Talk:Cognitive revolution

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Gkleiman.

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Predictive claims
The article claims that cognitive psychology has had success predicting behavior? What are these successes? I'm personally not aware of any cases in which psychologists have developed equations that predict behavior with any accuracy. It's very clear that the cognitive approach is dominant among psychologists and others, but if we are going to claim that it has been objectively successful in predictions we should give the readers some indication of what those are.SmartPatrol (talk) 04:57, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I edited a little for POV and prescriptive grammatical errors. 128.36.66.155 23:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)Luke

No mention of Noam Chomsky? [unsigned comment by 65.190.199.57, 05:58, 22 January 2006]
 * This has been solved. - Do c  t  orW  03:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Apologetics
This article is too heavy on defense of and apologetics for behaviorism and the behaviorist point of view. It should be more balanced. Furthermore, the behaviorist position has been undermined in important ways by empirical results, and the cognitive perspective has gained a clear ascendancy. That should be reflected in the article. - Do c  t  orW  03:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the warning of neutrality on the Criticism section can be removed now. I've added references to the claims that were made in there, and it's undeniable that the argument over whether a "revolution" occurred or not is entirely relevant to a page on the cognitive revolution. If anyone agrees then I think they should just remove the warning, or if nobody disagrees then I'll come back another time and remove it myself. MikeSamsa (talk) 04:25, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Neuroimaging
There should also be some mention of the interplay between neuroimaging technology and the fall of behaviorism. One of the primary tenets of behaviorism assumed that the internal state of the brain was unobservable, which doesn't hold if you can observe the brain directly. By the 80's, neuroimaging was very much in full swing, and has grown dramatically as a field since (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroimaging#History) 11:36, 31 May 2006

Peaked in the 1980's?
The cognitive revolution reached its height in the 1980s with publications by philosophers such as Daniel Dennett and artificial intelligence experts like Douglas Hofstadter.

If it reached its height in the 1980s, does this imply it has been in decline since then? The article should clarify this, and inform the reader if whether or not it is still dominant and if not, what other approaches have gained favor since then. Shanoman (talk) 09:33, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

This is too facile - it ignores the role of research centers such as the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard and the Center for Human Information Processing (CHIP) at UC San Diego, both of which were active and influential from the 1960s on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gmandler (talk • contribs) 00:02, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Some issues with this page:
In reference to behaviorism, the article states:” This school was heavily influenced by Ivan Pavlov, B.F. Skinner, and other physiologists.” In fact, Skinner was not a physiologist and held that “physiologizing” was neither necessary or desirable (see e.g., http://web.stcloudstate.edu/gcmertens/science_behavior/ScienceBehavior-Theory.htm).

The article also discusses “The rejection of mental states by the behaviorists”. In fact, Tolman is often considered to be a behaviorist who explained behavior using mental states. It would be more accurate to note that behaviorists had a tendency to reject mental states in favor of other hypothetical constructs (like synaptic connections or implicit behaviors). DJM77bci (talk) 17:24, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Nineteen fifty-six was obviously the key year? would it perhaps be better to state that "Nineteen fifty-six was a key year? Consider: Steven Pinker (et al) claims that “Harvard was the site of a revolution—the Cognitive Revolution” in 1956. (see http://mbb. harvard.edu/resources/cogrev07.php)

But According to Howard Gardner, the beginning of the “Cognitive Revolution” may be dated to 1948, the year a symposium entitled Cerebral Mechanisms of Behavior was hosted at California Institute of Technology (aka “the Hixon Symposium” (see Howard Gardner, The Mind’s New Science: A History of the Cognitive Revolution, ch. 2 (New York: Basic Books, 1985) LinaVoce60 (talk) 10:44, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Interview with Herbert A. Simon

 * Bernard Baars (1986), "Interview with Herbert A. Simon," in: Bernard Baars, The Cognitive Revolution in Psychology

Q: When would you say the main change took place in the views of scientific psychologists? George Miller suggests -- facetiously, I think -- that the shift took place on September 12, 1956, because there was a conference at that time where you and Allen Newell presented a paper on a system for discovering proofs of logic theorems; Green and Swets presented a paper on signal detection theory; and George Miller presented a paper on the magic number 7, plus or minus 2.

A: At that conference, Chomsky also gave one of his first presentations of the three theories of grammar. And there was the publication of the Bruner, Goodnow, and Austin (1956) book. All these ideas were enormously influential later on.

These events all took place in that year. Nineteen fifty-six was obviously the key year in terms of these things all coming to a jell. There were a lot of things that happened before 1956, but if one wants to have a starting point, then it's as good a place as any. (pp. 372-373) [my boldtype] --KYPark (talk) 17:00, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Birth of the "Cognitive Revolution"
According to George Miller, “I date the moment of conception of cognitive science as 11 September,1956, the second day of a symposium organized by the ‘Special Interest Group in Information Theory’ at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the time, of course, no one realized that something special had happened so no one thought that it needed a name; that came much later.”

Steven Pinker (et al) claims that “Harvard was the site of a revolution—the Cognitive Revolution” in 1956.

But According to Howard Gardner, the beginning of the “Cognitive Revolution” may be dated to 1948, the year a symposium entitled Cerebral Mechanisms of Behavior was hosted at California Institute of Technology (aka “the Hixon Symposium” (see LinaVoce60 (talk) 12:50, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

see also: The Mythical Revolutions of American Psychology Thomas H. Leahey February 1992 American Psychologist Vol. 47, No. 2, 308-318 LinaVoce60 (talk) 07:29, 1 April 2011 (UTC) LinaVoce60 (talk) 07:33, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation needed?
I found my way here expecting to read about the relatively sudden increase in cognitive ability that seems to occurred in humans c. 70k years ago as evidenced by the earliest indications of art and culture. I've always seen it referred to as the "cognitive revolution".

A quick google showed that I wasn't imagining it - it really is termed "cognitive revolution". Wikipedia call it "Human evolution (origins of society and culture)" - which is obviously descriptive but not an obvious title when an alternative is in reasonably common use.

It's clear that this article refers to the most common usage of the term. I'm just wondering if a signpost to the alternative meaning would be appropriate.

Should I be taking this up on the other page? (But since I found this one first I thought I'd start here) 212.74.5.11 (talk) 16:30, 3 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I would opt for a hatnote. . I boldly added to this article. Hope this helps? Arnoutf (talk) 17:37, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Nicely done, thanks! I adjusted the first parameter of the hatnote to read "late 20th-century developments in the cognitive sciences" to avoid possible confusion with Emergence. Just plain Bill (talk) 17:48, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

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Revolution as a paradigm shift
The article understandably implies a Kuhn-ian shift in paradigm, most notably in the final paragraph of the introduction. However it may be prudent to mention that the cognitive revolution "is not best represented in terms of a Kuhnian 'paradigm shift' (Lachman, Lachman, & Butterfield, 1979; Palermo, 1971; Weimer & Palermo, 1973)" because the changes "did not result in the abandonment of the central principles of operant or classical conditioning theories — the core theoretical elements of the behaviorist paradigm. Moreover, behaviorists continued to maintain their in-house journals, their own APA division, and a sizable professional membership (Leahey, 1997). Nor were these recognized anomalies the primary stimulus for the development of cognitive theories in the 1950s, which was provided by outside developments in artificial intelligence and the computer simulation of cognitive abilities (Baars, 1986; Gardner, 1985)." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gkleiman (talk • contribs) 22:37, 6 November 2017 (UTC)


 * See also, e.g., Terry L. Smith's book Behavior and its Causes: Philosophical Foundations of Operant Psychology (published earlier than the article by Greenwood that you cited above), quoted in : "even though radical behaviorism may have been a failure, the operant program of research has been a success. Furthermore, operant psychology and cognitive psychology complement one another, each having its own domain within which it contributes something valuable to, but beyond the reach of, the other." Biogeographist (talk) 01:25, 7 November 2017 (UTC)