COGNITIVISM

Cognitive psychologists challenge the limitations of behaviorism in its focus on observable behavior. They incorporate mental structure and process into their learning theories. Like behaviorists, they engage more in the hypotheico-deductive scientific inquiry. The primary focus of the research study in cognitive psychology emphasizes the internal processes and structures processes inferred through the observation of behavior. However, the focus on the mental structures and processes in cognitive psychology does not explicitly indicate its philosophical position.

The internal representation of the learners can echo the external reality, which asserts a position of objectivism that the mind can stand separate and independent from the body. Thus, knowledge can be transferred from the outside of the mind into the inside of the mind. knowledge is transferred from the outside of the mind into the inside of the mind. Wilson and Meyers (2000) illustrate such a position pretty well by indicating its impact on instructional design that "Instructional designers could now think of learning in terms of taking experts' cognitive structures and mapping that knowledge into the heads of learners. The degree of similarity in cognitive structure between expert and novice was a good measure of whether learning objectives were being met." However, the internal representation of learners can also be regarded as a subjective construction of integrating incoming information and the existing knowledge structures, which entails a position of constructivism that knowledge cannot exist independently from the knower. 

The central issues that interest cognitive psychologists include the internal mechanism of human thought and the processes of knowing. Cognitive psychologists have attempted to find out the answers to mental structures, such as what is stored and how it is stored, and to mental processes concerning how the integration and retrieval of information is operated. The theoretical assumptions in cognitive psychology lend instructional systems a hand in the design of efficient processing strategies for the learners to acquire knowledge, e.g. mnemonic devices to reduce the workload of the short-term memory, rehearsal strategies to maintain information, and the use of metaphors and analogies to relate meaning of the new information to prior knowledge.

Theoretical Foundations
The date cited as marking the beginning of psychology as a science is 1879, when Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany. Introspection, the method of inquiry used by Wundt, is claimed to be a cognitive approach, since it is a tool of self-observation to examine the working of the mind. Winn and Snyder (1996) claimed that Wundt's methodological contribution was "the development of introspection as a means for studying the mind". Many ideas and assumptions of cognitive psychology can be traced back to the early decades of twentieth century, i.e. Gestalt psychology, Edward Tolman's cognitive learning (1932), and Jean Piaget's cognitive development theory.

Anderson (1985) lists three main influences for the modern development of cognitive psychology:

1. Information processing approach: Broadbent's information (1958) processing model gives consideration to perception and attention. The important characteristic of an information-processing analysis is that it involves a tracing of the sequence of mental operations and their products in the performance of a particular cognitive task
2. Artificial Intelligence: Allen Newell and Herbert Simon's work in cognitive psychology has promoted use of concepts from computer science in the development of psychological theories.
3. Linguistics: Noam Chomsky asserted that language learning must include internal constructs. A theory that only considers the observable stimuli and responses in linguistic interaction is not sufficient.

Gestalt Psychology
Gestalt Psychologists believed that knowledge comes from more than just experience; it also involves the knower actively imposing organization on sensory data.

Kohler (1925, The Mentality of Apes) proposed that behavior could not be explained by the principles of association alone. He proposed that there was an inner process that enabled the apes to grasp the structure of a situation, in which learners recognized the interconnection based on the properties of things themselves. Learning, therefore, does not occur in a regular, continuous way from a pattern of trial and error. Instead, learning occurs with a realization of a new relationship, 'the insight experience'.

Information Processing Approach
The advent of the modern digital computer provided a rich theoretical metaphor for theorizing about human information processing. The information processing architecture of computers strongly framed much early thinking in modern cognitive psychology.
Cognitive psychologists have spent a lot of effort developing accounts of mechanisms that control information processing (Barsalou, 1992). The cognitive theories propose constructs describing information processing mechanisms. The questions about how humans process information, pick up information from the environment, store information in memory, retrieve information from memory, and send information back to the environment are under investigation. People, like computers, acquire information from the environment. Both people and computers store information and retrieve it when applicable to current tasks; both are limited in the amount of information they can process at a given time; both transform information to produce new information; both return information to the environment. Research projects frequently aim at verifying and articulating this theoretical perspective (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968; Broadbent, 1958; Newell & Simon, 1972).

Broadbent (1958) proposed a general model of the human information-processing system. This information processing model presented the basic mechanisms: three main memory storages in which the information is operated on, and the processes of transforming the information from input to output within each storage and from output to input between these storages. The model suggested that the processing is a fixed serial order from one memory storage to the next, and voluntary control of the system was represented by a selective-attention device and by information feedback loops from the high-level processing system to earlier processing stages.

The most widely accepted theory is labeled the "stage theory," based on the work of Atkinson and Shriffin, 1986). The stage model assumes that the brain embodies a nervous system that processes the information from the time of the input to the time of storage in long-term memory. The system comprises three main stages that contain different physiological properties: the sensory registers, short-term memory and long-term memory.

The sensory registers briefly store representations of external stimuli from the environment until the information can be transferred further. There appears to be different sensory registers for each sense. In any case, the sensory registers can hold information for only a very brief period of time. The information is assumed to be lost from the registers unless it is passed along into short-term memory.

Short-term memory can be thought of as conscious memory because, in addition to holding information, it allows information to be manipulated, interpreted and transformed. The new information in short-term memory, by subjection to further processing, may be transferred to and made part of long-term memory.
Long-term memory is a relatively unlimited and permanent repository of information. Long term memory stores for later use of information. Once the information is stored in the long-term memory, it stays.

The information processing model highlights the basic mechanisms in terms of stages and the processes, and the representation and storage of information:

1. Three main stages in which the information is operated on: sensory memory, short-term memory (temporary working memory), and long-term memory
2. The processes of transforming the information from input to output within each stage and from output to input between these stages, e.g. attention/pattern recognition, encoding and retrieval.
3. Representation and storage of information, e.g. network models (Collins and Quillian, 1969), Feature Comparison Models (Smith, Shoben, and Rips, 1974); Propositional Models (Klatzky, 1980; Anderson, 1976); Parallel Distributed Processing Models (McClelland, Rumelhart, and the PDP research group, 1986); Duel Coding Models (Pavivio?)