(from Latin, cognoscere: to know) Cognition is the act or process of knowing. Cognitive psychology is a programme of study that emerged in the 1950s, pioneered by psychologists such as George Miller and Donald Broadbent (1926–1993). The emergence of cognitive psychology was stimulated by three things. The first was a reaction against BEHAVIOURISM, which was seen as unnecessarily restrictive: its strict emphasis on the analysis of behaviour did not permit investigation of such things as MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS, LANGUAGE OF the processes of information handling.
The second was the introduction of practical computers, which could be used both to manipulate large amounts of information and provide models of information storage, manipulation and use. The third was the rapid advance of INFORMATION THEORY, which provided mathematical models of information coding and decoding. Cognitive psychology is a term used now to refer to areas of study that include processes of knowing, including sensation and perception (see SENSATION vs. PERCEPTION), ATTENTION and the mechanisms of information handling (including LANGUAGE and MEMORY for example). Cognitive psychology is often contrasted with PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY but in fact the two are closely related: it is cognitive psychology that supplies the theoretical constructs with which physiological psychologists attempt to understand brain functions. The emergent discipline of COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE is the outcome of this happy union.
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