<P> Mary Whiton Calkins (1863--1930) was an influential American pioneer in the realm of psychology . Her work also focused on the human memory capacity . A common theory, called the recency effect, can be attributed to the studies that she conducted . The recency effect, also discussed in the subsequent experiment section, is the tendency for individuals to be able to accurately recollect the final items presented in a sequence of stimuli . Calkin's theory is closely related to the aforementioned study and conclusion of the memory experiments conducted by Hermann Ebbinghaus . </P> <P> William James (1842--1910) is another pivotal figure in the history of cognitive science . James was quite discontent with Wundt's emphasis on introspection and Ebbinghaus' use of nonsense stimuli . He instead chose to focus on the human learning experience in everyday life and its importance to the study of cognition . James' most significant contribution to the study and theory of cognition was his textbook Principles of Psychology that preliminarily examines aspects of cognition such as perception, memory, reasoning, and attention . </P> <P> The sort of mental processes described as cognitive are largely influenced by research which has successfully used this paradigm in the past, likely starting with Thomas Aquinas . Consequently, this description tends to apply to processes such as memory, association, concept formation, pattern recognition, language, attention, perception, action, problem solving and mental imagery . Traditionally, emotion was not thought of as a cognitive process . This division is now regarded as largely artificial, and much research is currently being undertaken to examine the cognitive psychology of emotion; research also includes one's awareness of one's own strategies and methods of cognition called metacognition and includes metamemory . </P> <P> Empirical research into cognition is usually scientific and quantitative, or involves creating models to describe or explain certain behaviors . </P>

Cognition about ones own cognitive process can be termed as