The Road To Cognitive Training (Brain World, Peter Christianson)

This article is about a man named Peter Christianson. His father saved his life back in 1947 when him, his mother, and father hit head on into an Army truck. His dramatic experiences with the wreck, lead him to study the cognitive track of learning how to drive. He discovered that the main cognitive training for driving comes from the frontal lobe of the brain. The brain's frontal lobe controls judgement, problem-solving, reasoning and anticipating consequences. All of these aspects that deal with the frontal lobe are crucial for driving. Christianson also concluded that the frontal lobe is responsible for executive functions, which is crucial elements for learning how to drive. He conducted research and discovered that individuals with disorders in the frontal lobe also express dangerous driving behavior. This is crucial to his research because he has now proved that the frontal lobe is an important aspect to learning how to drive. Lastly, he conducted studies on the age in which the frontal lobe fully develops in humans. His results were that the frontal lobe is the last part to fully develop in the brain. Therefore, the most cautious and safe drivers are the older drivers.

The cognitive learning theory can be found in chapter 5 of the text. During the earlier years, Watson and Skinner focused only on behaviorism and didn't have any interest in what was going on in a person's head during learning. However, the 3 Gestalt psychologists Tolman, Kohler, and Seligman continued their interest in the mind throught the 1950s and 1960s. It was soon after the interest of the Gestalt psychologists that the mental events that take place inside a person's mind while behaving began to dominate experimental psychology. This type of learning is what Christianson's program, Young Drivers of Canada, is based on.