ABSTRACT

Cognitive psychology arose as the response to a confluence of ideas maturing in the early 1950s and 1960s. Several important ideas contributed to this resurrection of mentalism. Some, such as the classic dualism that is the main topic of this book, continued to influence psychological thinking. Other newly maturing concepts and technologies added to the impetus to revitalize mentalism. For example, the role of the computer as a metaphor for mind must not be underestimated. In the glow of this magnificent technological development, scientists and engineers were able to look at the inner information-processing activity of a machine that bore many operational and information-processing similarities to the mind. Computers possessed sensory, motor, and, most interestingly, central-processing agents that mimicked cognitive activity as they processed well-defined units of activity. The fact that it was possible to actually design and construct these CPUs (Central Processing Units) and to understand the operation of the entire system raised hopes that centuries old problems about the role of internal mental mechanisms and processes might also become amenable to similar explanations.