Cognitive_Psychology_Definition_Paper

| Cognitive Psychology Definition Paper | | PSY/360 | | 6/23/2012 | | Cognitive Psychology focuses on a person’s cognitive functions and their internal states by studying motivation, thinking, attention span, and their problem solving skills. There have been milestones, in psychology, marked by the development of cognitive psychology. Certain developments such as the need for change in methods, the theories, and how these theories are researched, are what led to the discovery of cognitive psychology. This paper will inform you about four of the milestones that made a huge impact on cognitive psychology and why observed behavior is essential to the science. Behaviorism was one of the many milestones that paved the way for cognitive psychology. Behaviorism, which is a perspective of psychology, had shortfalls such as not being able to account for every piece of experimental data that was being introduced (Willingham. 2007). Behaviorism has not been perfect and it has had its downfalls and its basic principle was about what could be observed being where the focus should be, while the unobservable behavior was being ignored. Behaviorism gave cues to cognitive psychology by explaining the relationship between stimulus and response as well as the relevance it had to human behavior. The hypothetic-deductive method of Hull relied on the stimulus/response relationship as a means to explain observed behavior. Through the use of hypothetic-deductive, cognitive psychologists were able to theorize unobservable abstract constructs. The abstract constructs were used to test psychological efficacy through observed behavior and manipulation. Abstract constructs and their ability to account for data from the first milestone, is the second milestone. Abstract construct is a theoretical set of processes and representations that are used to explain some data (Willingham. 2007). Clark Hull worked with abstract constructs and hypothesized theoretical constructs such as primary drives and secondary drives (Goodwin. 2005). The downside to abstract construct was it was not able to demonstrate observed behavior, which is what made it speculative. Another milestone is the example of how abstract constructs, provided by neuroscientists and artificial intelligence, could be used scientifically (Zentall. 2002). The birth of artificial intelligence became known as the new behaviorism in cognitive psychology and provided a way for researchers to reproduce unobservable processes that occur during an individual’s thought process. Neuroscience led to a better understanding of the biological framework, the neurochemical activity, and how a person’s activities as well as their thoughts have an effect on the brain. Computers provided new ways for researchers to observe behavior because computers assimilate, store, and process information in a similar manner as the human brain. This provided cognitive psychologists the tools, aphorisms, analogies, and the metaphors to help close the gap between abstract constructs and observable behavior. The interaction between representatives and the processes can be manipulated in a computer just as it can be in the human brain. During the early movement of cognitive psychology, the stimulus and response, the input and output, reinforcement and punishment dichotomies of the behaviorist did not completely explain human behavior. The cognitive approach to psychology explains the relationship between the stimulus and response and the relevance of human behavior (Costell.2004). In conclusion, each milestone has been beneficial to cognitive psychology and brought about the development of new tools and methods. This paper has only mentioned four and there are many more milestones that are just as important to cognitive psychology. Without these milestones it is doubtful that cognitive psychology would be nothing more than another form of behaviorism. The milestones show how even the little things had a huge impact on cognitive psychology and helped it go from the observable to testing the unobservable. The importance of observable behavior and how unobservable behavior is used together, keeps behavior from being a guessing game when it came to human behavior. The progression of psychology from only a behavior based approach to cognition was a result of the short comings of a behaviorists perspective. Observed and unobserved behavior is relevant to cognitive psychology in order to better understand the human brain and its effects on behavior. Cognitive psychology is an amazing component of psychology and necessary when investigation the mental process in order to understand behavior. There are too many different personalities and behaviors, which vary from each individual, and without cognitive psychology where would society be today' REFERENCES Costall, A. (2004). From Darwin to Watson(and cognitive) and back again: The principle of animal-environment mutuality. Behavior and Philosophy, 32(1), 179-195. Retrieved July 23, 2012 from EBSCOHost database. Goodwin, C.J. (2005). A history of modern psychology (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Willingham, D.T. (2007). Cognition: The thinking animal. New York, NY: Pearson Prentice Hall. Zentall, T.R. (2002). A cognitive behaviorist approach to the study of animal behavior. Journal of General Psychology, 129(4), 328. Retrieved July 23, 2012 from EBSCOHost database.