PsychologicalReports, 2003, 93,972-982. O Psychological Reports 2003
THREE DECADES O F PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN THE JOURNAL COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY (1979-1999) '
Faculty of Psychologjr University of Valeizcib, Spain Summay.-We examined the journal Cognitive Psychology, as representative of the evolution of cognitive psychology during the last three decades (1979-1999). Analysis of changes in the impact factor defined according to the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) is an indication of the ranking of this journal both in the general classification of archival research journals as well as in relation to other periodicals in the area of cognitive psychology. This single quantitative measure of articles published in Cognitive Psychology indicates a change in the topics of interest. An analysis of the research topics and identification of the most productive authors identifies important indicators of the psychological topics of primary interest during this time.
An important indicator of the relevance as well as the progress of a specific area of research is the existence of specialized publications dedicated to that field of study (Vandenbos, 1992). The growing interest in the study of cognitive processes during the 1960s, i.e., memory, perception, language, and thinking, created a need for speciahzed publications, among them the journal Cognitive Psychology. This publication provided an arena for the dissemination of theoretical and experimental studies and also expanded to encompass new topics in cognitive psychology. The authors who appear in the volumes of this journal: Simon, Kosslyn, Johnson-Laird, Sternberg, Bower, Rosch, Neisser, and Chomsky among others, as well as the impact factor of the journal according to the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) are considered indicators of the relevance of this publication in current psychology. The number of citations received in other psychological journals ranks Cognitive Psychology as a core journal within this speciahzed area of research today. In a recent study carried out by Robins, G o s h g , and Cralk (1999) the journals said most representative of cognitive psychology in recent decades, not only by the index of citations but by the evaluations of experts, were Cognitive Psychology, Cognition, Memory & Cognition, and Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. We analyzed the impact factor of these four journals since 1977 and found that the value for Cognitive Psychology is consistently larger than those for the other three publications and reached a peak in 1999 (see Table 1). This size of the
'Address correspondence to Dra. M. Vicenta Mestre, Department of Basic Psychology, Avda. Blasco Ibafiez, 21, 46010 Valencia, Spain or e-mail (
[email protected]).
30 YEARS
973
OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY TABLE 1
CHANGES I N IMPACT FACTOR OF FOURMOSTRELATEDJOURNALF IN
FIELDO F COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Journal Cognitive Psychology Cognition Memory & Cogniuon Journal of Experimenral Psychology: Learning
1977
1982
1987
1992
1997
1998
1999
3.64 1.48 1.12
3.36 0.94 1.41
3.69 3.45 1.30
4.57 2.83 1.65
3.52 2.97 1.64
3 74 283 194
4.17 3.38 1.98
2.31
3.05
2.71
2.84
3.20
0.39
impact factor (Van Ram, 1997) for this journal is among the highest for the general publications covered by the SSCI and larger than those of the other three journals in the area of cognitive psychology (see Table 2). For these reasons we decided to study this publication, analyzing the research topics and authors who most frequently contributed to the knowledge of the evolution of the field of cognitive psychology in recent decades. TABLE 2 RANKJNG OF IMPACI. FACTOR I N THE SOCLAL SCIENCE CITATION ~ N D E X ' S GENERAL CLASSIFICATION OF JOURNAU Journal Cognitive Psychology Cognition Memory & Cognition Journal of Experimental Psychology Learnine
1977
1987
1997
1999
10 77 133
9 11 154
20 40 139
25 38 116
516
33
53
43
Cognitive Psychology was founded in 1970 under the direction of W. Reitman. Originally it was published quarterly and so contained four issues per volume. Since 1973, with T. Trabasso as director, two volumes have been published per year, each comprised of three issues (Cordovks, Garcia, & Pulido, 1995). During the three decades in which this journal has existed (197g1999) a total of 565 articles have been published, and an average of 18.8 articles per year. The change over time in the number of articles per year shows that during the journal's first four years the number of articles increased, reaching its highest number in 1973 with 38 articles, the first year in which two volumes were published instead of one. This number of publications was maintained from 1974 to 1976, followed by a declme. In the following years the number of articles published surpassed the overall average of the three decades only in 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1982. It was not until the last three years of the 1990s that more were published (ranging between 22 articles in 1997 and 19 articles in 1999).
Analysis of Research Topics The general orientation of the journal is towards topics related to cognitive psychology. The editorial board has established main topics of interest (memory, thinking, perception, and language) and three secondary topics (developmental psychology, artificial intelhgence, and neurology) which dtrect the orientation of research topics. The classification of the research topics of the 565 articles published during this period is based on the article titles, abstracts, and keywords. The dstribution of frequency of topics indicates that 62.3% of the articles have dealt with thinlung (33.4%) and memory (28.9%), followed by language (15.2%) and perception (15.2%). The percentages obtained for the secondary topics of artificial intelhgence, neurology, and developmental psychology are very low, reaching 5 % only for the last one. In a similar analysis of Cognition (1972-1999), the second journal ranked by impact accordmg to the number of citations and experts' evaluations (Robins, et a/., 1999), we found the predominance of works on language (44%) and that these were related to the field of study of editors. Nevertheless, other important fields such as thinlung (12%) and perception (11%) were also representative. The change in the research topics over time indicates there are fluctuations in the amount of research published on different cognitive processes during the period. Productivity was analyzed by research areas grouped into 5-yr. periods. In the first decade there was a predominance of articles published on memory (see Table 3 ) . In the first five years (1970-1974) this topic accounted for 43.3% of the articles and 42.2% in the second 5-yr. period (1975-1979). Articles classified as thinking comprised 23.6% of the total number of articles published during the first five years of the journal and 21.6% in the following five years. These topics were followed by publications on language; studes on perception were less frequent during this decade. TABLE 3 CHANGE OVER TIMEI N NUMBER O F ARTICLES BY TOPICAREA
Years
1970-74 1975-79 1980-84 1985-89 1990-94 1995-99 Total
Language n %
Memory n %
Thinking n %
Perception n %
18 18 10 15 10 15
55 43 26 16 11 12
30 22 30 32 35 40
15 13 18 12 14 14
14.2 17.7 11.0 19.3 13. 16.3
43.3 42.2 28.6 20.5 14.7 13.0
23.6 21.6 33.0 41.0 46.7 43.5
11.8 12.7 19.8 15.4 18.7 15.2
Total Journal Process
118 94 86 75 70 81 524
127 102 91 78 75 92 565
30 YEARS O F COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
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In the following 5-yr, period (1980-1984) research interests apparently changed. There was a reduction in the number of articles on memory and an increase in the number of articles published on thinlung and perception. This tendency began in the second part of the decade (1985-89), with 41% of the papers published dealtng with thinking processes and only 20.5% with memory. In the 1980s, articles on processes related to thinking increased in number and those related to perception only somewhat. This appears to have continued over the last decade. Ln the first five years almost 50% of the articles fall into the category of thinking, and articles on perception (18.7%) surpassed those published on memory (14.7%). These changes are shown in Table 3 and graphed in Fig. 1.
Years FIG. 1. Changes in the number of anides in diFferenr categories of cognitive processes ~llcmory, A Thinking, Perception) from 1970-1999 ( e Language,
The analysis of research topics shows that the number of articles on the psychology of thinking increased proportionately within the field of cognitive psychology throughout the last three decades, apparently while the: study of memory decreased. There was an increase in articles on the psychology of perception beginning in the 1980s, which has been maintained. The proportion of articles related to the psychology of language seems to be more stable throughout the period studied and, in terms of the percentages, maintained a percentage similar to that for the psychology of perception.
Another analysis of the journal's research topics used the descriptors that appear in the 565 articles. These keywords indicate what the authors and editors categorized as closely related topics. The overall analysis of those descriptors for the articles published during the 30 years of the journal's existence allows another way to assess which processes were thought most frequently relevant during this period. In addition, the distribution by decades indicates the shifts in numbers of individual topics. The descriptors (1970-1999) that have appeared most frequently are presented in Table 4. A total of 475 descriptors appeared in the 565 articles during these three decades, with a total number of 2,720 descriptors and a mean total ratio of number to keyword of 5.73 (2,720/475). As is common in this type of analysis, few descriptors appeared with high frequency, for instance, nine descriptors made up 25% of the total number, and the first 35 descriptors comprised 50% of the total. The first nine descriptors were those with totals greater than or equal to 44, equivalent to 25% of the total; 11.9% of these correspond to terms related to different age groups, i.e., adults as the most frequent term, school-age children, preschool-age children, and infancy. Next in importance were descriptors that referred to cognitive processes in general (6.4%), to memory processes and information processing (5.4%), and, at a much lower total number, visual perception (1.7%) (see Table 4). In the first decade (1970-1979) 229 articles were published, the largest number in any decade (see Table 4). A total of 252 descriptors appeared in these articles, being mentioned a total of 992 times, and a mean frequency of 3.9 descriptors per keyword. Eight descriptors made up 25% of the total frequency (descriptors used at least 19 or more times). In this group of descriptors are those related to memory processes (11.3%) followed by those related to problem-solving and visual perception processes (3.9%) (see Table 4). During the period from 1970 to 1979 there appeared to be greater interest in publishing articles related to developmental psychology, in which psychological processes associated with different ages and in different developmental stages were studied. In the 1980s, 169 articles were published, and a similar number was maintained during the following decades. The analysis of descriptors shows a total of 265 which were mentioned 853 times, for a mean frequency of 3.22 per keyword. Twenty-five percent of the total number was comprised of only seven descriptors, all of which were used 16 or more times. Within this group are terms related to different ages (14.2%), with "adulthood" appearing in the 169 articles 79 times (see Table 4). In this block of descriptors the only psychological processes that appear are those related to memory (5.3%) or cognitive processes in general. Descriptors that refer to different ages or
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