Question

B. F. Skinner argued that the human mind is a black box best left to philosophers, and they considered observable behavior to be the psychologist's proper focus. In the 1950s, this view began to change among psychologists. Cognitive psychologists often use the computer as an analogy to help explain the relationship between cognition and the brain; describing the physical brain as the computer "hardware" and cognition as the "software." Who was one of the pioneers in using this comparison of the human mind with a computer?

A) B. F. Skinner
B) Herbert Simon
C) Sigmund Freud
D) Noam Chomsky

Answer 1

Noam Chomsky was one of the pioneers in comparing the human mind to a computer, instrumental in initiating the cognitive revolution.

Step-by-step explanation:

Behaviorist B. F. Skinner believed that the study of the human mind was a matter for philosophers and that psychologists should focus on observable behavior. In the 1950s, the rise of cognitive psychology shifted this viewpoint, utilizing the analogy of the human mind as a computer where the brain is hardware and cognition is software. One of the pioneers who was influential in the early days of the cognitive revolution and used this analogy was Noam Chomsky, an American linguist who argued that to truly understand behavior, psychology must consider mental functioning.