The Cognitive Revolution was a big change in psychology that happened during the mid-20th century. It shifted the focus from looking only at actions to understanding what goes on inside our minds.
Before this change, psychology mainly focused on behaviorism. Behaviorism looked at how people act and react to things around them. Behaviorists believed that all our actions could be explained by how we learn from experiences—basically, how we are trained to respond to different situations.
But by the 1950s and 1960s, some scholars started to feel that behaviorism was missing something important. They recognized that it wasn’t enough to only look at actions and reactions. Thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions also matter a lot in understanding why people behave the way they do.
This realization marked a new direction in psychology. Researchers began using different scientific methods to study how our minds work.
Important figures in this Cognitive Revolution included Noam Chomsky and George A. Miller. They showed that we need to look at language and memory to really understand how our minds operate. For example, Chomsky argued that people are born with natural abilities to learn languages. He showed that our brains have built-in ways to help us understand language.
Miller focused on memory and revealed that there are limits to how much we can remember. He introduced the idea of “seven plus or minus two,” which suggests that people can only manage a small number of items in their memory at one time.
Additionally, during this time, new computer technology helped psychologists. People started to think of the human mind like a computer—how information is taken in, stored, and recalled. This perspective allowed psychologists to better understand mental processes.
In summary, the Cognitive Revolution changed psychology by highlighting the importance of internal mental processes. It gave us a deeper understanding of human behavior and brought together different fields like cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and even artificial intelligence. This shift laid the foundation for modern psychological theories and research that are still important today.
The Cognitive Revolution was a big change in psychology that happened during the mid-20th century. It shifted the focus from looking only at actions to understanding what goes on inside our minds.
Before this change, psychology mainly focused on behaviorism. Behaviorism looked at how people act and react to things around them. Behaviorists believed that all our actions could be explained by how we learn from experiences—basically, how we are trained to respond to different situations.
But by the 1950s and 1960s, some scholars started to feel that behaviorism was missing something important. They recognized that it wasn’t enough to only look at actions and reactions. Thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions also matter a lot in understanding why people behave the way they do.
This realization marked a new direction in psychology. Researchers began using different scientific methods to study how our minds work.
Important figures in this Cognitive Revolution included Noam Chomsky and George A. Miller. They showed that we need to look at language and memory to really understand how our minds operate. For example, Chomsky argued that people are born with natural abilities to learn languages. He showed that our brains have built-in ways to help us understand language.
Miller focused on memory and revealed that there are limits to how much we can remember. He introduced the idea of “seven plus or minus two,” which suggests that people can only manage a small number of items in their memory at one time.
Additionally, during this time, new computer technology helped psychologists. People started to think of the human mind like a computer—how information is taken in, stored, and recalled. This perspective allowed psychologists to better understand mental processes.
In summary, the Cognitive Revolution changed psychology by highlighting the importance of internal mental processes. It gave us a deeper understanding of human behavior and brought together different fields like cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and even artificial intelligence. This shift laid the foundation for modern psychological theories and research that are still important today.