The roots of cognitive psychology can be traced back much further, and is intimately intertwined with the history of experimental psychology. This leads back to the time period when the empiricist, rationalist, and structuralist schools of thought which included  philosophical works of Plato, Aristotle that dealt with the philosophy of mind, and also to the later works of Wundt, and Titchner involving introspection. However, for some period, the behaviorist school of thought dominated all the others, and the focus was shifted from thought to behavior.

Around the time between the 1950s and 1970s, the tide began to shift against behavioral psychology to focus on topics such as attention, memory and problem-solving. The formal discipline of “Cognitive Psychology” started in the mid-1900s during the cognitive revolution, and the term ‘cognitive psychology’ did not emerge until 1967. Dissatisfaction with behaviorism, World War II, and the growing technological advances in other fields such as computer sciences were a few major reasons behind the Cognitive revolution. The mental processes regained their focus in psychology, and their measurement began in objective, quantifiable methods.