Cognitive psychology is the study of inner mental processes, unlike behaviorism which studies observable phenomena. It has been able to attain some scientific credibility since its origins in 1960s. The methods and measures used in cognitive psychology researches form the backbone of this field, other than the information processing theories which lie at its core. Advancing the implicit measures and tests have provided us necessary information and knowledge about the cognitive processes. But at the same time it has been criticized that the implicit measures and many other widely used tools in researches involve a sort of self-report information. A participant is asked to provide answers which are what he/she observes to be there. Although there are several procedures where no self-report is required but still a large part of literature in cognitive psychology has used self-report in their tasks. Doesn't this reduce the quality and validity of the data which is analyzed to confirm the theories and concepts? Doesn't cognitive psychology at large, if not completely, still remain non-empirical in approach? Though no school in psychology has been able to call itself totally empirical, but is this fact realized by many, that much of so-called scientific work in psychology is still not objective, especially in the case of cognitive psychology whose chief aim is to know about mental processes which can not be observed directly like physical phenomena or overt behaviors?
The issue is not one of empiricism - measures are taken. At issue is the falsifiability of reported experiences, because these are essentially private and not "objectifiable". This means the report cannot easily be falsified. However, cognition in the strict sense of the term goes without saying, the problem is what are its characteristics and how much can we infer of these characteristics based upon reports. But these are not the only measures, while others (response times for instance) do not suffer the same problems.
A few comments of my own on this issue:
1) I do not think the distinction between Cognitive Psychology and Behaviorism is as clear and strict as implied in the question. It is true that the fundamental principles are, to some extent, opposite. This is particularly true if a “true” behaviourist would comment Cognitive Psychology. However, from the point of view of Cognitive Psychology, Behaviourism would represent an historical heritage. This can be seen in the pioneer work of Tolman on mental maps. Many of the studies conducted in Cognitive Psychology rely on “behaviouristic” experimental designs (see also point 3 below).
2) There is nothing un-scientific in implicit measures per se. For instance, many results in the so called hard sciences depend on measuring indirectly certain phenomena. Just one example: the detection of the Higgs boson. An excerpt from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson#Experimental_search) reads:
“To produce Higgs bosons, two beams of particles are accelerated to very high energies and allowed to collide within a particle detector. Occasionally, although rarely, a Higgs boson will be created fleetingly as part of the collision byproducts. Because the Higgs boson decays very quickly, particle detectors cannot detect it directly. Instead the detectors register all the decay products (the decay signature) and from the data the decay process is reconstructed. If the observed decay products match a possible decay process (known as a decay channel) of a Higgs boson, this indicates that a Higgs boson may have been created. In practice, many processes may produce similar decay signatures. Fortunately, the Standard Model precisely predicts the likelihood of each of these, and each known process, occurring. So, if the detector detects more decay signatures consistently matching a Higgs boson than would otherwise be expected if Higgs bosons did not exist, then this would be strong evidence that the Higgs boson exists.”
Granted, the logic relies heavily on a powerful and highly developed theoretical framework. One seldom finds theories as evolved in Cognitive Psychology (but, as Mark noticed, there are highly sophisticated theories on reaction times) – the point is: observing or measuring indirectly a phenomenon does not, by itself, weaken scientifically such study and "direct" observation is not a criteria for scientifically sound research.
3) I got the feeling that, at least implicitly, you embraced the idea that something which is subjective is, by definition, un-measurable and, therefore, far from the reach of a scientific approach. My point here is that this might steam from a confusion between method and object of inquiry. One fundamental aspect of the scientific work is that it is objective. But notice that this assertion refers to the methodology, not the object. In simple terms it means that the “subjectiveness” of the researcher (his opinions, hunches, etc) do not interfere in the obtained results. In Cognitive Psychology what is “subjective” is not the method, but rather the object of study. This could not be otherwise: the focus of cognitive psychology is a certain subject; it is not a coincidence that the words “subject” and “subjective” share the same terminology (with the use of the term "participants" this link is not as obvious). There is no fundamental constrain to study objectively a subjective phenomena – and that is why we go through such pains to devise and implement carefully thought experimental designs. You can say that Cognitive Psychology aims to study objectively the subjective phenomena. To subtract the subjective would be to deny Cognitive Psychology its own object of inquiry.
I don't really know that most cognitive psychology results can be described as "self-report." Are reaction times and errors "self-report"? Those are our two most common measures. As hinted at by others above, even if cognitive psychology was based on self-report, that's still a behavioural observation and by definition empirical. It can still be tested whether a self-report is consistent or inconsistent with the hypothetical processes implied by a theory. Everything in every science is measured indirectly in at least some sense. Even sensory information is not directly perceived, but instead inferred by our brains, so in that sense even the monitor you are currently looking at is only indirectly perceived. The issue of self-report vs. not or direct (probably impossible) vs. indirect is essentially orthogonal to the issue of empirical vs. non-empirical. This question is thus a bit strange.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Psychology