Three basic trends in Western psychophysiological studies, all belonging to the theoretical-methodological framework of cognitive psychology, are briefly reviewed. The first and the most extensive one is connected with the use of evoked potentials for the study of mechanisms and stages in procession of information in the brain. The second one belongs to the cognitive-psychological paradigm which treats man's searching-orienting behavior as an elementary psychophysiological model of cognition. The third one deals with the study of cognitive mechanisms of stress-control and of the role of cognitive factors in the psychophysiology of emotions. Advantages and limitations of the cognitivistic paradigms which exist in psychophysiology are considered.