1. The Cognitive Revolution
Psychology 4006

2. Introduction
Psychology, at least academic psychology, had become basically behaviourism
Especially in North America
There were holdouts
The Gestaltists
Bartlett

3. Really, what was the alternative?
Freud?
Freud did have impact in academic settings, but it is pretty hard to do research using a theory that is not falsifiable
So you had physiological types, some social psychologists, some people doing stuff with testing, psychophysics and behaviourism
But the behaviourists influenced everyone

4. Then they got greedy….. Were people studying memory? Yeah
The verbal learners
Really just Skinner with people
Then Skinner publishes a thing that says language is just operant conditioning
Really
Even creates a clever demonstration where he ‘teaches’ pigeons language

5. Before he was a third rate political commentator…...
Noam Chomsky
Linguist
‘Father of cognitive science’
The idea of universal grammar
Language is special
It’s not just operant conditioning

6. The Case of HM Scoville and Milner You know this one
No new long term memories
But could learn stuff, didn’t remember it
Suggest different systems

7. Memory systems Endel Tulving at U of T Craik and Lockhart at U of T
Episodic and semantic memory
Craik and Lockhart at U of T
Levels of processing
Al Paivio at UWO
imagery

8. Even where the behaviourists were the strongest….
Even the animal learners took note
Sara Shettleworth at U of T
Bill Roberts at UWO
Al Kamil at Nebraska
The importance of biology and neuroscience, not just behaviour
The largest organization of people who study animal psychology is the Comparative Cognition society, not the use of the word Cognition….
Follow them on twitter, you might know the guy who runs the account....

9. Today Can you imagine psychology without cognition?
Can you imagine psychology without say cognitive neuroscience?
Can you imagine studying memory without using the word ‘memory’?
Can you imagine psychology without ‘internal mental events’ and representations?
Did you notice the Canadian content?