ABSTRACT
If we compare the past 2 decades of research in cognition, increasingly carried out within an information-processing framework, with the previous 2 decades, mainly Behavioristic and Hullian, we note a remarkable decline in the attention paid to learning. Maze learning experiments with rats, operant conditioning of pigeons, human rote-verbal learning experiments, and experiments in classical conditioning dominate the pages of the Journal of Experimental Psychology during that earlier period. In the later period, the focus on learning is replaced by a concern with performance, from the simplest reaction-time tasks to the most complex tasks of solving problems, recalling information from memory and understanding language.
