The information processing approach treats human thinking as essentially computational with the mind acting like software and the brain serving as hardware. This perspective arose during the 1940s and 1950s following World War II which ended in 1945. Researchers view cognition through algorithms transforming data similar to how computers operate today.
Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin published their multi-store model in 1968 to describe three stages of mental processing. Information must pass from sensory memory into short-term memory before reaching long-term storage according to this framework. Sensory registers take input via five senses including visual auditory tactile olfactory and taste systems present since birth.
Saul Sternberg introduced high-speed memory scanning concepts during the 1960s showing that reaction time increases linearly as the number of items grows larger. His experiments suggested people check each item in memory one by one through serial exhaustive search. Mental operations occur in orderly measurable stages and he defended this model in 2016 emphasizing its continued importance for understanding retrieval processes.
Jean Piaget identified four different stages between age brackets characterized by distinctive thought processes starting with the sensorimotor period from birth to two years. The preoperational stage spans ages two to six where children learn through imitation alone while unable to take other people's point of view. Logic develops during the concrete operational stage spanning six to eleven years old and adolescents begin understanding abstract concepts during formal operational periods starting around age eleven.
The horizontally distributed processing approach gained popularity under the name connectionism in the mid-1980s. Connectionist networks consist of different nodes working together through a priming effect mechanism where knowledge emerges from combinations of various active units rather than isolated points. This method offered new ways to understand how information flows without rigid hierarchical structures representing a significant departure from earlier centralized processing theories dominant since the 1960s.