The modern cognitive perspective of Psychology began after Noam Chomsky wrote a critical response to a book entitled Verbal Behavior by B. F. Skinner. According to Chomsky (1959), Skinner, who is identified with the behaviorism perspective and known for his studies on the subject of animal behavior, described the subject of language in terms of controlling variables such as stimulus, reinforcement, and deprivation(Skinner, 1957). Chomsky (1959) described Skinner’s theories about grammar and syntax as “pseudo-scientific” and “inadequate” as they did not properly consider the grammar of a sentence. The cognitive perspective of Psychology seeks to study underlying mental processes of behavior instead of studying observable behavior, various types of conditioning, and environmental events.

Previous studies of cognitive concepts were studied by Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt, a prolific writer and pioneer in experimental psychology, who also founded the first experimental psychology laboratory on the campus of the University of Leipzig in Germany in 1879.(Bringmann et al., 1975)

Jean Piaget, who assisted in developing the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales, noticed that young children consistently made certain types of mistakes that older children did not make and sought to understand the underlying cause, which led him to formulate his theory of the Four Stages of Developmental Theory. (Piaget, 1952)

The term “Cognitive Psychology” became widespread after Ulric Neisser wrote a book by that name and said that the term cognition, as used in his book, “refers to all the processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used.” (Neisser, 1967)

Sensory memory holds information that comes from the senses. Iconic memory stores visual memories. Echoic memory stores auditory information from sounds. Haptic memory stores information derived from the sense of touch. Olfactory memory stores information derived from the sense of smell. Gustatory memories store information derived from the sense of taste.