdom" about 3000-2500 BCE. Case No. 22, titled, "Instructions concerning a smash
in the temple," reports that damage in the temple region may lead to speechlessness.
Undoubtedly similar observations were made over many centuries o accidental injuries
and battle wounds. Physicians observed specific losses of cognitive ftmction after brain
damage, but just as often they observed unpredictable results arguing against any localization of cognitive function in particular brain regions.
However, by the early 1800s Franz Gall (1757-1828) and his student, Johann
Spurzheim (1776-1832), were strongly arguing for localization of function in different
regions of the brain. Using clues from neurological cases and a great deal of unsubst~ntiated speculation, Gall proposed that the bumps on the skull reflected greater development
of underlying brain tissue and that different regions of the brain accounted for different
human "faculties," such as self-esteem, humor, memor~ imagination, judgment, and so on.
Feeling the pattern of bumps on sufface of the skuU permitted the skilled "phrenologist,"
as they were called, to determine which faculties were most developed in the individual.
Thus, Gall, Spurzheim, and even carnival workers could read the bumps on an individual's
skull and develop a descption ofthat person's personality. This was accomplished with the
same public curiosity and success as is astrology and, uhimately, brought scientific discredit to both the idea of phrenology a~d to the reputations of Gall and Spurzheim.
However, the idea underlying phrenology was that cognifive functions were localized in different brain regions. This idea was both supported and disputed by decades
of neurological cases with damage to specific brain areas and animal research, in which
different regions of the brain were destroyed to discover what ability might be eliminated of retained. Ir often seemed that for each case in which it appeared that damage
to a specific area resulted in a loss of a specific function, other cases were reported that
contradicted the finding.
However, in 18l, Paul Broca (182~-1880) presented two apparently similar cases to
the Socit4 d' Anthopologie in Pas (Broca, 1863), which renewed interest in localizing
human cognive processes in parucular brain regions. One case, a man named Lelong,
TABLE 1.4
Mind as Brain
3000-2500 B.C.E.
The Smith Papyrus
Function is localized in the brain
1757-1828
1776-1832
Franz Gall & Johannes

Spurzheim
Phrenology: Different cognitive faculties

are located in different cortical regions of
the brain
1824-1880
Paul Broca (1861)
Localization of productive speech: in the

left third frontal convolution of the
cerebral cortex
Mind as Brain: Neurology, Phrenology, and Neuropsychology

FIGURE 1.5
A Phrenology Skull.
presented with a loss ofspeech, and dung autopsT, it was discovered that he had severe
damage to the "third convolution of the left frontal cortex," which has, since that time,
been called Brocas area. The second case was that ofLeborgne, a 51-year-old man with
paralysis on the right side ofhis body, who had lost the power to say anything other than
the word tan. After bis death, only a few weeks after the case of Lelong, ah autopsy confirmed Broca's assumption that he had suffered severe damage to the left frontal lobe.
A number of other neurologists had identified speech disorders with damage to the
left frontal area, but as is often the case in science, the zeitgeist, the scientific atmosphere,
was ready for Brocas report. Ironically, recent research using modern neuroimaging on the
original brains has revealed that although Broca's cases superficially showed circumscribed
damage to the left frontal lobes, the damage was more extensive in both cases, extending
deeply into the brain and even extending back to the left temporal lobes. Undoubtedly
Broca's conclusions would have been less convincing were this known at the time.
CHAPTER I
Introduction m Cognive Psychology
FIGURE 1.6
The Brain of Lelong, One of Broca's Patients, about to be Scanned.
Source: Smith, 2007, p. 957; Dronkers et al., 2007:
Broca was actually more circtnnspect in idendfying a "language" area. He suggested

that the left frontal region was particular to "articulate speech" and that other language
functions were accomplished by other cortical regions. He also suggested that the frontal
lobes were involved in many other funcfions that today we call "executive ftmcfions," such
as reasoning, judgment, planning, and decision making. A few years after Broca's papers,
Carl Wernicke (1848 1905), who had published several papers on language disorders
(aphasia), identified the left superior temporal ,g3a'us (Wernicke's area) as a location that,
ir damaged, led to recepdve aphasia in which the patient was unable to understand speech.
These case studies signaled a shift toward acceptance of localization of cognitive
function. Nature, through strokes, bullet wounds, blows to the head, tumors, and so
on, provides clinical experiments that reveal how the brain partitions the cognive
processes of the mind. As we will see later, these clinical cases continue to influence
the development of cognitive psychology.
MIND AS A NETWORK: FROM NEURONS TO ASSEMBLIES

OF NEURONS
D avid Hardey (1705-1757), ah English physician and philosopher, was one of the first
to explicitly propose a model of how brain accomplishes mind. He proposed that the
physical energy that created sensations, light waves, sound waves, and so on generated
Mind as a Network: From Neurons to Assemblies of Neurons

"vibrations" m nerves, which in turn created miniature vibrafions in the brain. These
vibrauons remained after the sensory sumulafion ceased and provided the foundation
for the internal representafion of objects, ideas, and memory. Events occurring in time
or space produced localized vibrafions that overlapped like the waves produced by several pebbles tossed into a pond. The resulung compounded vibrafions formed associations and more complex ideas (Hardey, 1749).
Today Hartley's nofion of how brain accomplished representafions of external
objects and the associafions between experiences and ideas seems highly fanciful. But
in 1749 knowledge of the brain was limited to crude neuroanatomy. Isaac Newton
(1643 1727) had recently demonstrated that light was composed ofvibrafions (waves)
of energy, and .this provided Hartley with a mechanism for associaons. It was not unfil
the late 1700s that the brain cell, the neuron, was undiscovered. The discovery of the
neuron, the nature of the connecfions between neurons, the speedofnervous conducnon, and psychophysical measurements made the synthesis of associafionist models of
mind and assemblies of brain cells inevitable.
In 1873 Alexander Bain (1811-1877) anficipated later theories ofneural networks
in the first compretiensive textbook of psychology (Bain, 1873). Although others had
suggested how connecons were made between neurons Bain was the first to theorize
that neural networks underlie learrng and memory. He proposed that individual brain
cells were connected by excitatory links to other cells in a group of cells and that each
cell in the group responds to the degree of stimulati0n ir receives from other cells in
its grouping.
According to Bain, categories of objects, such as "dogs," were the result of the
overlapping patterns of neural stimulaon. He proposed that if we see 100 different
dogs, theexpeence is accompanied by 100 slightly different neural patterns. But over
me, each idea oa specific dog generates ah overlapping pattern of activation, reflecting the common attributes of these individuals, and this becomes the general category.
Thus, Hartley's overlapping vibraons are realized in the common pattern of a neural
network. Bain's illustraon of this is seen in Figure 1.7.
Others proposed similar models integrating new knowledge about how the physical brain worked as it became available. William James (1842-1910) noted that recurng stimulaon of patterns of neural stimulation would strengthen subsequent arousal
of those colmections and that the pattern ofneuronal arousal would reflect the history
of stimulafion in the Weight of the connections (see Figure 1.7).
Though best known for his theory of personality de~:elopment, Sigmtmd Freud
(1856-1939) was trained as a neurologist and dearly kept current with developments
in neur~ganatomy. In his monograph, Project Towards a Scientific Psycbology, he outlined
ah elaborate model ofhow networks of brain cells might accomplish many of the psychological functions that he viewed as essential to an understanding of mind (Freud,
1895). Freud decided that the "project" was premature, and he filed it away. It was
published posthumously in 1950. His illustration, similar to Bain's, is also illustrated
in Figure 1.7.
In the 1920s and 1930s interest in building models of mind based on neuronal networks diminished. However, Karl S. Lashley's (1890-1958) failed search for the
"engram," the physical locafion of neurons or constellations of neurons that accounted
!S
CHAPTER I Introduction to Cogniuve Psychology

FIGURE 1.7
Illustration of the Evolution of Cell Assemblies.
for memory, led to the conclusion that memory must be represented not in a place
but in a pattern of neuronal connecUons. Lashley taught rats to navigate mazes and
then sliced and diced their brains in various ways in a fuUle attempt to locate memory.
This research suggested that memory did not have a single locaon but was located
everywhere in the cortex. He concluded that neural activity was distributed throughout the cortex, a concept he labeled mass acUon. He also observed that when a loss of
funcUon followed damage to une cortical region, neighboring regions would adapt to
accomplish the lost ftmcUon. He labeled this uniformity of capacity across cortical
regions equipotenUality. Lashley was well aware that the principles of mass acuon
and equipotenUality led to the conclusion that memory was a result of patterns ofneural connections, but ir was one ofhis students, Donald Hebb (1904-1985),:who brought
this general idea to fruition.
The Mind as Structure
17
Hebb (1943) argued that repeated stimulation of a particular assembly of neurons

increased the probability that these neurons would tire and stimulate one another. This,
according to Hebb, is the basis for learning. As shown in one of his illustrations (Figure 1.7), ifneuronA first activates neuron B, which then activates neuron C, and so on,
one of the subsequent neurons can reactivates neuron A. This loop strengthens itself
through this self-stimulation. Hypothetically, driven by experience, these simple loops,
which actually involved thousands of cells, would become integrated with more complex neuronal assemblies.
THE HIND AS STRUCTURE

Structuralism is the view that mental experience is the result of a combination of simple, nonmeanJng~ elements of events. Meaning results from associations among these
simple elements that are formed through experience. Once these associations ate present, the individual is.only able to perceive the meaningful whole unless trained to break
down experience into its fundamental sensations.
By the mid-1800s a number of scientists had turned their attention to the smdy of
sensation and perception. However, their methods were largely extensions from physiology. What the science ofpsychology required was a means to access the hidden mental processes. Two methods, psychophysical scaling and reaction Ume, were early,
necessary steps toward this goal. Ernst Weber (1795-1878) provided one of the first
attempts to quantitative!y describe a hurnan perceptual response to a sensory sfimulus,
during a period when physical scientists were first discovering the neuron and how
these brain cells interacted with one another. He measured how inuch more one needed
to add to a quanUty of anything (loudness, brighmess, heaviness) for a subject to just
notice that the quanuty had changed. Consider the following example.
Ira number ofpennies ate placed in a blindfolded man's hand, and then one more
is added, he might be unable to detect the difference in weight. As more pennies are
added, the person will suddenly notice that the quanuty is heavier. Similarly, the volume of a sound must be increased by a certain amount before the listener will noce
the change. Ernst Weber discovered that the rafio, the amount of change proporfional
to the initial quanfity of loudness, heaviness, brightness, and so on, required for a subject to "just nofice" a change in a sensory sfimulafion is the same across different starting points and across different sensory modalities. Thus, if the blindfolded man holds
10 pennies in his hand, and ir takes the addion of one penny (10%) more for him to
notice a difference in weight, then ifhe were to begin with 100 pennies in his hand, it
should take about 10 additional pennies (10%) for him to notice a difference in weight.
The difference threshold (the amount of change needed to notice a difference) is lawfiflly [predictably] related to the initial magnitude of the sfimulus.
Theodor Fechner (1801-1887) extended Weber's research, establishing a psychology he called psychophysies. The purpose of psychophysics, according to Fechner, was to establish the funcfional relafionship between the sensory sfimulus and the
mind. By means of careful measurement Fechner hoped to establish the lawful relafionship between the stimulus and the sensafion--between the outside physical world
CHAPTER I lntroducdon to Cognifive Psychology

and the inside psychological world. This research demonstrated a systematic relationship between the measurable physical world and the inner world, but another
method was needed to delve more deeply into the psyehotogical processes. Reaetion
time, that is, the time it takes a subject to respond to a stimulus or to make a decision,
provided this method.
In 1868, the Dutch scienst E C. Donders (1818-1889) used reaction time to parution mental events. He applied an eleetric shock to either the left or the right foot of
a subjeet and found that it took the subjecc 1/15th of a seeond to decide which foot had
reeeived the shock (Bensehop & Draaisma, 2000; Donders, 1868/1969). He realized that
you could eomplieate the reaction time experiment by asldng subjects to respond to
only one of several different stimuli. A simple Donders-type task is illustrated in Figure 1.8. Task 1 merely requires that the subject press the response key as quiekly as
possible. Ir can be assumed that the minimum number of cognitive tasks required is (a)
the deteetion of the illumination of the light, (b) a decision to respond, and (e) a
response. In Task 2, a subject sits in front of an apparams that displays two lights and
a key to press. Ir one of the lights is illuminated, the subjeet is instructed to press the
key as fast as possible. Ifthe other is lit, then the subject must not press the key. Donders subtracted the time required to make a simple key press to a light from the longer
time required to make the more complicated press/not-press decision. He proposed
that the difference in response time provided a measure of the time required for the addinona] discmination task.
FIGURE 1.8
Franciscus Donders (186811969)Was a Dutch Physiologist Who Used Reaction Time, the
Time BeCween the Presentation of a Sensory Stimulus and the Subject's Response, to
Measure the "Speed of Mental Processes:' He identified three reaction-time tasks. The A task,
with a single stimulus and a single response, is simple reaction time.The B ta~k, Jllustrated below,
requires a decision; ir light number "one" comes on press the key, if light number"two" comes on don't
press the key. By subtracting the reaction time for a simple reaction time from a more complicated
reaction time the "time for the mental decision" is estimated. AType C task complicates the study by
increasing the number of stimuli.
Time required for additional cognitive task
Light on
/
I
Task 1
One iight
Response
Time (seconds) ~
I~ " " " " ~ I ~ I I I I I [ I I I ] ] I ] I I I I I I I I I I] I I ~ I I ; " ~i
Task 2
Light one (press)
Light two (don't press)
The Mind as Structure

The psyehophysical method and the use of reaction time to partition mental events
provided a systematic, scientific alternative to introspective and speculative approaches
to understanding mind and did not reduce psychology to physiology. Wilhelm Wundt
(1832-1920), one of the founders of the discipline of psychology at the University of
Heidelberg, made extensive use reaction time methods to partition cognitive processes.
Wundt defined psychology as the study of "the structure of conscious expeence."
His goal was to identify the "atoms" (structure) of conscious experience and to determine how these mental atoms were used to create the combinations that were expeenced as whole cognitions. Wundt was determinedly experimental, but he doubted
that the internal higher mental processes, such as language and concept formation,
were available f.or study.
Nevertheless, he decided that one might be able to measure the time difference
between a sensory impression and the formation of an idea. Wundt continued to
systematically design experiments to partition thought. For example, he complicated the
basic reaction time experiment by studying cross-modal decision making. He constxucted a "complication device," whch he called a "thought meter," that swtmg a pendulum across a numbered scale. By determining when a noise, such as a clicking noise
produced by the begirming of the swing, and the point on the scale at which the subject reported hearing the click, Wundt could determine the time ir took from the
moment of auditory stimulation to the visual decision.
One of Wundt's students, Edward Titchener (1867-1927), who labeled Wundt's
approach structuralism, moved away frorri these experimental methods and took introspection to its extreme. In his laboratory at Cornell University, he trained laboratory assistants to perform different tasks while verbally reporng their subjective
experiences in an effort to identify the components of their perceptions. Trained
observers were necessary to prevent what Titchener called the "stimulus error,"
namely, that the observer, the "introspector," attends to or perceives the meaning
of attributes of the stimulus rather than its basic physical properties as revealed
by nonmeaningful sensations. Thus "roundness" and "redness" and "shading" in a
particular stimulus can lead the observer to infer meaning, and the observer will
make an error and attribute three dimensions to the stimulus and then perhaps
even see ir as ah "apple." Because the expectations of the "trained" assistants determined the'outcomes better than did the variations in the experiments, Tichener's
approach was not productive. This failure of introspection to illuminate the inner
workings of the mind was one of the factors leading to its demise as a major school
of psychology.
Wundt's psychology has been characterized as reductionist, ir was in fact both
highly experimental and somewhat holistic. Although he did utilize reaction time methods to partition mental processes, he was also committed to the idea that the mind creatively fused perceptual information into more abstract representations. He discovered
that anticipation, clearly a mental state, increased the clarity and perceived loudness of
the auditory stimulus, demonstrating that psychological states, such as attention and
anticipation, influenced subsequent percepon. Most important, he made the study of
language, perception, memory, attention, and higher cognitive processes a legitimate
area of science.
19
CHAPTER I Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

Although it is beyond the main focus of this course, the careful measurement of
cognitive functions and the intelligence testing movement evolved in tandem with
the development of neuropsychology and information processing models of mind.
Charles Spearman (1863-1945) studied cognitive skills in children and proposed a
two-factor theory of inteUigenee. One factor was "general intelligence," which
i n fl u e n c e d p e r f o r m a n c e o n a l l t a s k s ; t h e o t h e r w a s " s p e c i fi c i n t e l l i g e n c e s , " w h i c h
suggested relatively independent skills in areas such as verbal skills and visual-spatial
s k i l l s . A l f r e d B i n e t ( 1 8 5 7 - 1 9 11 ) d e v e l o p e d h i s m e a s u r e s o f c o g n i t i v e s k i l l s t o p r e d i c t
school performance in children and to provide remedial educational programs as
needed. His work was quicldy followed by the development of systematic measures
of what would become known as intelligence testing. The development of batteries
of tests measuring cognitive skills and well-developed methods of establishing normal performance on these measures--provided the means for discerning cognitive
d e fi c i t s i n b r a i n - i n j u r e d s u b j e c t s , d i s c u s s e d l a t e r.
MIND AS HOLISTIC: GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

Though Wundt's structuralism, the partitioning of mental processes into its component
parts, established the scientific discipline of psychology, it was not without its detract o r s . T h e m o s t i n fl u e n t i a l o f t h e s e w a s G e s t a l t p s y c h o l o g y. T h e G e s t a l t p s y c h o l o g i s t s
f o c u s e d o n t h e u n c o n s c i o u s p r o c e s s e s a n d a c t i v e m e n t a l p r e p a r a t i o n t h a t i n fl u e n c e d
how the mind registered experience. The Gestalt psychologists turned the structuralist approach around; the whole became the organizing, causal, force. The Gestalt mind
ac~ively sought out and constructed wholes (based on prior experience with the smuli) from whatever stimuli were provided; thus, rather than attempting to partition cognition into its parts, the Gestalt psychologists attempt .to identify how the mind
constructed wholes from parts.
Thongh Wundt viewed experience itself as a complex or a compound, his approach
was to analyze that complex into its parts. Gestalt psychologists viewed this as a brickand-mortar approach, with too heavy an emphasis on the bricks. The Gestalt psychologists were more interested in the mortar. Just as you can't build a structure of bricks
without mortar, or even know what form the structure will take,'you cannot build experiences from elementary parts. The Gestalt psychologists wanted to know what held the
w h o l e e x p e r i e n c e t o g e t h e r. T h e i r a n s w e r w a s t h a t t h e m i n d c a r n e p r e p a r e d t o o r g a n ize experience in particular ways.
Consider Escher's illustration, sky and water, in Figure 1.9. The figures within the
sketch become the background and the background becomes the figure as one examines first the sky and then the sea. The bird or the fish, the gestalt psychologists point
out, is perceived as an object only in the context of the ground. One cannot exist witho u t t h e o t h e r.
T h o u g h t h e G e s t a l t m o v e m e n t a s a s c h o o l o f p s y c h o l o g y w a s s h o r t l i v e d , i t s i n fl u ence continues in a wide range of areas, and various aspects of their contribution are
discussed throughout the remainder of the text. The Gestalt movement was a constructivist alternative to associationist psychology.
Mind as Holisc: Gestalt Psychology

FIGURE 1.9
Escher's Sky and Water Print.
21

Constructivist approaches are characteristic of a number of schools of thought
regarding the nature of mind. They are typified by two ideas: holistic internal representations, which exert a top-down organizing force on experience, and active adaptation of these internalized mental structures in response to experience. Constructivist
approaches propose internal representations m the forro of "schemas," "maps," "constructs," of some similar labels for the idea that the mind internalizes a "construct" of
the external world. Second, most ofthese approaches strongly propose that these constructs ate adaptive and both determine how information about the external world is
selected, perceived, organized, and ultimately has meaning and are responsive in that
the constructs changes with experience.
MIND AS FUNCTIONAL: EVOLUTION

AND THE ADAPTIVE MIND
Functionalism focused on tmderstanding mind and behavior as a ftmction of its purpose

and adaptive function, rather than on its intemal strucmre or contents. Even before Darwin
published his theories of evolution, Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) adopted a biological
and developmental perspective in his Principles ofPsycbology (Spencer, 1855). Spencer's psychology was ah attempt to place psychology within the natural sciences as a branch of biol~
ogy. He coined the term "survival of the fittest" and attempted to combine associationist
psychology with neurological localization of function, as suggested by phrenology and
newly discovered sensory pathways suggesting different kinds of "nervous energies.'" It
was Charles Darwin's (1809-1882) theories, however, that firmly established the scientific
validity of the confinuity of species over the course of evolution (Darwin, 1859, 1874).
Herbert Spencer's and Charles Darwin's evoluonary theorieshad a major impac
on all science. Evolutionary theory and the concept of an adapting organism shift attent_ion from the strucmres of the mind to the processes of the mind as they related to
hehavior as ah adaptation to a changeable environment. One of the most direct effects
of evolutionary theory was on the development of American functionalism, often first
attributed to YVilliam James (1842-1910).
William James influenced psychology through his abili@ to integrate tren& in psychology and to express them in a convmcing way. His classic introduction to psychol
ogy, The Principles of Psycbology (James, 1890), was one of the most influential psychology
texts ever written. The chapter headings included perception, memory, attention, consciousness, reasomng, and so on and could very well serve as the chapter headings in a
modern text on cognitive psychology. His book reflected a synthesis oftheories of association, neural networks, and adaptive, orfunctional, psychology.
This ftmctionalist theme developed in two very different directions, one at the University of Chicago and the other at Columbia University. The key figure at Chicago was John
Dewey (1859-1952). I-Iis most influenal paper was a theoreUcal assault on the simplifie
version of the reflex concept, "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" (Dewe% 1896). The
reflex arc, he argued had been simplified into a mechanisc, sumulus-brain-response model
that failed to reflect the dynamic, mteractive process of the mind.
Mind as Functional: Evolution and the Adaptive Mind

Chicago's functionalism shifted attention from the contents of the mind to the
funcfion of the mind. Consider Dewey's reconstruction of a sumulus-response. A candle flame attracts the attention of a child, who reaches for the bright light and, feeling
the pain, withdraws the hand. A simple smulus-response explanation is that the flame
elicits the response, and the pain elicits the rapid withdrawal of the hand. However,
Dewey's picmre of the process indudes the mind and the stimulus as operating as an
integral unit, ah arc rather than a reflex.
The flame does not attract the child. The child's attention seeks novel smuli, and
the bright light is noticed. Thus the child's mind defines the stimulus. Prior to the
child's mind doing so, the candle flame was not a sumulus. Once the mind has determined the stimulus, the grasp response occurs and then the withdrawal; the stimulus
and the resp6nse ate merely two components of a continuously interacting process.
The flame and the movement are only "stimulus" and "response" if there is some
functional connection between the two (attention-attraction-pain-withdrawal;
attention-flame-warmth-approach). The goals of the organista must be taken into
account in understanding even the simplest behaviors.
Though the Chicago version of functionafism was philosophically influenual, and
continues to exert its philosophical presence in educational psycholog~ it did not lead to
a systematic, scientific program of research. In contrast, the Darwinian concept of adaptation, combined with the idea that all species have ancestry in the evolution ofneurological mechanisms of adaptation, produced a very different ldnd of functionalism at ColumNa
University. This is best represented in the work of Edward L. Thorndike (1874-1949).
The systematic development of psychological models of learning began before
Thorndike with the divergent work of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936) and Hermann
Ebbinghaus (1850-1909). Pavlov, in Russia, discovered that "psychic" influences made the
responses to various stimuli "conditional" on their context. A bell preceding the delivery
of food would itself produce salivation. In the early 1900s Pavlov produced a comprehensive program of research on these "conditional responses" and attempted to tic them
to nervous activity in the brain. His conception of the conditioned responses was the kind
of approach that John Dewey had found inadequate to understand the mind.
Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949), the Columbia functionalist, pnblished a collection of his writings ted
i t l Selected
"
Writings from a Connectionist's Psychology"
(Thorndike, 1949). He proposed that to understand mental activity, one needed to
know not only the environmental (stimulus) conditions, but also the output (response),
the namre of the neurons, and the state of the neurons at any moment. In associationist tradition, he conceptualized the simation as one in which any response of the
nervous system to a stimulus resulted in a "satisfier" (reward) or a punisher. The result
of this was to reset the connections between the neurons to increase the probability
of "satisfying" responses and decrease the possibility of unsatisfying responses
(Thorndike, 1933).
The problem, however, was the immensity of the nervous system. Thorndike
believed that "connections lead from states of affairs within the brain as well as from
external situations. They lead to responses of readiness and unreadiness, awareness,
attention, interest, welcoming and rejecting, emphasizing and restraining, differentiating
and relang, directing and coordinating." (1934, p. 353)
23
CHAPTER |
Introduction to Cogndve Psychology
TABLE |.5
Mind as Functional
1820-1903
Franz Herbert Spencer
Survival of the Fittest
1809-1882
Charles Darmn's
Evolution: Adaptation occurs in the

context of the environment
1842-1910
William James
Functionalism: the mind is adaptive and

fianctional
1859-1952
John Dewey
Chicago Functionalism: The reflex is a

loop: Stimulus-Organism-Response
1874-1949
Edward L. Thorndike
Columbia Functionalism: There is a

continuity of adaptive mechanisms
(learning) across species
1920's
Vienna Posivists
Logical Positivism: all psychological constructs must be measurable and verifiable
1878-1958
John Watson
Radical Behaviorism: An extreme statement

of the learning perspective that argues that
all theories should be based upon
observable behaviors
1886-1959
Edward Tolman
Cognitive Maps: Ah internal mental

representation of the layout of one's
environment
1904-1990
B.F. Sldnner
Language acquisition as a learned skill
1957
Noam Chomsky
Inherited language acquisition device
The connections that words have in a person 's experience produce modifications in
bis brain, but we cannot say with surety what these are .... A man has billions of neurones. Millions of them ate modifiable in some way by bis experiences with words; and the
various combinations of them and their modifications ate practically infinite in number,
able to paralM all the complexities and subtleties of a man's understanding and use of
words. (Thorndike, 1946, p. 615)
This vast unconscious, intervening mental processes, Thomdike conclnded, as had
Wundt, were not accessible, thus liming what could be scientifically explored. He
suggested that the effect of the stimulus, which he called "satisfaction," established
whether or not a stimulus would elicit a particular response, "Satisfiers" were those
things that an animal would intend to obtain or avoid. Though the idea that rewards
and punishments, satisfiers, were related to associations could be traced back at least to
Aristotle, Thorndike applied the experimental conditions of learning and measured the
outcome, initiating the systematic study of learning in psychology.
Learning theory was about to take a more rigidly empiricist direcon in the forro
of the positions take by the "radical" behaviorists John Watson (1878-1958) and B. F.
Sldnner (1904-1990). Their approach developed in the context of logical positivism.
The Adaptive Mind: Logical Positivism and Behaviorism
25
THE ADAPTIVE MIND: LOGICAL POSITIVISM

A N D B E H AV I O R I S M
In the 1920s a loose group of philosophers and scientists developed a philosophical
movement called logical positivism (later renamed logical empiricism). Its principles
were formulated and debated by a group of scholars at the University of Vienna (e.g.,
Moritz Schlick, 1882-1936; Rudolf Carnap, 1891-1970; Ernest Nagel, 1901-1985; and
Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1889-1951, among others) called the "Vienna Circle." The
movement was short lived, and the members were more often in argument with one
another than with those ontside the movement. Nevertheless, in the brief time the
Vienna Circle existed, they established principles that influenced the concept of science, linguistics, behaviorism, ideas of artificial intelligence, and the larger field of cognitive psychology.
Advocates of logical empiricism generally argued that truth lies in scientific explanations, and those scientific arguments must be stated in a way that is measurable or
verifiable. A commo n interpretation of the logical empiricist position argued that referring to ah internal mental "motivation" was valid only ir that motivation were defined
in a manner that is measurable and verifiable. For example, the concept ofhunger could
be defined in terms ofhours since eating, amount ofeffort the organism would exert to
obtain food, and so on. This position was compatible with ftmctionalism, learning theory, and the radical behaviorism espoused byJohn Watson (1878-1958) and B. E Skinner (1904-1990).
Thorndike's learning theory, with reference to internal "satisfiers," was too mentalistic for John Watson. In his classic paper, "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It,"
he laid out the philosophy of the "radical behaviorist" (Watson, 1913).
Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection
forros no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent
upon the readiness witb which they lend themsdves to interpretation in terms of consciousness. The behaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal response,
recognizes no dividing line between man and brute. The behavior of man, with all of
its refinement and complexity, forros only a part of the behaviorist's total scheme of
investigation. (p. 158)
In 1957 the contrast between rationalism and empiricism, at least as represented

in the one approach to behaviosm, was highlighted by the publication of two books.
B. E Sldnner published Verbal Behavior(Skinner, 1957), which took the position that even
language was largely to be understood as learned in the same manner as any other
learned behavior. The linguist Noam Chomsky published Syntactic Structures (Chomsky, 1957). Chomsky reviewed Skinner's book, wholeheartedly assaulting it and dismissing ir. This "debate" is discussed in more detail in Chapter 11, "The Descripon
and Overview of Language."
26
CHAPTER I Introducrion to Cognitive Psychology
M I N D A S R AT I O N A L : P S Y C H O L I N G U I S T I C S
Rafionalism as a focus of understanding mind reemerged in the 1970s when linguist
Noam Chomsky revolutionized the field of linguistics. Chomsky's model moved the
study of linguisUcs from a study of behavior to a study of the states of the mind/brain
that underlie language behavior (psycholinguistics). For language to function efficientlv, it cannot rely on the storage of an extensive list of all possible words and sentences. The explosive emergente of language in the young child that permits the
understanding and production of novel and complex sentences within a few years suggests a more fundamental method of language production. Chomsky proposed that the
individual arrives with an inherited set of rules for language production.
The primary arguments for Chomsky's rationalist posiuon were the following.
First, language emerges in early childhood very rapidly--too rapidly to be accounted
for by Iearning. This is called the "poverty of the stimulus" argument. The child cannot, it is contended, have been exposed to enough language stimuli in a few short years
to account for the explosion of language after age 2 of so. Second, the child is able to
create novel sentences never before encotmtered. Third, the fundamental structure of
grammar is universal across all cukures. Finally, like Descartes, Chomsky argued that
language was uniquely human. Ir was a cognitive mechanism without continuity in evolution. He believed that humans inherited a universal grammar, ala innate language
acquisition device, that functioned as the seed for the universal developmem of language in all cukures.
Not all behaviorists were members of the Skinnerian radical behaviorism. Edwaid
Tolman, as will be discussed later, developed the concept of intemal mental maps to
explain learning, and others began to infer intervening variables berween the stimulus
and the response. Posner and Shulman noted that behaviorism provided an atmosphere
of commitment to experimental gor that was necessary for the advancement of the science, and it contributed to the "acceptance of internal constructs that readied the field
for the growth of cognitive psychology" (Posner & Shulman, 1979, p. 373). Behaviorism simply was unprepared to address the questions asked by cognitive psychoIogists.
Behaviorism was a model designed primarily to address the descriptive and predictive
namre of learning (which ir did very well), but ir was not a model that could go beyond
behavior to understand the mind. In contrast, informaon processing was a model,
the product of engineering, psychology and computer theory, that promised to model
what was happening in the mind.
M I N D A S A N I N F O R M AT I O N P R O C E S S O R : T H E W O R L D WA R S
A N D T H E D E V E L O P H E N T O F I N T E L L E C T U A LT E S T I N G ,
I N F O R H AT I O N P R O C E S S I N G , A N D N E U R O P S Y C H O L O G Y
The information processing approach m understanding cognition likens the mind m a
computer. The mind has a finite number of components, or processing systems (such
as attention, perception, andshort-term memory) that can be understood by analyzing
Mind as an Information Processor

how information is processed, transferred, and stored (represented) in these components
of mind. Three factors contributed to the development of cognitive psychology prior
to and during World War II. First, thousands of soldiers entered military service durmg this time. This required that they be rapidly assessed for knowledge and skills so that
they could be utilized in the most productive manner. Groups of psychologists were
brought together to develop screening battees for the measurement ofcognitive skills.
This stimulated the growth of the intellectual testing movement. Second, the World
Wars resulted in thousands of brain-injured civilians and soldiers, creating a further
need for the careful assessment of cognitive ftmction. This resulted in a growth in neuropsychology in Russia, Great Britain, and the United States. Third, engineers, computer specialists, and psychologists were assembly into working groups to develop
computer systems to assist humans in maldng rapid decisions or to replace the human
altogether. This led to the development of computer models of thinldng and to the
idea of artificial intelligence. The foundations for this work were laid decades earlier
with the development of reaction time as a means of measuring the speed of thought
processes and with the development of the systemaUc measurement of cognitive funcons and the concept of intelligence.
World War II occurred at a me when advancements in neurology, neurosurgery,
and the rise of intelligence testing and the measurement of cognitive skills provided
the necessary tools for the careful measurement of psychological dysfuncon in these
pauents. Psychologists and neurologists in Germany, psychologists such as Alexandria
Luria (1902-1977) in Russia, and groups of psychologists in Great Britain and the
United States utilized a wide range of the newly developed intelligence tests and specific tests of language, memory, and problem solving to document the effects of brain
damage on cogniuve ftmconing. A number of psychologists established research programs that also served the practical funcUon of assessing cogniuve sldlls and deficits in
brain-injured paUents and provided the beginning of clinical neuropsychology as a specializaUon in psychology.
~World War II also brought a number of applied problems to the attention of experimental psychologists and resulted in the establishment of government-supported
research centers in both countries. Radar operators were required to select a single
message (e.g., an incoming enemy aircraft) among many messages in the noisy radar systetas. How they accomplished this task became a major concern ofpsychologists. The
research led to the development of the "information processing" model of psychology.
By World War II powerful computers were available, and these were brought to bear
on a number of war-related problems. In England they were used to tackle the problem of breaking German coded messages. In the United States they were focused on
the problem of providing feedback to an aiming system that might permit gtmners to
more effectively target incoming enemy aircraft. These research programs also supported the conception of the human mind as ah informaUon processor, and both the
software (programmmg) and hardware of computers became the metaphor for mind.
During WWII Btain established a research unit for applied psychology at Cambdge University. Kenneth Craik (1914-1945), appointed as the first director, introduced the concept of computers as models for human informar_ion processing and
developed computer programs to simulate human skills, sucia a utilizing visual feedback
27

to airo a gun (a useful sldll during the war). In his book, The Namre of Explanation, he proposed that the mind constructs models of the external world, ofreafiq, with which to reason and to anticipate events (Craik, 1943). He undonbtedly would have stimulated major
contribuons to the development of computers and cybernecs; however, he was killed
in a c~clilag accident at the age of 31.
Charles Frederick Bartlett (1886-1969), who replaced Craik, greatly influenced
British psychology between World War I and World War II and both stimulated the
emergente of information processing approaches to mind and continued the development of artificial intelligence. However, Bartlett's approach to studying thinking
diverged from the British associationist empiricism (Brewer, 1999). Bartlett veas concerned about the ecological validity of psychological experiments. For example, rather
than ask subjects to memoze lists of nonsense syllables and words in artificial situations, he asked them to telI stories to one another and monitor the changes in the stories as they were retold by one person to another. As the stoes were retold, they
changed, often in drastic ways. He attributed these alterations to top-down influences
of the mind. He proposed that unconscions structures of knowledge, which he called
schemata, organized incoming information, altering it to fit the preexisting organization ofknowledge (Bartlett, 1932). Bartlett's constructivist approach continues to influence psychologists.
In the United States Colin Cherry (1914-1979) published findings explaining the
eoektail party phenomenon. At a cocktail party, we are able to attend to a single
message, while ignoring the messages simultaneously delivered by others in the
crowd. Cherry demonstrated that we separate one message from many by selecting
it based on its physical characteristics such as the tone of voice, loudness, and locar_ion (Cherry, 1953). Donald Broadbent (1926-1993) arrived at Cambridge and took
over Craik's line of research. However, Broadbent's research program also took a
new direction similar to that developed by Cherry. Broadbent realized that radar
operators similarly needed to select and attend to one ormore critical messages, of
signals, while presented with a flood of other competing messages. He carefully
studied the process of selection of one message among others and developed a highly
TABLE 1.6
Mind as Information Processor
1914-1945
Kenneth Craik
Computers for simulation of human skills. First

Director of Britain's Applied Psychology Unit
1886-1969
Charles Fredeck
Bartlett
Schemata organize information
1914-1979
Colin Cherry
Cocktail Party Phenomenon: Selective attention

in a noisy world
1926-1993
Donald Broadbent
Box model of information processing m attention

in which information is processed in a series of
stages
Mind as an Information Processor

FIGURE I. I 0
Donald Broadbent's Information Processing Model of Attention.
This Model ofAttention Will be Revisited in Chapter 3, on Attention,
in More Detail.
Source: Adapted from Broadbent, 1958, p. 298~
influential information processing model of attention. Figure 1:10 illustrates one of

the early forros of this model.
Broadbent's model of attention represents a "box" model of information processing that became a popular way of represenng cognitive processes. Other researchers
developed similar information processing models to characterize such cognitive activities as memory and attention discussed in later chapters (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968;
Waugh & Norman, 1965). These models were inspired by computer programs that
also achieved complex processing ofinformation by breaking the process into a linear
series of steps. However, they were also often intuifively compelling; the models describe
what we seem to experience.
The information processing model describes the manner in which information from
the environment is processed in a series of stages. Informaon processing models describe
how information is processed in a series of stages involving the coding of information
from one form (e.g., an auditory message) into another forro, which is stored and then
later retrieved. The environment and mental events are described as information. Cognive processes are broken down into a series of stages, and information is described as
having a direcfional flow through the stages of processing. The general form of this type
of model stimulated the development of similar models of attention, memory, problem
solving, and so on (e.g., Atldnson & Shifffin, !968).
As the British concept ofinformation processing developed, parallel developments,
summarized under the idea ofmind as computational, were developing in both Britain
and the United States.
29
CHAPTER I Introduction to CogniUve Psychology
M I N D A S C O M P U TAT I O N A L : C O M P U T E R S , P R O B L E M
S O LV I N G , A N D A R T I F I C I A L I N T E L L I G E N C E
Closely related to the information processing view of mind is the computational model
of mitad, which proposed that the manner in which the digital computer stores inforrnation, by utilizing a set of rules to transform information on one level into information at another level, is a useful metaphor for mind. The computational model of mind
can be viewed as "mind as software."
The idea that machines could simulate human behavior, including computation,
has a long history. It is not possible to disentangle the idea that machines could solve
problems from the idea that machines think. Ir, as Descartes suggested, the bodies
of animals were actually cornplex machines constructed of biological parts, then it
is an easy step to hypothesizing that a complex machine constructed of silicon parts
could think.
In the 1920s Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and Bertrand Russell
(1872-1970) published In Principia Matbematica, establishing the idea that thougtit
TABLE 1.7
Mind as Computational
1 lth Century
Chinese and Arabic engineers

constructed automata
Automata: Life-like mechanical

statues that mimicked human
behavior
1792-1871
Charles Babbage
General purpose computing

machine Used by Iris ffiend, Ada
Lo~?elace, to predict horse races
1910
Alfred North Whitehead

(1861-1947) & Bertrand Russell
(1872-1970)
I n Principia Matbem~tica,
estabhshed the idea that thought
might be reduced to the
manipulaUon Of symbols.
1936
Alan Turing (1912-1954)
Turing test: How can we tell the

difference between a human and
an artificial intelligence?
1948
Norbert Vq]ener (1894-1964)

Ludwig ron Bertalaniffy
(1901-1972)
Cybernetics and General

Systems Theory
1955
Alan Newell (1927-1992) and

Herbert Simon (1916-2001)
Logic Theorist: A general

problem soMng computer.
Human problem solving
heuriscs
1956
Janos Neumann (1903-1957)
Game Theory
Mind as Computational: Computers, Problem Solving, and Aruficial Intelligence

might be reduced m the manipulation of symbols. If this was the case, then machines,
or computers, could be programmed to accomplish the same task.
The engineers, scientists, and mathematicians that gathered during World War II
to solve a series of problems related to decoding messages, monitoring communications, and detecting, tracking, and intercepting aircraft and missiles were provided with
the oppormnity to utilize powerful computers for the solution of human problems.
These same scientists generated related lines of research that provided the foundation
for a great deal of modern cognive psychology.
Innovators recognizing the potenal of computers, such as Ludwig von Bertalaniffy (1901-1972) and Norbert Wiener (1894-1964), began designing computers to
run complex equipment and solve complex problems. Janos Neumann (1903-1957)
began touse them to assist decision making and "invented" game theory, discussed in
Chapter 14, "Problem Solving and Reasoning."
The possibilities created by these powerful machines generated early attempts at
simulating human thinking, such as the "Logic Theorist" and the "General Problem
Solver," two computer programs designed to solve problems (Newell, Shaw, & Simon,
1957; Newell & SinSon, 1956). Simon noted that these efforts were the result oftwo perspectives, the top-down, constructivist approach of Gestalt psychology and the development of symbolic logic and cybernetics (Simon, 1979). In 1978 Herbert Simon
received the Nobel Prize for his work on human decision making and its application to
economic theory.
While these efforts to utilze the new supercomputers continued in the United
States dung WWII, parallel efforts were c0nducted in Britain. A British spy, called
"Intrepid," capmred the German machine "Enigma," which coded and decoded the
German messages. The British code breakers were unable to decipher the Enigma's
method of coding messages, so the British government gathered a group of programmers in the newly developing field of computers. The team built a series of
computer programs designed to imitate the operations of Enigma and ulmately
broke the code. A key member of the team was Man Turing (1912-1954), a 28-yearold whiz kid.
Turing asked, "Ifthe machine imitates human thought veas the machine thinking?"
In several papers Turing proposed his argument for artificial intelligence (Turing, 1936,
1950). If, as Whitehead and Russell had suggested, all sciences and perhaps aH knowledge is reducible to axiomac mathematics and if a machine can be programmed to
perform these logical operaons, then a machine could do mathematics, play games
such as chess, and ultimately think. But, even more important, Turing proposed that the
internal logic of a computer was not restricted m numbers. Ir could also be thought of
as possessing "states," which reflected a configuration of internal relay connecons.
Further, theoretically these states might be identical to the internal state of connections of the brain, in which case computers could think. He suggested the following
game, now called the Turing test, could determine ifthe machine was successfully imitating human thought. If the human interrogamr asks a series of questions, perhaps
passing them into the room on a sheet ofpaper (of a computer terminal), and a human
or a computer answers and passes the answer out the other side (or on a computer terminal), can the interrogator tell the difference?
31

A fundamental issue in artificial intelligence is how knowledge will be "stored" or
represented in the machine. This is also a fundamental issue in cognitive psychology.
Knowledge is often conceptualized as the problem of mental representation.
What Is Mental Representation?

A central thesis of cognive psychology is that any model of thinking must include a
theory about how representations ate established in the mind. A representation is something that substitutes for something else. Aristotle imagined that the mind created
"images" of external objects. In cognitive psychology, representations, depending on the
researcher, are similar to the actual image. Edward Tolman thought that the mind constructed "maps" of the outside world. Charles Bartlett imagined that the mind/brain
constructed "schemas." Many cognive psychologists imagine that the mind constructs
"symbols." Since the development of computer simulations of thought in the 1940s
and 195 Os mental representations have been analogous to how information is stored and
processed in computers. In the past several decades, however, the computer metaphor
has increasing been blended with analogies to brain.
Another way of thinking about representations is that they are stored knowledge.
A representation is an abstraction of information that reduces information from the
external world of the internal world of the mind to a more easily handled quantity. It
stands for a single thing, or a group of things. The word dog stands for (represents) the
category of dogs. Stored work may be represented by a dollar bill. A dollar bill may
be represented by a $ sign. The amount of stored work may be represented by an entry
in a ledger or by the position of a set of electronic registers (of digital record) in a
computer.
Consider the following sentence, "She has a heart of stone." She, heart, and stone
are examples of concepts. In this case she refers to a particul .ar instance ofall women but
beart and stone refer to the general category of hearts and stones.
The entire sentence expresses a proposion, a type of representation that contains
other representaons. Ifwe denied the sentence as in, "A human cannot possess a heart
thatis made of stone," then the representaon would be another type of representation,
a rtlle.
Finallv, the sentence is generally not intended to literally s~aggest that "she" has a
heart actully made of stone. Ir expresses another representation, namely a metaphor.
A metaphor uses one thing to mean another. "She has a heart of stone" takes one abstract
meaning of heart, an inclinaon toward particular feelings and behavior, and compares
that abstract meaning with a stone, which is hard and cold. Mental objects ate mind
structures, which symbolize obiects, or mies, or relationships. The computational representaonal model of mind holds that an efficient and useful way of conceptualizing
the mind and its operaons is to imagine knowledge as a set of mental structures and
the computations that occur among those structures.
The representational abilities of mind are very powerful. Once a representation is
established in the mind, we no longer require sensory smulation to activate the representaon. The representation can be related to other representations. We can relate
representations and draw conclusions about them. We can change the meaning of
Neuropsychology and Cogniuve Neurosclence
33
representations and create new ones that don't exist in the "external world." Unicorns,
freedom, and passion are representations that refer to a complex constellation of other
representations, yet they exist in our mind as objects in their own right. We can even
ffive them the power of thought.
"Do you know, I always thought unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw
one alive before,t"
"Well, now that we have seen each other," said the unicorn, "if you'U believe in me,
I'll bdieve in you."
LewisCarroll Through the Looking Glass
NEUROPSYCHOLOGY AND COGNITIVE NEUROSClENCE

Three basic methodologies are widely used in neuropsychology and cognifive neuroscience: measurement of cognitive performance when either the sfimulus or the response
is lateralized to one side of the brain, measurement ofbrain activity while a person performs
cognifive tasEs, and the breakdown of cognifive funcfion as a result ofbrain damage.
I n f e r r i n g N e u r a l O r g a n i z a t i o n U s i n g C o g n i t i v e Ta s k s
The sensory systems are organized so that incoming information is transmitted either
first or primarily to the opposite side of the brain. Ifyou stare straight ahead, the visual
world to the ght goes to the visual system on the left side ofyour brain and vice versa.
This is also a pattern seen for the other senses. The motor (muscle movement) systems are organized in a similar manner. When you move your left finger up and down,
the motor region of your right hemisphere generates those movements. In the 190s
Doreen Kimura, by carefully designing experiments to take advantage of the pattern of
sensory input and output to the brain patterns of response, was able to smdy lateralizafion oflanguage processing in normal subjects. Donald Broadbent had used dichotic
listening, which is the delivery of a different message to each ear by means of stereophonic earphones, in developing his informafion processing model of attenfion. Doreen
Kimura demonstrated that most people show a right ear advantage on this task.
Listeners usually preferred to report informafion arriving at the fight ear before the
informafion arriving to the left ear. They were also more accurate in reporting the right
ear. The auditory pathways from the ears cross, primaly though not completely, to the
opposite sides of the brain. She interpreted the right ear advantage as suggestive of
richer pathways from the right ear to the receptive speech eenters in the left temporal
lobe. This was eonfirmed when ir was observed that those few people who have their
speeeh pereeption region loeated in the right hemisphere also show the opposite
pattern--a left ear advantage on diehoc listening tases (Kimura, 1961). Similar lateralized findings are found for the other senses. For example, the left hand (right hemisphere) is better able identify ambiguous shape patterns, suggesung that :the ght
hemisphere is better at proeessing visual spaal information.
CHAPTER I Introduction to Cognirive Psychology

M e a s u r i n g B r a i n A c t i v i t y W h i l e P e r f o r m i n g C o g n i t i v e Ta s k s
Second, modern neuroimaging techniques measure brain activi .ty while people perform different cognitive tasks. Two of the most widely used techniques are positron
emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance lmagmg (fMRI). Both
of these methods ate sensirive to regional changes in blood flow and metabolic changes
in the brain that reflect neuronal acrivity. Appendix B provides an overview of the different methods of"imaging" brain acrivity during cognitive tasks.
These new methods promise to provide a bridge between strucmres of the brain
and mental processes. Often neuroimaging studies merely confirm what we already
know. Reading involves visual processing, language processing, ttention, and so on, and
therefore discovering that many areas of the brain become active during the course of
reading is not very revea]ing. However, when tasks are compared with one another, the
results are often provocative and can lead to modifications in how we think about cognitive processes. Read the following paragraph.
This is very rewarding but tends to be quite expensive even if you own all that you need.
The ou~t does not really matter. One can get seriously injured without proper inswuction even if it comes more naturally to some people than others. Some don't like the smell
or the lack of control. So some people ate scared to try ir even if they've dreamed of ir since
they were a kid reading about ir in books and watching #on television. A running start
is uncommon, although there are some who do ir. Typically success requires that you start
with your left leg and make sure that it is securely in place. Then swing your body high
in the air. The direction matters. Once you ate settted, your thumbs should be pointing
up. Sometimes there is no security but the animal's hair. Other timesyou can hang off to
the side. In any case, you will be sore if this is your first time.
Without a context it is difficult to immediately understand the preceding paragraph. However, ir provided a rifle, "Horseback Riding," the content is immediately
understandable. Figure 1.11 shows fMRI results for subjects reading paragraphs with
and without a rifle. Greater fight-hemisphere activity is recruited when the readers
must infer the whole meaning of the paragraph. One interpretation of this, discussed
in greater detail in Chapter 9, is that integration of meaning involves right-hemisphere
processing. This conclusion is consistent with language deficits resulring from brain
damage to the left or right sides of the brain.
We have already discussed how the discovery of productive and receptive speech
arcas in the left hemisphere demonstrated the important role that the left hemisphere
plays inbasic language function. It is not surprising that left hemisphere strokes often result
in receptive and productive language deficits. However, right-hemisphere damage,
although ir leaves the basic ability to perceive, tmderstand, and produce language intact,
is often accompanied by difficulties understanding metaphors and making inferences
about communications (Beeman, 1993; Brownell, 1988; Brownell & Marno, 1998).
Interpretation of neuroimaging results is not always obvious. In an fMRI study, for
example, subjects must le very still because movements, prucularly of the head, disrupt the
Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience

FIGURE I.I I
Results of Structural and Functional Imaging (fMRI)During Reading a
Complex Paragraph with and without the Context of aTitle Indicating
the Content.Traditionally in Radiology the Right Hemisphere is Shown
on the Left of the Image and the Left Hemisphere on the Right.
Source: Adapted f-com St. George, Kutas, Mardnez, &Sereno, 1999, Figure 3, p. 1320.
Titled
Right ~_
hemisphere
Untitled
> Left
hemisphere
Right <
hemisphere
> Left
hemisphere
measures. Each neuroimaging technique has its own time course. Some techniques that
measure underlying electrical acuvity respond to changes within milliseconds. Other techniques, such as PET scans and fMRI, monitor changes over a peod of minutes, dttring
which many cogniuve processes may occur. And, brain states are not always the equivalent
of mental states. Mental states, of funcfions, such as memor~ attenfion, meaning, and so on,
may not (of wiU probably not) map in a one-to-one fashion with localized neural operauons.
The Breakdown of Cognitive Function
The third method ofuncovering the relauonship between brain and cogniuon is through
the smdy of the breakdown of cognive fimcuon after brain damage. Nature, through
strokes, bullet wounds, blows to the head, mmors, and so on provides clinica] experiments that revea] how the brain partiuons the cogniuve processes of the mind. These
observauons have dramatically influenced the development of cogniuve psychology. One
of the undergraduates at Cambridge dufing the development of the Briush version of
informauon processing was Brenda Milner. She later moved to Canada, where she
completed her doctoral degree tmder the supervision of Donald Hebb, whose theory of
CHAPTEE I Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

neuronal assemblies we discussed earlier. At his encouragement, she moved to the Montreal Neurological InsUtute, where neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield was pioneering innovative surgical treaunents for intractable conditions of epilepsy. Penfield was interested
in surgieally removing the malfimctioning portions of the cerebral eortex without sacrificing ussue that would result in the loss of critical cognive ftmctions. He wished, also,
to carefully measure the cognive skills and deficits of postsurgical patients.
It was in this context that Brenda Milner and her many coworkers established one
of the most influendal research programs in clinical neuropsychology and cognitive
neuroscience. She reported a number of discoveries that are now commonly accepted
in the field. She demonstrated two different memory systems, a primarily lefthemisphere verbal system and a primarily right-hemisphere visual spatial system.
Removal of the left temporal lobe interfered with verbal memory but left visual-spatial
memory intact. Removal of the right temporal lobe produced the opposite results
(Milner, 1962, 1974). Even more dramac demonstrations of the separation of cognitive processes resulted from dividing the two halves of the brain in humans.
In the 1800s the demonstration of lateralizauon of language function by neurologists
such as Paul Broca stimulated the imaginadon of authors such as Robert Lewis Stevenson,
who wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. However, modern research on lateralization of function has produced even more intriguing results. In the 1950s Roger
Sperry (1913-1994) split the corpus callosum, the immense pathway that connects the left
and right halves of the brain, in monkeys. The relative preservation of cognitive function
in these monkeys led to heroic efforts to save the lives ofpaents with ah untreatable form
of epilepsy that crossed flora one hemisphere to the other by means of the corpus callosum. After division of the two halves of their brains, the paents appeared superficially
normal. Sperry, however, conducted a series of tests of cognive function and demonstrated that, indeed, two brains now fimconed relavely independent of each other.
Ordinarily information is shared across hemispheres within milliseconds. The visual
pathways in the split brain patient, however, ate not severecl, and therefore informaon
presented to one hemisphere remains on that side of the brain. As seen in Figure 1.12,
this produces very interesting results. Only the left hemisphere of the brain is able to
verbally report its experiences. In this patient the word key is presented to the left visual
field and conducted to the right hemisphere, and ring, presented to the right visual
field, goes to the left hemisphere. The patient has reached under a curtain and picked
up a key, even though he has no conscious awareness of reading the word key. Yet when
asked to name the object he picked up he responds, "ICang" because this is the stimulus seen by the left, articulate hemisphere. Apparently the two brains experience their
own perceptions, consciousness, and intenons.
Caution Regarding Clinical Neuropsychological Cases

As will be illustrated throughout the text, clinical cases often suggest physical localizaUon
of cogniuve ftmcon. Hans Lucas Teuber (1916-1977) proposed that an argurnent for
localizauon of fimcon required a double dissociafion of two cogniuve processes and two
regions of the brain (Teuber, 1955). He argued that a double dissociaon was shown when
one lesion produces a deficit (skill 1 deficit) with no detriment to a second skill (skill 2
Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience

FIGURE I. 1 2
Illustration of DividedVisual Information in a Split-Brain Patient.
Illustration of divided visual information in a split-brain patient. Because the le~c and right
visual fields send information to the opposite hemispheres of the brain the subject's
right brain sees the word "key" and his left brain sees the word "ring". As a result his
left hand, controlled by his right brain, picks up the key buc his le~c brain says "ring"
Source: Milner, 1974 #6361.
"RING"
deficit), and a second lesion produces a deficit in the second skill without detriment to the
first skilI. For example, damage to the superior temporal gyrus on the left side of the
brain often results in a receptive language disorder in which the padent has difficulty
understanding spoken speech. In contrast, damage to the third left frontal region, Broca's
atea, often results in difficulty organizing spoken language. Thus, damage to two regions
is shown to result in impairment of different cognive processes. This seems to clearly
dissociate the two cognitive funcons, recepfive and productive language, and to "locate"
them in different brain regions. But even apparently clear cases must be viewed caufiously.
C~cal cases ate notoously unreliable. Often the extent of the damage is uncertain, as we discovered with Broca's famous case ofaphasia. Often damage is widespread
andaffects many different cognitive processes. A cognidve process may influence more
than one other cognitive process. In some cases the inial symptoms following brain
damage are temporary, a result of localized swelling, infection, and so on.

Damaging a regaon can show us what cognitive skill is disrupted by that damage,
not what is contributed by that ara to the activity. And the brain may not partition its
functioning in the same way that we partition cognition. Broca observed a loss of productive speech with damage to the left frontal region, but he concluded that productive speech involved many interrelated neural regions and that the area he identified
might be the final common pathway to the speech apparatus.
Despite these cautions, the breakdown of cognitive function in brain-injured
patients often provides clues to how the bram accomplishes the funcons of the mind.
Neuropsychological cases ofren reveal namre's partifioning of cognive processes in a
manner that influences the development of cognitive models. Many computationalrepresentaonal theories have no need or a brain. Nevertheless, in most computafional models, the processes are represented locally. In funcfional terms the mind is
composed of a set of relatively independent processes such as memory, language, attention, and so on. When these cognive processes correspond to losses resulting from
damage to particular brain systems, the tendencT to localize the cognitive functions
physically becomes compelling.
CONCLUSIONS
A number of events m the 1940s and 1950s forecast the rapid development of cogni-
tire psychology as one of the most exciting branches of modern psychology culminating with its emergence as a branch of psychology in the 1960s.
In 1943 Warren McCulloch (1899-1969) and Walter Pitts (1923-1969) published
"A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Imminent in Nervous Activity" (McCulloch & Pitts,
1943). This paper outlined how a network ofneurons might provide the physical strucmre for an idea. In 1953 Colin Cherry, a British psychologist working at the Massachusetts Instimte ofTechnology, published his findings exploring how listeners ate able
to listen to a single message while being bombarded with many competing messages,
later called the cocktail party effect. In 1956 Jerome Brtmer, Jacqueline Goodnow, and
George Austin published A Study in Thinking, which summarized years of work that
Bruner and his colleagues had conducted at Harvard on problem solving and how we
categorize and organize our knowledge about things in the world. They asked their
subjects to verbally report how they categorized things and how they searched
" " " their
te
memory to select among their categoes. In so domg, they uncovered cognmve stra gies" for searching through our mental storage system.
Also in 1956, John McCarthy organized a small conference of scientists, mathematicians, and logicians interested in computer simulations of human t_hinldng, k was at
this conference that the term artificial intelligenge was coined. George Miller presented
a paper titled, "The Magical Number Seven Sign, Plus of Minus Two," in which he snmmarized work showing that our capacity to temporarily hold information in memory
(e.g., remembering a telephone number) was limited to about 7, plus or minus 2,
"chunks" of information (Miller, 1956). Allan Newell and Herbert Simon presented a
paper tled "The Logic Theory Machine" outlining their program m develop computer
Conclusions
programs using strategies-that wottld simulate human intelligence (Newell.& Simon,
1956). Noam Chomsky, in the sarne year, published "Three Models for the Descripnon of Language," dramatically changing the field of linguisncs from descriptive to
theorencal (Chomsky, 1956).
Two years later Donald Broadbent published Perception and Communication, summarizing years of work conducted during World War II on human attention (Broadbent, 1958). He utilized the metaphor of computer processing and produced a model
of attenUon that was one of the earliest and most influenual models of human information processing. Ms0 in 1958, Frank Rosenblatt published a computer simulati0n
model of visual pattern perception called the "perceptron" (Rosenblatt, 1958).
This excitement over the new way of thinking about "thinldng" continued into the
1960s, and in 1967 Ulric Neisser officially labeled this branch of psychology in his
book Cognitive Psycbology (Neisser, 1967). His book introduced the field to the wide
range of related topics falling under the damain of cogniuve psychology and documented the loose organizaon of scientists ffom many disciplines joined in the study
of the mind as an informationprocessor. Neisser said, "As used here, the term 'cognition'
FIGURE I. I 3
Cognitive Psychology Continues to Be an Interdisciplinary Field.
39

refers to all the processes by which the sensoxT input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used" (Neisser, 1967, p. 4). Though this period of time
seems "revoluonary," it was a period of rapid growth that followed many decades of
development. Today, as illustrated in Figure 1.13, cognitive psychology, as an interdisciplinary smdy of the mind encompassing theory and research from philosophy,
neuroscience, computer science, linguistics, anthropology, and psychology, is often
called cognitive science.
Ulric Neisser's account of the emergence of cognitive psychology as a subdiscipline of psychology was a "classical" view in that cognive psychology could be a science of mind without any expectation that ir would ulmately be reduced to neurons
or chemistry. He likened the study of cognition to economics, in which the content of
the science is on the "interdependence among certain events rather than with their
physical nature."
However, many scientists now place cognitive psychology within a broader field
of cognitive science of cognitive neuroscience. Hans Lucas Teuber, a neuropsychologist, once proposed the following metaphor for the relationship between experimental psychology and biological psychology, which applies well to the broadening of the
field of cognive psychology. He likened the two fields to two construction crews on
opposite sides of a river so broad you could barely see the other side. Now and then
one of the crews would build a bridge to the opposite bank. However, by the time
they reached the other side the other construction crew had moved lar along. The
river has narrowed considerably: Cognitive psychologists can look across the river and
see the work of neuroscientists clearly now. The temptation to quickly build bridges
is irresistible.
TESTYOURSELF $TUDY QUESTIONS
1. Describe the rationalist and empiricist perspective~.
2 . Describe how Plato and Aristotle differed in their conception of the namre of
objects.
3 . What was a key debate about cognition argued by the scholastics during the
Middle Ages?
4 . What was Roger Bacon's argument regarding scientific knowledge?
5. Explain Ockham's razor.
6. Describe Descartes's procedural of"methodological doubt."
7 . What is the difference between the positions of John Stuart Mili and his
father, James Mili, regarding the nature of the mind's representation of
objects and ideas?
8 . What ate neural networks?
9 . What did phrenology propose?
10. Describe Donders's method of partitioning mental events into their parts.
11. What did psychophysics attempt to accomplish?

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Cogn~t~on

R. DOUGLAS WHrFMAN, PH.D.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Assoi~te Editor '

Senior PrOduction Editor

c. 428 BCE-348 BCE

c. 384 BCE-322 BCE

Rationalism: The mind is innately prepared

The Middle Ages

CHAPTER l Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

Abstraction ofinternal representafions from

Proposed the experimental method

Ockham's razor: do not propose unnecessary

CHAPTER I Introduction:to Cognitive Psychology

Ren Descartes (1596-1650)

John Locke (1632-1704)

Methodological Doubt: Al1 we can know is

Assoeiation of Ideas: Reason and knowledge

[ntroduction to Cognitive Psychology

A number of philosophers, in contrast to Descartes, argued that sensation, or

CHAPTER I Introduction to Cognive Psychology

The Smith Papyrus

Function is localized in the brain

Franz Gall & Johannes

Phrenology: Different cognitive faculties

Paul Broca (1861)

Localization of productive speech: in the

Mind as Brain: Neurology, Phrenology, and Neuropsychology

Introduction m Cognive Psychology

Broca was actually more circtnnspect in idendfying a "language" area. He suggested

MIND AS A NETWORK: FROM NEURONS TO ASSEMBLIES

Mind as a Network: From Neurons to Assemblies of Neurons

CHAPTER I Introduction to Cogniuve Psychology

The Mind as Structure

Hebb (1943) argued that repeated stimulation of a particular assembly of neurons

THE HIND AS STRUCTURE

CHAPTER I lntroducdon to Cognifive Psychology

The Mind as Structure

CHAPTER I Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

MIND AS HOLISTIC: GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

Mind as Holisc: Gestalt Psychology

CHAPTER I Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

MIND AS FUNCTIONAL: EVOLUTION

Functionalism focused on tmderstanding mind and behavior as a ftmction of its purpose

Mind as Functional: Evolution and the Adaptive Mind

Introduction to Cogndve Psychology

Franz Herbert Spencer

Survival of the Fittest

Evolution: Adaptation occurs in the

Functionalism: the mind is adaptive and

Chicago Functionalism: The reflex is a

Columbia Functionalism: There is a

Logical Positivism: all psychological constructs must be measurable and verifiable

Radical Behaviorism: An extreme statement

Cognitive Maps: Ah internal mental

Language acquisition as a learned skill

Inherited language acquisition device

The Adaptive Mind: Logical Positivism and Behaviorism

THE ADAPTIVE MIND: LOGICAL POSITIVISM

In 1957 the contrast between rationalism and empiricism, at least as represented

CHAPTER I Introducrion to Cognitive Psychology

Mind as an Information Processor

CHAPTER I Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

Computers for simulation of human skills. First