Research and Comparison of Behaviorism and Cognitive Performance - Essay Example

?An Evaluation of Cognitive Psychology and Behaviorism Introduction Over the years, many different fields of inquiry around the globe have made an attempt to understand the mystery of the mind. All these efforts are an attempt to answer such questions as to what is the human mind, how do people see, remember, perceive or think. Other questions that have arisen pertain to the ways human beings are more adept and intelligent than animals. This is what gave birth to psychology as a study which is the study of the mind, feeling, thought and behaviors of an individual. Since the study of mind has never been rosy for psychologist, two theories have developed. These are the cognitive and behavioral psychology. Psychologists have, however, differed on the two theories as some are in favor of cognitive and oppose the arguments of behavioral. On the other hand, some psychologists have sided with the argument put forward by behavioral psychology in the study of the mind and rejected cognitive psychology. This paper will discuss cognitive psychology and behaviorism and explore the arguments in favor of cognitive psychology. Behavioral psychology is based on the notion that all behaviors are learned. Mills (2000 p.2-11) noted that behaviorism is associated with learning research, which seek to relate environmental events to responses. Behaviorist’s main point of concern is the adaptation of the organisms to the environment (Mills 2000 p.2-11). For this reason, behaviorists argue that evolutionary theory is what is used to address long-term questions while learning is used to solve more pressing questions. Behavioral psychology suggests that there is a useful possibility of translating mental sentences into actual sentences that appeal only to behavior and other events that are observable (Sun 2008 p. 16). With regard to language of a person, behaviorism suggests that meaning of language can be researched through study of verbal behavior especially with regard to how human learn language (Ninness, McCuller and Ozenne 2000 p.16-44). The theory also says that philosophical questions such as human knowledge should be naturalized. In this regard, it postulates the epistemological questions. Behaviorism seem not to explain various aspects of the human mind such as why people differ in terms of perception, attention learning, memory, concept formation, judging, problem solving, and language processing. It is here that cognitive psychology comes in. Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental process such as how human beings think, remember, perceive, learn, reason and understand. Cognitive psychologist are mostly interested in the processes by which patterns and objects are recognized, remembered, attended, imagined and elaborated linguistically (Sun 2008 p.3). Cognitive psychology uses simulation and experimentation as the research tools. The results of the predictions of the models are then compared to human behavior. In practice there are three approaches used in cognitive psychology. These include experimental, computational, neural cognitive psychology. Based on the two approaches, cognitive psychology seems to give a batter explanation as to the study of the human mind compared to behaviorism. For instance, it gives a better explanation as to how people perceive things in the environment. Through cognitive psychology, an individual is able to understand how people construct subjective interpretation of information from the environment (Frischer 2011). Frischer (2011) notes that the theory suggest that perpetual systems are made up of separate senses such as visual, somatosensory and auditory and processing modules such as motion and form. All this aspects represents stimulus information. Cognitive psychology have therefore played a major part providing an explanation as to how these separate module and representations interact and are incorporated into coherent percepts. The study has been achieved empirically using brain imaging and psychophysical methods. These in most cases involve computations based on physiological concepts (Frischer 2011). Behaviorism, on the other hand, is not scientific in nature and as such is based on learning which has no proof therefore can not be relied on in an attempt to study different perceptions of human mind. How people pay attention vary from one person to another. Some people are not able to stay attentive for long while others have the ability to grasp words first. The other question pertains to how attention improves performance of an individual and how lack of attention hinders an individual’s performance. Getting an answer to this question has over the years been a nightmare. Even behaviorists could not come up with a concrete answer to this question. It is until the introduction of cognitive psychology that people were now able to understand why people pay attention differently (Frischer 2011). Cognitive psychology explains this through brain imaging technology which reveals effects of attention on activation during early visual cortices (Eysenck and Keane 2005 p.12-66). Through this method, people are able to understand the networks for attention control. Behavioral theory does not provide an in-depth explanation with regard to attention, and cannot therefore be relied on. This is because relying on someone’s behavior is not enough in explaining how people pay attention. It is argued that leaning improves the organism’s response to its natural environment. Behaviorists have not come up with a clear explanation to prove this. However, through cognitive psychology, the phenomenon can be understood better. For instance, cognitive psychology attempts to study the kinds of new information acquired and the various conditions under which such messages are acquired (Eysenck and Keane 2005 p.12-66). The study of learning always start with an analysis of learning processes in animals, that is, contingency, habitual, instrumental and conditioning and process to learning cognitive information by human (Frischer 2011). This shows that without cognitive or conceptual study, it would be difficult to understanding the learning processes. Cognitive study of learning put emphasis on automatic influence of an individual’s prior experience on performance and the nature of knowledge (Eysenck and Keane 2005 p.12-66). This has been proved using computational approaches and brain imaging technology employed by cognitive psychology. This looks more credible than behaviorist’s arguments. For instance psychologist who use brain imaging approach has been able to investigate the role of different brain systems such as the temporal lobe system for episodic and the duty of perpetual system in explain implicit learning (Eysenck and Keane 2005 p.12-66). Human beings memorize events differently. Some people have very sharp memories while others have short memories. For example, within the institutions of learning, one will notice that a teacher may explain something once and some students just memorizes it easily while others will require the teacher to keep repeating the same thing for them to grasp. This shows how human memory is very fragile. This, therefore, requires an in-depth explanation for an individual to be able to understand. The study of fragility and capacity of human memory is considered as one of the most developed facets of Cognitive psychology (Eysenck and Keane 2005 p.12-66). In this regard, cognitive psychology provides an explanation as to how memory is acquired, kept, and retrieved (Eysenck and Keane 2005 p.12-66). Memory domains are categorized into memory for facts, skills, procedures, working and short –memory capacity (Goldestein 2007 p.42-125). The experimental approaches developed by cognitive approach have identified dissociable types of memory. These are, squire and Zola, procedural and episodic, and capacity processing systems which include short-term, and working memory (Goldestein 2007 p.42-116). Brain imaging experiments identified different brain regions which are active during storage or retrieval from certain distinct processing system. This empirical study is scientifically done and can, therefore, be relied on as opposed to behavioral which argue based on learning and changes within the environment. Understanding human judgment and behavior is not easy. It is for this reason that some psychologist argue that human judgment and decision making is ambiguous (Eysenck and Keane 2005 p.12-66). Human Voluntary behavior needs judgment and choice. Behaviorist have based there arguments on rational models in an attempt to study human judgment and behavior. However, this has no credible proof since in-depth analysis has figured out a number of failures postulated by rational models due to limitations in human beings information processing. This can only be solved using scientific approaches employed by cognitive psychology. For instance, Eysenck and Keane (2005) noted that computational approaches use dynamic systems in analyzing judgment and choice. This has been proved in cognitive neuroscience. Human reasoning is also another point of interest among psychologists. It is the process by which arguments are evaluated. It differs from one person to another. Some individuals have high reasoning capacity while others low. Initially, investigations of reasoning mostly focused on the extent to which human beings rightly applied the philosophically concocted rules of inference in arriving at a solution to particular problem (Goldestein 2007 p.6-25). These are the facets that behavioral psychology was based on. However, human reasoning is affected by fallacies, holistic judgments and representativeness of concrete evidence to prove the point (Eysenck and Keane 2005 p.12-66). This can only be elaborated well using computational approach adopted by cognitive psychology. Understanding how humans pursue goals through problem solving is a point of interest to psychologists. This can only be understood better using cognitive psychology of problem solving which involve the study of how people pursue goal directed behaviors (Frischer 2011). In this case, cognitive psychology suggests that problem solving involve memory, perception, attention and execution of functions. This can be verified using scientific approaches such as brain imaging technology. This suggestion by cognitive psychology looks more credible than those of behaviorists. Through cognitive psychology, individuals are able to understand the language processing. For instance, cognitive psychology focuses on language acquisition, comprehension, production and psychology of reading (Frischer 2011). This is more comprehensive and credible compared to suggestion put forward by behaviorist. With regard to language processing, behaviorists suggest that meaning of a language can be researched through study of verbal behavior (Goldestein 2007 p.42-125). This argument can not be proved. With regard to cognitive psychology computation models have been made to investigate things to do with lexical system, semantic representation and parsing systems. In conclusion, it is appreciated that despite both behaviorist and cognitive psychology has helped in understanding human mind, cognitive psychology seems to be the best. This is mainly due to the fact that it employs the use of scientific tools in the study of mental process such as how human beings think, remember, perceive, learn, reason and understand. The scientific approaches such as the use of computation models and brain imaging technology are much credible and can be proved. References Eysenck, M.W. & Keane, M.T. (2005). Cognitive psychology: A student’s handbook. New York: Psychology press. Goldestein, E.B. (2007). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience. New York: Cengage Learning. Frischer, L. (2011). Cognitive Theory. Retrieved on 15 March 2012 from: http://phobias.about.com/od/glossary/g/cognitivethedef.htm Mills, J.A. (2000). Control: A History of Behavioral Psychology. New York: New York University Press. Ninness, H., McCuller, G., & Ozenne, L. (2000). School and behavioral psychology: applied research in Human-Computer interactions, Functional Assessments and treatment. Massachussettes: Springer. Sun, R. (2008). The Cambridge Handbook of Computational Psychology. Cambridge University Press, New York. 2008. Read More