INFORMATION PROCESSING

INFORMATION PROCESSING

1. Cognitive psychology sees the individual as a processor of information, in much the same way that a computer takes in information and follows a program to produce an output.

2. The development of the computer in the 1950s and 1960s had an important influence on psychology and was, in part, responsible for the cognitive approach becoming the dominant approach in modern psychology (taking over from behaviorism).

3. Hence the information processing approach characterizes thinking as the environment providing input of data, which is then transformed by our senses.

4. When we are selectively attending to one activity, we tend to ignore other stimulation, although our attention can be distracted by something else, like the telephone ringing or someone using our name

5. Storage processes cover everything that happens to stimuli internally in the brain and can include coding and manipulation of the stimuli.

6. The information processing models assume serial processing of stimulus inputs. Serial processing effectively means one process has to be completed before the next starts.

7. The analogy between human cognition and computer functioning adopted by the information processing approach is limited.

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