The cognitive revolution

By {the mid twentieth century}, many scholars had pointed out the limitations of Behaviorism: behavior depends on {non-observable internal phenomena} like {memories and beliefs}, which behaviorists exclude from their experimental methods because {they’re subjective}.

Psychologists began to study these internal phenomena using the Transcendental method and ideas borrowed from computer science, eventually producing the field of Cognitive psychology and the theoretical framework of Cognitivism.

Key factors precipitating the cognitive revolution

{Edward Tolman}’s 1948 rat experiments demonstrated the role of {knowledge} in behavior by {letting rats explore a maze for several days}, then testing them by {placing food in the maze}. He observed that {the rats were able to immediately find the food in the maze}, which suggests that they’d acquired a “{cognitive map}”. This contradicts Behaviorism’s theory that learning can be understood as {a change in behavior}.

B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior (1957) claimed that language could be learned through {Operant conditioning}. {Noam Chomsky} published a scathing review, pointing out that {children produce speech they’ve never heard or been rewarded for}.

Frederic Bartlett’s experiments suggested that people interpret their experiences through mental frameworks he called “schemas.”

Computing technology inspired a wave of new psychological theories using information processing metaphors: buffers, gates, processing events, etc.


Q. What’s the significance of the Transcendental method to Cognitive psychology?
A. It resolved an important paradox: understanding behavior requires understanding internal phenomena, which can’t be directly observed.

Last updated 2023-07-13.