# Cognitive Psychology

Psychology I · History of Psychology · https://tryals.app/learn/psychology-i/cognitive-psychology

## The Cognitive Revolution

The **Cognitive Revolution** of the 1950s and 60s shifted psychology back to internal mental processes like memory and perception. Behaviorism had treated the mind as an unobservable **black box**, a methodological choice rather than a denial of internal states. Science simply required observable data until new tools like reaction-time measures changed that.

A turning point was **Noam Chomsky**'s 1959 critique of Skinner, showing children acquire language too creatively for mere reinforcement.

The **information-processing model** views the mind like a computer that **encodes**, **stored**, and **retrieved** data. **George Miller** proposed short-term memory limits via **The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two**. **Ulric Neisser**'s 1967 textbook named the field.

## Memory Limits and Stages

Short-term memory is strictly bounded:

$$\text{Short-Term Capacity} \approx 7 \pm 2 \text{ items}$$

Exceeding this limit causes information loss. **Jean Piaget** mapped cognitive growth through four distinct developmental stages:

| Stage | Age | Key Feature |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Sensorimotor** | 0-2 yrs | Senses, action, object permanence |
| **Preoperational** | 2-7 yrs | Symbolic thought, non-logical |
| **Concrete operational** | 7-11 yrs | Logical thought on objects |
| **Formal operational** | 11+ yrs | Abstract, hypothetical reasoning |

Cognitive psychology measures these hidden mental operations scientifically, replacing mere observation with rigorous testing of internal structures.

## Practice questions

6 of this lesson's 11 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Sort each research approach as behaviorist or cognitive.

**Answer:**

- Behaviorist (study only the observable): Counting lever-presses following reinforcement, Explaining behavior purely by stimulus-response history
- Cognitive (infer internal processes): Measuring reaction times to infer hidden mental steps, Modeling memory as encoding, storage, and retrieval

**Why:** Reaction-time inference and information-processing models are cognitive (they reason about unseen mental steps); counting reinforced responses and pure stimulus-response accounts are behaviorist. The cognitive revolution reopened the 'black box' the behaviorists left closed.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/cognitive-psychology/sort-each-research-approach-as-behaviorist-or-cognitive

### 2. The cognitive revolution borrowed the computer as a metaphor for the mind. What did that metaphor license that behaviourism had forbidden?

A. Talking about internal states as real and specifiable
B. The use of mathematics in psychology, which behaviourism rejected
C. The claim that the brain is literally a digital computer
D. Studying behaviour experimentally rather than through introspection

**Answer:** A. Talking about internal states as real and specifiable

**Why:** The metaphor made the black box discussable: a machine has encoding, storage and retrieval, all specifiable and testable without opening it. That is what returned internal processes to psychology, not the claim that brains are computers, which almost nobody held literally.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/cognitive-psychology/the-cognitive-revolution-borrowed-the-computer-as-a-metaphor-for-the

### 3. Order the stages of the information-processing model for handling a piece of information.

**Answer:**

1. A stimulus is perceived by the senses.
2. It is encoded into a mental representation.
3. The representation is stored in memory.
4. It is later retrieved when needed.

**Why:** Information is perceived, encoded into a representation, stored, and later retrieved - the computer analogy at the heart of the information-processing model. Encoding precedes storage, and retrieval is the final stage.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/cognitive-psychology/order-the-stages-of-the-information-processing-model-for-handling-a

### 4. Select every statement that is TRUE about cognitive psychology.

A. Cognitive psychology returned to studying only observable behavior.
B. The information-processing model treats the mind like a computer.
C. Chomsky argued language acquisition needs more than reinforcement.
D. Most people can hold roughly seven unrelated items in mind at once, give or take two.
E. Piaget's formal operational stage is the earliest developmental stage.

**Answer:** B. The information-processing model treats the mind like a computer.; C. Chomsky argued language acquisition needs more than reinforcement.; D. Most people can hold roughly seven unrelated items in mind at once, give or take two.

**Why:** Miller's seven, the computer analogy, and Chomsky's critique are all true. Cognitive psychology studies internal processes (not only observable behavior), and formal operational is Piaget's LAST stage (not the first) - so those two are false.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/cognitive-psychology/select-every-statement-that-is-true-about-cognitive-psychology

### 5. The 'black box' metaphor reflected a methodological choice to study observable behavior, not a claim that mental states are unreal.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** True. The 'black box' expressed a methodological decision to study only what can be directly observed, not a denial that internal states exist - a distinction cognitive methods like reaction-time measures later exploited.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/cognitive-psychology/the-black-box-metaphor-reflected-a-methodological-choice-to-study

### 6. Chomsky's review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior is often credited with launching the cognitive revolution. His central point was that children produce sentences they have never heard and have never been reinforced for. Why is that observation so damaging to a purely behaviourist account of language?

A. Because it shows children are never corrected by parents.
B. Because it shows language is entirely innate.
C. Because reinforcement can only strengthen responses that occurred.
D. Because reinforcement works only on physical actions.

**Answer:** C. Because reinforcement can only strengthen responses that occurred.

**Why:** Reinforcement changes the probability of responses already in the repertoire, so every response it explains must already have occurred, and a child saying a sentence for the first time has no reinforcement history to grip. Input is plainly necessary; errors like 'goed' show children extracting rules rather than being handed them. The claim is that input alone is not sufficient.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/cognitive-psychology/chomskys-review-of-skinners-verbal-behavior-is-often-credited-with