To What Extent Did the Legacy of Behaviourism Shape the Development of Cognitive Psychology?

It has been suggested that during the 1950s there existed a dominant approach to psychology, behaviourism, which was overthrown by "the cognitive revolution'. It has been explained that behaviourism was removed as the dominant psychological approach and replaced by the cognitive approach to Psychology (Kuhn, 1962; 1970). This proposed Kuhnian "paradigm shift" (Kuhn, 1962; 1970) has been widely discussed and questioned in research, simply because the transformation from behaviourism to cognitive psychology may not have truly been characterised by the paradigm shift (Thorne & Henley, 2001) that writers have applied to the transition between the two approaches (Gholson & Barker, 1985; Henley, 1989; Kuhn, 1970, Koch, 1975; Palermo, 1971).

For Kuhn's (1962; 1970) conception of a "revolution" to have taken place it would have required that behaviourism were encountering anomalies that did not fit into the regular pattern of its approach. Kuhn (1962; 1970) implies that it is at this time of 'instability' that alternative competing approaches emerge, and that this competition is settled once one of the competitors proves to be most attractive and is triumphant in existing as the latest "normal science" (Kuhn, 1962; 1970).

However, there seems to be questionable inconsistencies between Kuhn's (1962; 1970) theory that has been applied to the change from behaviourism to cognitive psychology, and the actual historical record (Thorne & Henley, 2001). In particular, one major inconsistency is the principle that Psychology saw the emergence of cognitive psychology during the second half of the twentieth century, however, it can be argued that although the 1960s saw the emergence of cognitive psychology mentalist theories already existed before behaviourism became the dominant approach (Thorne & Henley, 2001).

It was, however, following the Second World War that numerous "historical trends" (Galotti, 1999, pp.15) from both inside and outside of Psychology came together to contribute to the rise of cognitivism. These influences brought the return of the consideration of mental processes and states, which rejected the behaviourist's assumptions that they were "beyond the realm of scientific study" (Watson, 1967, pp.15), and excluded as non-existent.

The first of these "historical trends" was a direct product of the war, which contributed a great deal to the awareness of ways to conceptualise cognitive psychology (Jones & Elcock; 2001; Gardner, 1985). The attempts to develop intelligent machinery introduced the notion that machines could 'strive towards goals', it was suggested that machines calculated the difference between their goal and actual performance and worked to reduce this difference, which is achieved via the process of feedback (Betchel, Abraham & Graham, 1998).

This idea of feedback was further developed by Mathematician Norbert Wiener (1948), Wiener was working along side advanced calculating devices that kept anti-aircraft artillery, guided missiles, and aeroplanes on course during the war. Wiener explained that feedback could be used for goal directed behaviour in either humans or machines. He explained that information from the environment leads to adjustments within the system (Jones & Elcock, 2001). This idea grew and soon Wiener drew important analogies between planning, purpose and feedback, and how they were directly related to the way in which the 'human nervous system sustains positive activity' (Gardner, 1985, pp.16). When Wiener realised that the anti-aircraft development could be improved by using information from one firing to control for the aim of the next, he conceptualised the process of feedback as cybernetics, which is the theory of the control of both machines and humans.

The secondly trend was another development of the war, the electronic computer, this advancement acted as a pivotal role towards the 'new cognitive psychology' (Gardner, 1985). The key element that the electronic computer shed light on was that a set of instructions could be applied mechanically. The work of Von Neumann drew significant distinctions between a computer's memory and its central processing unit. He discovered the electronic computer were 'mechanisms of input, central processing and output' (Benjamin, 2007, pp.207). Neumann suggested that this analogy might have reflected the method that the human brain uses to process information.

The development of the electronic computer furthered advances in other areas, for instance, Clause Shannon (1938) observed that basic logic could be contained in an electronic relay, and that electrical circuits could represent primary operations of human thought. Which lead onto Shannon's development of the information theory, which focuses upon understanding the laws governing transmission of information. The theory is based on the understanding that information can be thought of as a decision between two equally feasible alternatives, so cognitive processes could be viewed apart from a single embodiment (Gardner, 1985). This advancement was important in characterising cognition as information processing (Jones & Elcock, 2001).

Consequently, research on the electronic computer contributed to the idea that information processing in computers could perhaps demonstrate the methods of how humans process information (Betchel, Abraham & Graham, 1998). And the development of information theory allowed human cognitions to be conceptualised as a process of processing information (Jones & Elcock, 2001; Gardner, 1985).

A further development, termed neuroscience, is said to have primarily originated following the war (Gardner, 1985). These advancements ensued because of the many instances of brain injuries that were consequential of war, it was the lesions to the human brain that made it possible for researchers to break the brain 'down into functional components' (Jones & Elcock, 2001). Once numerous laboratories around the world had communicated their findings they discovered 'considerable convergence' (Gardner, 1985). Subsequently, researchers accepted that there were irregularities in the organisation of cognitive capacities within the human nervous system that had not been previously recognised, and these irregularities could not be simply explained in terms of simple stimulus-response disruption (Gardner, 1985).

Overall, it appeared that cybernetics, the birth of the electronic computer, information theory and neuroscience all offered alternative frameworks for the explanation of cognitive psychology (Jones & Elcock, 2001). In particular, the electronic computer was greatly influential in the resurgence of cognitive psychology (Gardner, 1985), as it provided a