Several days ago I have got a letter from the journal “Cognitive Psychology” suggesting to take a look at the most downloaded articles from this journal in the last 90 days. The list from April 28 includes 25 articles published from 1972 to 2018 (see the file attached). The distribution of the articles within this period is far from uniform. Nine articles were published in 1972-1980. Eight articles were published in 1981-2015 and 8 articles were published after 2015. The inclusion of the eight articles which were published recently, probably reflects the fact that these articles are new and many scientists are in process of familiarizing with it yet. However, the inclusion of most of these articles in the list seems temporary because in the period from 1981 to 2015 more than four years were necessary, on average, to add one article to the list.
One may suggest that the nine articles published in 1972-1980 are downloaded by students who learned on these old articles from textbooks and lections where the papers are described as important and ground-breaking . This suggestion is probably correct. A long period of time is often necessary to estimate the importance of a scientific article. Forty years are a very long period. Thirty years seem to be a very long period too. Therefore, it is unclear why those textbooks mention articles published in the 1980s much less often than ones published in the 1970s. The answer may be associated with changes in psychology denoted as the cognitive revolution. For several decades behaviorism dominated in psychology and the studies of cognition were neglected. Only in the 1960s research on cognition became intensive and in the 1970s, cognitive science had surpassed behaviorism as a main psychological paradigm. It seems that the papers published in the 1970s became ground-breaking because at that time the authors of these texts were, to some extent, pioneers exploring a new land when every step may result in discoveries. But what happened afterwards? Why was the rate of the publication of famous articles in Cognitive Psychology abruptly decreased in the 1980s?
A simple answer that in the 1980’s the journal lost its status as a very important outlet for cognitive scientists is hardly correct because Cognitive Psychology has a high impact factor. Two hypotheses seem possible. One hypothesis is that already in the 1970s main results in cognitive psychology were obtained and basic theories were formulated. Since then generations of scientists have only polished those achievements. I don’t believe that most of cognitive scientists concur with this assumption. The other hypothesis is that there are fundamental problems in cognitive psychology which have blocked progress in the discipline after its restart in the 1960s. Might human cognition be, in general, unknowable? Might experimental methods used in cognitive psychology be ineffective? Might basic theories in the discipline be totally incorrect? Other reasons?
Dear Pavel,
You raise a pertinent question and make a wise digression on, say, the history of cognitive psychology since its appearance in the 60's of past century. A comprehensive answer to your question could be only given by writing a book. Thus, my answer is a short answer. As you certainly agree, if progress in a given science was a function of the number of theories it contains, then psychology would be the queen of sciences, which is not the case. The excessive number of theories in psychology reminds me of critic John Horgan's remark: Theories of human nature never really die; they just go out and in of fashion. The decrease of papers on cognitive psychology may be due to the appearance of neurosciences and also to the fact that cognition in cognitive psychology appears as disembodied cognition.
This is a short and personal oopinion.
Best regards,
Oralndo
Dear Pavel Prudkov
Thank you very much for the informative list. (If they're short of new or progressive material, they could always publish my writings.)
Dear Orlando M Lourenço
I agree with all your remarks. Too many theories (and, not surprisingly, several popular ones -- enhancement theories and embodiment theories -- are weird in just the way you described at the end of the following quote): (quoting): " ... decrease of papers on cognitive psychology may be due to the appearance of neurosciences and also to the fact that cognition in cognitive psychology appears as disembodied cognition " (end quote)
I have more than indicated that the reason for all this weirdness (and for theories like those I named, that will NEVER have any direct evidence for their empirical grounding or foundation). I have cited several basic assumptions (actually : presumptions or pseudo-'assumptions') that are held, but are unproven and have no empirical grounding or foundation and are likely FALSE. This results in "new perspectives blindness" and in the "boxing in" of thought so that all the new things they can come up with to try to "help" understanding are basically ridiculous; at the same time, understandably (and as indicated), these psychologists (researchers and theorists) CANNOT SEE THE GOOD IN CERTAIN new, promising, and very well-grounded perspectives and approaches, even where their grounding and foundation is in directly observable overt behavior patterns, and other major related or developing behavior patterns can be clearly seen as indirectly related to this core foundation (with ONLY the simple forms of associative learning needed to tie those with the the behavior patterns that are the foundational grounding). AND, ALL is associated, now in the present, with testable (verifiable) hypotheses (testable now, because of the development of eye-tracking technology and computer-assisted analysis).
BUT THIS STASIS (I described) IS A BIG PROBLEM (since it has very long historical/cultural/philosophical roots AND the pseudo-'assumptions' have been in use in all psychology for over a century).
I have one such new, good theory (perspective and approach) in mind (in fact, it is the only one I am really talking about), that has (and is based on) more biologically consistent/congruent and more likely TRUE (and real/provable) assumptions. These assumptions are, in several cases, the OPPOSITE of the pseudo-'assumptions'/beliefs/presumptions held, and apparently __NECESSARILY USED__ in their logic, by the vast majority (if not all) of research (and theoretical) psychologists. All this is spelled-out in my writings. See:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brad_Jesness2
Especially: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286920820_A_Human_Ethogram_Its_Scientific_Acceptability_and_Importance_now_NEW_because_new_technology_allows_investigation_of_the_hypotheses_an_early_MUST_READ and https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322818578_NOW_the_nearly_complete_collection_of_essays_RIGHT_HERE_BUT_STILL_ALSO_SEE_THE_Comments_1_for_a_copy_of_some_important_more_recent_posts_not_in_the_Collection_include_reading_the_2_Replies_to_the_Comm
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