Cognitive Theory and Mental Development

Abstract

This chapter discusses the subject of cognitive theory and mental development. Cognitive psychology's subject matter is people's mental states and processes. To expose these, it uses laboratory methods developed for the study of attention, memory, language, and perception, and especially the techniques of verbal learning experimentation. Its goal is to create generalized or nomothetic theory of human cognition. This chapter characterizes some of the changes in experimental psychology since 1950. Starting there allows, presenting a broad picture of the backdrop for the present state of affairs. The chapter describes the contemporary experimental psychology that is perhaps better called cognitive psychology, as having a poor match between its conception of scientific explanation and its methods for testing theory. The chapter explains two methods that hold some promise of meeting the implicit requirements of cognitive psychology's conception of scientific explanation. It is proposed that techniques of cognitive instruction and tests for individual differences can provide needed empirical validation for cognitive theory. The chapter also explains the methods that seem promising for general experimental psychology are being refined first by specialists in retardation and childhood.