The Columbia Encyclopedia (2008) defines cognitive psychology as the "school of psychology that examines internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory and language." (para. 1). Cognitive psychologists work to understand how people recognize, diagnose, and solve their problems as well as recognize and utilize mental processes to mediate between the stimulus and the corresponding behavior (The Columbia Encyclopedia, 2008). Many notable theories have created new ways of viewing the way the human mind processes, stores, uses, and recalls information used to solve problems, and use memory and language.
The Appearance of Cognitive Psychology
The influences responsible for the development of cognitive psychology came from within the psychological community and outside the psychological field in areas that directly affected the psychology such as the medical field (Goodwin, 2005). The school of thought known as cognitive psychology was developed by way of four major milestones. These milestones helped pave the way for increased thought and research in psychology and in revolutionize the way the brain's cognitive abilities are viewed and studied
[...] Cognitive psychology is the study of mental processes that cannot always be observed in action or in the process of committing a behavior. Based on this problem, cognitive psychologists solved the problem by formulating theories of mental processes and clearly outlining how the unobservable mental processes involved interact with the observable world (Willingham, 2007). In constructing theories this way, cognitive psychologists did not offer theories of behavior but rather offered expected behaviors if the theories are proven correct. If the expected behaviors are not presented, cognitive psychologists simply alter the theories and begin again. [...]
[...] The fourth milestone for cognitive psychology was the analogy of the brain as a computer. The analogy helped to provide representation of the cognitive processes because the computer's artificial intelligence allowed the computer programs that represent cognition processes to organize, store and process information to and from the hardware that represented the brain and body. Willingham (2007) states, “Like a computer, the brain takes in information, manipulates it, and then produces responses” para. 5). This analogy gave cognitive psychologists an ability to combine the abstract constructs that behaviorism ignored and human behavior that is able to be observed. [...]
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