The Computer Metaphor
This machine is often used as a metaphor for the human mind in cognitive psychology.
What is a computer?
Early cognitive models showed this strength of computer programs, requiring them to be clear, logical, and detailed.
What is precision?
This decade is the beginning of psychologists creating information-processing models.
What is the 1960s?
Both humans and computers have this type of processing capacity.
What is limited capacity?
One major limitation of the computer metaphor is that it does not reflect how this part of the body processes stimuli.
What is the physical brain?
Early cognitive psychology models focused on understanding how this type of information like linguistic or visual, flows through the mind.
What is environmental information?
In the computer metaphor, the "cooking instructions" in a recipe are compared to this cognitive structures.
What are processes?
The computer metaphor views cognition as operating in sequential stages, similar to how computers process this.
What is information?
This researcher compared computer models to recipes, highlighting their structure and process parallels.
Who is Thagard?
This feature of old computer models describes how information moves through systems, one step at a time.
What is serial processing?
A drawback of the metaphor is its inability to account for these intricate, biological mechanisms of cognition.
What are neural processes?
What are neural processes?
The metaphor of the computer for the human mind gained popularity because of the structured nature of this machine's programs.
What is a computer program?
Researchers can use this visual representation to outline how information flows through cognitive systems.
What is a flowchart?
This equipment was still in the early phases of development in the 1960s-1980s.
What is neuroimaging?
This cognitive psychologist that said early models focused on regularities in processing but were not meant to represent the brain's physical functioning.
Who is Marr?