Human cognition studies on Psico journal in the last 40 years

Abstract

Cognitive Psychology has established itself as a leading theoretical approach in psychological science, worldwide. This article aims to review theoretical and empirical papers on cognitive psychology and related areas published between 1971 and 2011 in the Psico journal. Psico is one of the uninterrupted scientific journals in psychology published in Brazil. Seventy-one volumes were searched, resulting in 55 articles analyzed by three independent reviewers. The findings showed an increase in the number of published articles on the cognitive processes over the decades. Cognitive processes more frequently investigated were memory (27.5% of the papers), executive functions (20.9%), and language (17.6%). With regard to methodological issues, the majority of studies had a transversal design, investigated single groups (i.e., without control groups), composed by adults participants, from non-clinical samples, and employed standardized psychological tests to assess cognitive functions. When taken together, these findings present a reasonably representative picture of the study of human cognition in Brazil.