Attention and behaviourism — fact and fiction

The paper investigates, using studies of attention as exemplars, the modern truism that cognition was almost completely suppressed by Watsonian behaviourism and its offspring during the first half of this century. This is done by, first, examining the abstracting journals for the period 1910–1960, then by looking at relevant reviews over this period and, finally, by seeing if it is possible to detect conceptual links between old and new work on attention. The picture thus revealed provides no support for the triumph of behaviourism. The paper concludes by briefly discussing the source of cognitive psychologists' attitudes to the history of their subject.