Cognitive Perspectives on Learning

As you will read, in a very real sense, behaviorism paved the way for cognitivism to emerge. In the mid-1900s, there was a backlash against behaviorism as it failed to take into account the internal, non-observable mental activity of individuals in explaining behavior. This revolution was spearheaded by the development of computers and the work of Newell and Simon on artificial intelligence, as well as Noam Chomsky’s critique of behaviorism, which was based on his work with language and linguistic competence.

Proponents of cognitive psychology focus on the mental processes that influence behaviors. For example, Neisser (1967) defined cognition as the processes by which "sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used." Cognitive perspectives on learning produced empirical and theoretical refinements on processes such as memory, attention, information processing, and concept formation. In addition, cognitive perspectives viewed the learner as an active participant in the learning process and addressed the importance of identifying what learners know and how they acquired that knowledge in helping them learn further. Learning, in cognitive terms, consists of an active process of acquiring and reorganizing individual cognitive structures. Using the language example and using a cognitive perspective, learning and teaching would be based on the current level of language of the learner and on identifying motivations and active needs of the learner for language learning.

While the largest contrast is in the way the learner is conceived (as a black box in behaviorism; as an active, processing individual in cognitivism), ask yourself in what other ways behaviorism and cognitivism are similar and different.

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Reference

Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive psychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.