Human As Computer
Within this model, humans are routinely compared to computers. This comparison is used as a means of better understanding the way information is processed and stored in the human mind. Therefore, when analyzing what actually develops within this model, the more specific comparison is between the human brain and computers. Computers were introduced to the study of development and provided a new way of studying intelligence (Lachman, 1979) and “added further legitimacy to the scientific study of the mind” (Goodwin, 2005, p. 411). In the model below, you can see the direct comparison between human processing and computer processing. Within this model, information is taken in (or input). Information is encoded to give meaning and compared with stored information. If a person is working on a task, this is where the working memory is enacted. An example of that for a computer is the CPU. In both cases, information is encoded, given meaning, and combined with previously stored information to enact the task. The latter step is where the information is stored where it can later be retrieved when needed. For computers, this would be akin to saving information on a hard drive, where you would then upload the saved data when working on a future task (using your working memory as in step 2).
Read more about this topic: Information Processing Theory
Famous quotes containing the words human and/or computer:
“Wit is often concise and sparkling, compressed into an original pun or metaphor. Brevity is said to be its soul. Humor can be more leisurely, diffused through a whole story or picture which undertakes to show some of the comic aspects of life. What it devalues may be human nature in general, by showing that certain faults or weaknesses are universal. As such it is kinder and more philosophic than wit which focuses on a certain individual, class, or social group.”
—Thomas Munro (1897–1974)
“What, then, is the basic difference between today’s computer and an intelligent being? It is that the computer can be made to see but not to perceive. What matters here is not that the computer is without consciousness but that thus far it is incapable of the spontaneous grasp of pattern—a capacity essential to perception and intelligence.”
—Rudolf Arnheim (b. 1904)