Information Processing Approach

The information processing approach treats cognition as information flowing through stages: encoded, transformed, stored, retrieved.

Why the computer metaphor?

Borrowing the computer metaphor lets you decompose cognition into representations and the processes that act on them, then test each stage.

Often assumes serial / step-by-step processing. The mind is a system that takes in, stores, transforms, and outputs information.

Contrasts with Connectionism, which goes parallel and distributed instead.