Cognitive psychology is a methodology, or perspective, or set of assumptions utilized to define the mental processes. This particular approach to psychological theory has been in play within the academic community since the late 1950s, but was given its name in a later publication. The term was introduced in 1967 by Ulric Neisser, in his book defining the concept.
It is a psychological science that studies cognition, which is defined as the mental processes that underlie human behavior. Those include reasoning, thinking, decision making, and to a degree emotion and motivation. Neisser gave his concept a very broad definition: "...the term "cognition" refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used. It is concerned with these processes even when they operate in the absence of relevant stimulation, as in images and hallucinations... Given such a sweeping definition, it is apparent that cognition is involved in everything a human being might possibly do; that every psychological phenomenon is a cognitive phenomenon."
The Development of Cognitive Psychology
Seeking to further define this perspective, cognitive psychological research covers the workings of memory, of attention, creativity, problem solving and knowledge representation. Neisser represents his proposal as a psychological science: a point of view that assumes the mind has a certain conceptual structure. He stresses that other schools of theory in psychology are equally necessary and valid. He defines cognitive psychology, when utilized as a theoretical structure, as another "point of view."
This approach to psychological theory was articulated some years before Neisser's publication by Donald Broadbent's work Perception and Communication in 1958. His approach provides an easily visualized model that suggests information processing as the dominant function of the mind. It this model, thinking and reasoning are the processes utilized in this function, like software running on a computer.
Neisser expanded this model somewhat by including virtually all mental activity as part of the processing function, including dreams and other, internally generated sensory input. He does not, however, place reasoning at the top of this heap of mental functions as the ultimate product, but only a part of the process.
The Differences and Uses of Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychology differs from previous psychological theories in several respects. The more traditional schools of thought, including dynamic psychology or behaviorist psychology, look at a person's, goals, needs or instincts as primary driving forces in his behavior. It accepts the use of the scientific method, and generally rejects introspection as a valid method of investigation, unlike phenomenological methods such as Freudian psychology.
Cognitive psychology also acknowledges the existence of internal mental states (such as beliefs, desires and motivations) unlike behaviorist psychology. The perspective espoused by Neisser and the research that evolved it them have played a dominant role in psychological theory and research over the last few decades. The focus on information processing has found its way into theories in abnormal psychology and in developmental psychology, and has led to extensive study of animal cognition.
