ABSTRACT
In the second half of the twentieth century, scientific psychology transformed radically. The fundamental transition was a rejection of Skinner’s (1938) behaviorism, and a return to the study of thinking, reasoning, and memory—topics that engaged scholars in the early days of psychological inquiry. In the new cognitive psychology, these processes took theoretical center stage. The most prominent manifestation of the new paradigm is the brand of psychology known as cognitive information-processing theory. In this theory, or family of theories, the mind is modeled as an information-processing system that receives information through the senses, and that represents, transforms, stores, communicates, and acts on that information. Informational-processing psychology has led to a different view of intelligence than that gained within the psychometric framework. In particular, information-processing models have “unpacked” the IQ to reveal complexity that is hidden in composite test scores. As a result, intelligence can now be seen more clearly as a collection of competencies that are acquired through experience, rather than as a mysterious latent power.
