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Inadequacies of the Computer Metaphor

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Handbook of Cognitive Neuroscience

Abstract

One of the most popular tacks taken to explain cognitive processes likens them to the operations of a digital computer. Indeed, the tasks for the cognitive scientist and the artificial intelligence scientist are often seen as indistinguishable: to understand how a machine or a brain “can store past information about the world and use that memory to abstract meaning from its percepts” (Solso, 1979, p. 425). The fact that there are machines that appear to do this, to varying degrees of success, is often taken to imply, almost by default, that cognition would have to embody the same steps in order to achieve the same results. In what folIows, we outline our objections to this attitude and briefly consider some alternatives.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, New York, 13901, USA

    Claudia Carello

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, 06268, USA

    M. T. Turvey

  3. Haskins Laboratories, New York, Connecticut, 06520, USA

    M. T. Turvey

  4. The Crump Institute for Medical Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, 90024, USA

    Peter N. Kugler

  5. Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, 06268, USA

    Robert E. Shaw

Authors
  1. Claudia Carello
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  2. M. T. Turvey
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  3. Peter N. Kugler
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  4. Robert E. Shaw
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Cornell University Medical College, New York, New York, USA

    Michael S. Gazzaniga

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© 1984 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Carello, C., Turvey, M.T., Kugler, P.N., Shaw, R.E. (1984). Inadequacies of the Computer Metaphor. In: Gazzaniga, M.S. (eds) Handbook of Cognitive Neuroscience. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2177-2_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2177-2_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-2179-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-2177-2

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