Hearts & Minds - The Boston Globe

Just over 50 years ago, a group of brash young scholars at an MIT symposium introduced a series of ideas that would forever alter the way we think about how we think. In three groundbreaking papers, including one on grammar by a 27-year-old linguist named Noam Chomsky, the scholars ignited what is now known as the cognitive revolution, which was built on the radical notion that it is possible to study, with scientific precision, the actual processes of thought. The movement eventually freed psychology from the grip of behaviorism, a scientific movement popular in America that studied behavior as a proxy for understanding the mind. Cognitive psychology has fueled a generation of productive research, yielding deep insights into many aspects of thought, including memory, language, and perception. Tomorrow, Harvard University is celebrating this intellectual achievement with a discussion featuring Chomsky and other luminaries of the revolution.