The information processing approach to cognition

Of the many alternative approaches available for understanding cognition, the one that has dominated psychological investigation for the last decade or two is information processing (IP). For better or worse, the IP approach has had an enormous impact on modern cognitive research, leaving its distinctive imprint on both the kinds of theories that have been proposed and the kinds of experiments that have been performed to test them. Its influence has been so pervasive, in fact, that some writers have argued that IP has achieved the exalted status of a " Kuhnian paradigm�? for cognitive psychology (Lachman, Lachman, & Butter- field, 1979). It is unclear whether or not this claim is really justified, but the fact that it has even been suggested documents the preeminence of IP in modern cognitive psychology.