The information age can be dated to the work of Norbert Wiener and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. Their work on cybernetics and information theory, and many subsequent developments, had a profound influence on reshaping the field of psychology from what it was prior to the 1950s. Contemporaneously, advances also occurred in experimental design and inferential statistical testing stemming from the work of Ronald Fisher, Jerzy Neyman, and Egon Pearson. These interdisciplinary advances from outside of psychology (...) provided the conceptual and methodological tools for what is often called the cognitive revolution but is more accurately described as the information-processing revolution. Cybernetics set the stage with the idea that everything ranging from neurophysiological mechanisms to societal activities can be modeled as structured control systems with feedforward and feedback loops. Information theory offered a way to quantify entropy and information, and promoted theorizing in terms of information flow. Statistical theory provided means for making scientific inferences from the results of controlled experiments and for conceptualizing human decision making. With those three pillars, a cognitive psychology adapted to the information age evolved. The growth of technology in the information age has resulted in human lives being increasingly interweaved with the cyber environment, making cognitive psychology an essential part of interdisciplinary research on such interweaving. Continued engagement in interdisciplinary research at the forefront of technology development provides a chance for psychologists not only to refine their theories but also to play a major role in the advent of a new age of science. (shrink)

A particular research program on mental imagery is defended against certain sweeping methodological criticisms that have been advanced against it. The central claim is that the approach taken in the program is an appropriate response to the problem of doing empirical research in a theoretical vacuum, and that when it is viewed in this perspective, the criticisms are not merely unfounded, they are inappropriate. The argument for this claim is developed by first describing the program and then analyzing the methodological (...) rationale behind it. (shrink)

Research in psychology suggests that some individuals are more sensitive to positive than to negative information while others are more sensitive to negative rather than positive information. I take these cognitive positive–negative asymmetries in information processing to a Bayesian decision-theory model and explore its consequences in terms of decisions and payoffs. I show that in monotone decision problems economic agents with more positive-responsive information structures are always better off, ex ante, when they face problems (...) where payoffs are relatively more sensitive to the action chosen when the state of nature is favorable. (shrink)

Psychopathy is increasingly in the public eye. However, it is yet to be fully and effectively understood. Within the context of the DSM-IV, for example, it is best regarded as a complex family of disorders. The upside is that this family can be tightly related along common dimensions. Characteristic marks of psychopaths include a lack of guilt and remorse for paradigm case immoral actions, leading to the common conception of psychopathy rooted in affective dysfunctions. An adequate portrait of psychopathy is (...) much more complicated, however. Though some neural regions and corresponding functions are commonly indicated, they range across those responsible for action planning and learning, as well as emotional processes. Accordingly, a complete fine-grained map of all neural mechanisms responsible for psychopathy has not been realized, and even if it were, such a map would have limited utility outside of the context of surgical or chemical intervention. The utility of a neural-level understanding of psychopathy is further limited by the fact that it is only applicable in the clinical identification of individual subjects, and the neuro-chemical/biological correction of those subjects after they are positively identified as psychopaths. On the other hand, an information processing model of moral cognition provides for wider-ranging applications. The theoretical and practical implications for such a feasible working model of psychopathic personalities are assessed. Finally, this chapter raises the possibility of directed modification of social-environmental factors discouraging the development of psychopathic personalities in the first place, modifications which are also open to simulation and testing in terms of the same model of moral cognition. (shrink)

Tested the 2-process theory of detection, search, and attention presented by the current authors in a series of experiments. The studies demonstrate the qualitative difference between 2 modes of information processing: automatic detection and controlled search; trace the course of the learning of automatic detection, of categories, and of automatic-attention responses; and show the dependence of automatic detection on attending responses and demonstrate how such responses interrupt controlled processing and interfere with the focusing of attention. The learning (...) of categories is shown to improve controlled search performance. A general framework for human information processing is proposed. The framework emphasizes the roles of automatic and controlled processing. The theory is compared to and contrasted with extant models of search and attention. (shrink)

Findings about the desire for health-risk information are heterogeneous and sometimes contradictory. In particular, they seem to be at variance with established psychological theories of information-seeking behavior.The present paper posits the decision about treating illness with medicine as the causal determinant for the expected net value of information, and attempts to explain idiosyncrasies in information-seeking behavior by using the notion of decision sensitivity to incoming information.Furthermore, active information avoidance is explained by modeling the expected (...) emotional distress potentially brought about by “bad news” as a disutility factor in pay-off maximization.In this context two notions of uncertainty are distinguished: an epistemic uncertainty related to the prognostic probability assigned to the risk, and an emotional uncertainty related to the expected damage. Health-risk information can both reduce epistemic and increase emotional uncertainty, giving rise to idiosyncratic processing strategies. (shrink)

The human information-acquisition process is one of the unifying mechanisms of the behavioral sciences. Three examples (from psychology, neuroscience, and political science) demonstrate that through inspection of this process, better understanding and hence more powerful models of human behavior can be built. The target method for this – process tracing – could serve as a central player in this building process of a unified framework. (Published Online April 27 2007).

Decision-making is a complex action requiring efficient information processing. Specifically, in movement in which performance efficiency depends on reaction time, e.g., open-loop controlled movements, these processes may play a crucial role. Information processing includes three distinct stages, stimulus identification, response selection, and response programming. Mainly, response selection may play a substantial contribution to the reaction time and appropriate decision making. The duration of this stage depends on the number of possible choices an individual has to “screen” (...) to make a proper decision. Given that reaction time is crucial in many sports, the possibilities of reducing it through practice are very tempting. The information processing and its relationship to the manner an individual is practicing are discussed. Especially the variability of practice issues will be explored. In variable practice conditions, an individual has to react to one or more stimuli and has to produce one of the many variations of the same movement or different movements they learned. One has to identify a stimulus appropriately and has to select a response optimally, i.e., choosing from as few choices as possible to reduce the reaction time. On the other hand, in constant practice conditions, an individual can be exposed to one or many stimuli. Still, there is only one variation of the movement that can be executed in the presence of a learned stimulus. Based on the information processing theory and the results of the research focusing on variability of practice, I discuss how the practice conditions may affect reaction time and, as a result, the decision-making process. I conceptually frame the possible implications of practice conditions on decision making related to information processing. In this review, a possible mechanism and relationship between practice conditions and decision-making are presented. Future research directions are presented. (shrink)

Information processing theories in psychology give rise to executive theories of consciousness. Roughly speaking, these theories maintain that consciousness is a centralized processor that we use when processing novel or complex stimuli. The computational assumptions driving the executive theories are closely tied to the computer metaphor. However, those who take the metaphor serious — as I believe psychologists who advocate the executive theories do — end up accepting too particular a notion of a computing device. In (...) this essay, I examine the arguments from theoretical computational considerations that cognitive psychologists use to support their general approach in order to show that they make unwarranted assumptions about the processing attributes of consciousness. I then go on to examine the assumptions behind executive theories which grow out of the computer metaphor of cognitive psychology and conclude that we may not be the sort of computational machine cognitive psychology assumes and that cognitive psychology''s approach in itself does not buy us anything in developing theories of consciousness. Hence, the state space in which we may locate consciousness is vast, even within an information processing framework. (shrink)

Peacemaking is especially challenging in situations of intractable conflict. Collective narratives in this context contribute to coping with challenges societies face, but also fuel conflict continuation. We introduce the Informative Process Model, proposing that informing individuals about the socio-psychological processes through which conflict-supporting narratives develop, and suggesting that they can change via comparison to similar conflicts resolved peacefully, can facilitate unfreezing and change in attitudes. Study 1 established associations between awareness of conflict costs and conflict-supporting narratives, belief in the possibility (...) of resolving the conflict peacefully and support for pursuing peace among Israeli-Jews and Palestinians. Studies 2 and 3 found that exposure to IPM-based original videos led Israeli-Jews to deliberation of the information presented, predicting acceptance of the IPM-based message, which, in turn, predicted support for negotiations. Study 3 also found similar effects across IPM-based messages focusing on different conflict-supporting themes. We discuss the implications to attitude change in intractable conflicts. (shrink)

One of the major contemporary challenges to Thomistic moral psychology is that it is incompatible with the most up-to-date psychological science. Here Thomistic psychology is in good company, targeted along with most virtue-ethical views by philosophical situationism, which uses replicated psychological studies to suggest that our behaviors are best explained by situational pressures rather than by stable traits (like virtues and vices). In this essay we explain how this body of psychological research poses a much deeper threat to (...) Thomistic moral psychology in particular. For Thomistic moral psychology includes descriptive claims about causal connections between certain cognitive processes and behaviors, even independent of whether those processes emerge from habits like virtues. Psychological studies of correlations between these can provide evidence against those causal claims. We offer a new programmatic response to this deeper challenge: empirical studies are relevant only if they investigate behaviors under intentional descriptions, such that the correlations discovered are between cognition and what Aquinas calls human acts. Psychological research on aggression already emphasizes correlations between cognition and intentional behavior, or human acts, and so is positioned to shed light on how well Thomistic moral psychology fits with empirical data. Surprisingly, Aquinas’s views have quite a lot in common with a leading model of aggression, the social information processing (SIP) model. We close by suggesting how we might examine claims of Thomistic moral psychology from an empirical perspective further using research on social information processing and aggression. (shrink)

What is the relationship between information and representation? Dating back at least to Dretske (1981), an influential answer has been that information is a rung on a ladder that gets one to representation. Representation is information, or representation is information plus some other ingredient. In this paper, I argue that this approach oversimplifies the relationship between information and representation. If one takes current probabilistic models of cognition seriously, information is connected to representation in a (...) new way. It enters as a property of the represented content as well as a property of the vehicles that carry that content. This offers a new, conceptually and logically distinct way in which information and representation are intertwined in cognition. (shrink)

This paper presents a critique of cognitive psychology's micro-process program, as well as suggestions for a more scientifically and pragmatically viable approach to cognition. The paper proceeds in the following sequence. First, the mainstream point of view of contemporary cognitive psychology regarding cognitive micro-processes is summarized. Second, this view is criticized. Third and finally, cognitive science's neuropsychology program is discussed, not with respect to the considerable value of its findings, but with respect to the interpretation that would appropriately (...) be placed on them. Throughout this discussion, an alternative position is advanced--namely, that cognitive processes are best viewed, on both scientific and pragmatic grounds, as private or mental versions of well-understood human social practices 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Focusing on the significance of time in information processing, this text looks at time both as an object of information processing and as a constituent factor in information processing, and seeks to define a unified view of psychological time.

We present a theory of sequential information processing in persuasion. It extends assumptions of the heuristic-systematic model, in particular the idea that information encountered early in a persuasion situation may affect the processing of subsequent information. SIP also builds on the abstraction from content-related dichotomies in accord with the parametric unimodel of social judgment. SIP features one constitutional axiom and three main postulates: Persuasion is the sequential processing of information that is relevant to (...) judgment formation. Inferences drawn from initial information may bias the processing of subsequent information if they are either activated rules or valence expectations that are relevant to the subsequent information. Inferences drawn from initial information are resistant to change. Thus, the interpretation of subsequent information is assimilated to inferences drawn from the initial information. Or, if assimilation is impossible, contrast effects occur. The overall effect of a persuasion attempt corresponds to the recipient’s judgment at the moment the processing of information is terminated. We illustrate how our predictions for assimilation and contrast effects may be tested by presenting results from an experiment in which we presented exactly the same arguments but varied the processing sequence. We discuss theoretical and applied implications of sequence effects for persuasion phenomena, as well as challenges for further research developing and testing the theory. (shrink)

Since the introduction of the computer in the early 1950's, the investigation of artificial intelligence has followed three chief avenues: the discovery of self-organizing systems; the building of working models of human behavior, incorporating specific psychological theories; and the building of "heuristic" machines, without bias in favor of humanoid characteristics. While this work has used philosophical logic and its results may illustrate philosophical problems, the artificial intelligence program is by now an intricate, organized specialty. This book, therefore, has a quite (...) specialized audience of its own although it can be very valuable to those philosophers who are interested and competent in using this pioneering material. Five scientific papers report attempts to solve five different kinds of problems. Bertram Raphael describes an attempt to build a memory structure that converts the information input into a systematic model by "understanding" the informational statements as they are made. Daniel Bobrow's machine can set up algebraic equations from informal verbal statements. M. Ross Quillan asks: "What sort of representational format can permit the 'meanings' of words to be stored?" Thomas Evans' machine, Analogy, serves as a model for "pattern-recognition" rather than the "common-property" method of semantic memory. Fischer Black has developed a logical deduction mechanism for question-answering which keeps track of where we are and avoids endless deduction. The editor and John McCarthy contribute more general chapters, providing the historical background of cybernetics, and dealing with the problem of formalizing a concept of causality. Minsky ends the volume with his view that our convictions on dualism, consciousness, free will, and the like are used in the attempt to explain the complicated interactions between parts of our model of ourselves.--M. B. M. (shrink)

Obesity is a worldwide epidemic associated with severe health and psychological wellbeing impairments expressed by an increased prevalence of affective disorders. Emotional dysfunction is important due to its effect on social performance. The aim of the present narrative review is to provide a general overview of human research exploring emotional information processing in overweight and obese people. Evidence suggests that obesity is associated with an attenuation of emotional experience, contradictory findings about emotion recognition, and scarce research about automatic (...) emotional information processing. Finally, we made some concluding considerations for future research on emotional information processing in overweight and obese people. (shrink)

I have based my psychological hypotheses on studies in perception and in personality. Research in these two areas began independently, but by the late forties the supposedly unconnected processes came to be seen as different aspects of one process. For instance, a low tolerance for perceptual ambiguity and cognitive dissonance was found to be significantly correlated with lack of emotional responsiveness, dogmatism, and authoritarianism; conversely, a high tolerance for perceptual ambiguity and cognitive dissonance was found to be significantly correlated with (...) tolerance of emotional ambivalence, openness to new experience, and a liberal world view.1 Later studies, primarily those conducted in the sixties, then established strong correlations between these findings and information-processing styles. Information processing involves three stages: first, stimuli are selected from the environment ; these stimuli are then arranged into "dimensions"; finally, if two or more dimensions result, they are compared and/or combined according to certain rules. H. M. Schroder and his colleagues have established correlations between personality styles and styles of information processing.2 For example, an intolerant personality—that is, one with a low integration index—"identifies and organizes stimuli in a fixed way, and the rules derived from existing schemata are explicit in defining this one way" . What psychologists call an "abstract personality" and identify in terms of "flexibility" or "tolerance of ambiguity"—what in literary studies is most conveniently called "negative capability"—is not necessarily characterized as lacking rules but rather as possessing a greater number of conflicting rules on a lower level which may be accommodated by rules on a higher level. · 1. See Jerome S. Bruner and David Krech, eds., Perception and Personality, 2nd ed. and Robert R. Blake and Glenn V. Ramsey, eds., Perception: An Approach to Personality . Although, as Else Frenkel-Brunswick says, "rigidity in one respect may go with flexibility in another," she also adds: "There is some indication that in the case of distinct intolerance of emotional ambivalence one may as a rule be able to locate at least some aspects of intolerance of cognitive ambiguity although these may often be more apparent on a higher level than that of perception proper" The present essay, since it is one section of a projected larger study, deals with the issues inherent in this approach in only a limited fashion. One could, for instance, quote whole essays in this branch of psychology dealing with ambiguity and point to their relevance for some aspects of literary study and the teaching of literature. Ambiguity, of course, is also a central term in New Criticism. See William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity and Ernst Kris and Abraham Kaplan, "Aesthetic Ambiguity," in Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art, ed. Kris , pp. 243-64.· 2. H. M. Schroder, M. J. Driver, and S. Streufert, "Levels of Information Processing," in Thought and Personality, ed. Peter B. Warr , pp. 174-91. All citations to this work will appear in the text. Reuven Tsur, senior lecturer in Hebrew literature at Tel-Aviv University, is the author of several books in Hebrew on medieval and modern Hebrew poetry and, in English, A Perception-Oriented Theory of Metre. (shrink)

Functionalist theories of mind sometimes have viewed consciousness as emerging simply from the computational activity of extremely complex information-processing systems. Empirical evidence suggests strongly, however, that experiences without content ("pure consciousness" events, or "core mystical experience") and devoid of subjectivity (no sense of agency or ownership) do happen. The occurrence of such consciousness, lacking all informational content, counts against any theory that equates consciousness with the mere "flow of information," no matter how intricate.

Children learn and use various strategies to solve math problems. One way children's math learning can be supported is through their use of and exposure to hand gestures. Children's self-produced gestures can reveal unique, math-relevant knowledge that is not contained in their speech. Additionally, these gestures can assist with their math learning and problem solving by supporting their cognitive processes, such as executive function. The gestures that children observe during math instructions are also linked to supporting cognition. Specifically, children are (...) better able to learn, retain, and generalize knowledge about math when that information is presented within the gestures that accompany an instructor's speech. To date, no conceptual model provides an outline regarding how these gestures and the math environment are connected, nor how they may interact with children's underlying cognitive capacities such as their executive function. In this review, we propose a new model based on an integration of the information processing approach and theory of embodied cognition. We provide an in-depth review of the related literature and consider how prior research aligns with each link within the proposed model. Finally, we discuss the utility of the proposed model as it pertains to future research endeavors. (shrink)