The birth defect of the information processing approach

Abstract

Academic psychology is dominated by the information processing approach (IPA) since about six decades. According to the IPA mental activities, i.e. cognition, serve the processing of stimuli in order to reconstruct a representation of the environment. It is argued that this notion is misleading: Mental activities primarily serve the control of voluntary behaviour. In this function, they are striving for anticipations of achievable states. Accordingly, cognition does not refer to the processing but to the anticipation of achievable desired stimuli or states. Two 'ancient' conceptions in psychology already emphasized the crucial role of behaviourally guided anticipations: the reafference-and the ideomotor principle, the former dealing with the basics of perception and the latter dealing with the basics of behavioural control. Speculations are discussed, about how both principles might work together for the control of voluntary behaviour creating by this the mental structure of the perceived world.