What were the precursors of cognitive psychology?
A glance at the evolution of the cognitive psychology provides a feeling that it might have undergone a quick transition over a short duration of time to transform the primitive psychological thoughts. The movement was, however, very quiet, the changes occurring slowly in about 15 years. There were no drum beating; in fact, one of the psychologists claimed that the term revolutionary is very improper for this change.
Also, the cognitive psychology was not developed single handedly, by only one leader, and that too overnight. It took a long time and involved many researchers. These researchers did not have any intention to carry out a movement, but they wanted to just redefine the psychology. Ulric Niesser and George Miller were considered as the great contributors to the development of the cognitive psychology. George Miller got his masters degree in the year 1941.
Once, he gave a speech on psychology in Alabama University, and there he was appointed as a professor, to teach introductory psychology. He said that teaching the subject 16 times, developed more of his interest in the subject. At the Howard University, he worked in a psychoacoustic laboratory. After studying the models of minds, based on computers; the information theory, the statistical theory of learning and others, he learned that the behaviorism is not the same as he perceive.
He then started to focus on his own concepts of psychology and got baffled when he noticed the similarity between the functioning of human brain and the computer. This all became possible because of the revolutionary nature Miller. In 1951 Miller and his colleague Bruner established a laboratory, where they investigated about the human mind. Ulric Niesser was the student of Miller and studied cognitive psychology with him.
He described that to achieve academic degree he could not escape from the behaviorism. This happened because each and every theory has to be proved on rats. Hence, after sometime he wrote a book, which was somewhat personal about his own behavior and his objectives. After sometime he wrote a book, cognitive psychology.
Then, a few years later he wrote another book, cognition and reality. He proposed that the psychology must not be limited to the laboratory settlements, but must be applied in the real world. In addition, he also insisted the psychologists to apply their findings in the real world, so that the common people could get benefitted to tackle their day-to-day activities.