Cognitive psychology is a field that explains the functioning of memory, language use, thinking, and a wide range of other mental activities. Among the theorists who shaped modern cognitive psychology is Noam Chomsky. While not a psychologist, his input in psychology is impossible to ignore. His primary field of work in linguistics, but the ideas that he has set forward have determined the development of the psychological studies since the publication of his critique of B.F.Skinner’s Verbal Behavior in 1959 (Smith, Allott, & Allott, 2016).
Skinner’s initial assumption was that the language is solely a learned behavior, and thus is a set of functional responses to different phenomena. This was consistent with the behaviorist psychology, one of the dominant approaches of the time. Alternatively, Chomsky has suggested that language is innate, and is developed as the external influences trigger the need for it. He pointed to the relatively fast pace of mastering of language by infants, inconsistent with its behavioral nature, and the unique quality of language as a feature characteristic of humans. Both arguments defined language as partially based on genetics.
Chomsky’s findings were the primary reason for the shift in focus from behaviorism to cognitive psychology, to the point where he is often credited with single-handedly starting the “cognitive revolution.” (Hunt, 2007) Besides, some progress in evolutionary psychology was possible thanks to the results of his linguistic studies (Scher & Rauscher, 2012). Finally, he is one of the advocates of the “modularity,” a concept which views the mind as a set of dedicated subsystems instead of one broad system which can apply any cognitive process to any received data and is useful in explaining some previously unclear phenomena (Smith, Allott, & Allott, 2016).
References
Hunt, M. (2007). The story of psychology. New York, NY: Anchor Books.
Scher, S., & Rauscher, F. (2012). Evolutionary psychology: alternative approaches. New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media.
Smith, N., Allott, N., & Allott, N. (2016). Chomsky: ideas and ideals. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.