# Cognitive Revolution The Cognitive Revolution (1950s–1960s) was a paradigm shift from [[Behaviorism]] to [[Cognitive Science]], restoring the study of mental processes—attention, memory, reasoning, language—as legitimate scientific topics. Key moments include [[Noam Chomsky]]'s 1959 review of Skinner's *Verbal Behavior*, Miller's "Magical Number Seven" (1956), and the 1956 MIT conference on information processing. The revolution drew on information theory, linguistics, computer science, and neuroscience to create the "mind as computer" metaphor central to [[Computational Theory of Mind]]. Key figures include [[Noam Chomsky]], George Miller, Herbert Simon, Allen Newell, and [[Jerry Fodor]]. Behaviorism's ban on mental states gave way to cognitive psychology, AI research, and modern neuroscience. ## Key Moments | Year | Event | |------|-------| | 1956 | MIT Symposium on Information Theory | | 1956 | Miller's "Magical Number Seven" | | 1959 | Chomsky's review of Skinner | | 1967 | Neisser's *Cognitive Psychology* | ## References - Gardner, Howard. *The Mind's New Science* (1985) - Miller, George. "The Magical Number Seven" (1956) ## Related - [[Behaviorism]] - [[Cognitive Science]] - [[Noam Chomsky]] - [[Computational Theory of Mind]] - [[Jerry Fodor]]