Psychology Returns to its Roots: Renewed Interest
in Cognition & Physiology
Cognition: refers to the mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge
Research on cognition grew in the 1950s and 60s
John Piaget (1954) - focus on
children's cognitive development;
Noam Chomsky (1957) - psychological
underpinnings of language
Herbert Simon and
colleagues (1958) -
groundbreaking
research on problem
solving
cognitive theorists argue
psychology must study internal
mental events to fully understand
behaviour
people's manipulations of mental images
influence behaviour; focusing only on overt
behaviour yields an incomplete picture on why
they behave how they do
observers maintain the
cognitive perspective
has become the
dominant perspective in
contemporary
psychology
1950s and 60s saw discoveries
highlighting the interrelations
between mind, body, and
behaviour
James Olds (1956) demonstrated electrical
stimulation of the brain could evoke emotional
responses (pleasure, rage) in animals; Roger
Sperry (1981) showed the right and left halves of
the brain are specialized to handle different types
of mental tasks
Donald Hebb (1949) - his ideas highlighted the importance
of physiological and neuropsychological perspectives
locus of behaviour
should be sought in
the brain
suggested repeated stimulation leads to the
development of cell assemblies; they resemble
cognitive units that together or un unison with
other cell assemblies facilitate behaviour
advocates of the biological perspectives of
behaviour maintain much of human and
animal behaviour can be explained in
terms of the bodily structures and
biochemical processes that allow
organisms to behave
interest in
neuroscience
approach to psych has
increased
Neuroethics: concern for
how info concerning our
brain and its connection to
behaviour is used; concern
with ethics