Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience

During the first half of the 20th Century, a radical turn in the investigation of cognition took place. Behaviourists like Burrhus Frederic Skinner5 claimed that such mental internal operations - such as attention, memory, thinking - are only hypothetical constructs that cannot be observed or proven. Therefore, Behaviorists asserted, mental constructs are not as important and relevant as the study and experimental analysis of behaviour (directly observable data) in response to some stimulus. According to Watson and Skinner, man could be objectively studied only in this way. The popularity of Behavioralist theory in the psychological world led investigation of mental events and processes to be abandoned for about 50 years.