ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the experimental tradition. It specifies the questions primarily dealt with by experimental cognitive psychology: how humans perceive the world and choose information that is relevant at a given moment; make sense of or understand the information perceived; solve the problems encountered; and store and organize their knowledge and experience about the world. The general theory of human information processing as an answer to these questions is outlined and the relevant mechanisms specified: mechanisms of attention and inhibition; mechanisms of representation and processing, such as working memory; mechanisms of integration, such as association, inference, and reasoning; general language of thought and domain-specific modular processes, awareness, and consciousness. This tradition is evaluated from the point of view of the guiding questions, to show what it contributed to our understanding of the human mind and where it remained wanting.
