There is more general interest than ever in understanding the mysteries of the human brain and the mind. So far as the media are concerned, numerous television programs, movies, and books are devoted to the more dramatic aspects of the brain and its workings. Aristotle thought that introspection was the only way of studying thinking. Behaviorism started in the United States in 1913. Its central figure was John Watson, who was determined to make psychology an experimental science. The American psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner was the most influential behaviorist of all. He focused on operant conditioning, a form of learning in which behavior is controlled by its consequences. Skinner agreed with Watson that the behaviorists' emphasis on external stimuli and responses should be accompanied by a virtual ignoring of internal mental and physiological processes. Cognitive psychology, with its emphasis on understanding internal processes and structures, is very different from behaviorism.
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