Human Information Processing: An Introduction to Psychology

782 Pages·1977·25.316 MB·English

by  Peter H. Lindsay, Donald A. Norman

HUMAN
INFORMATION
PROCESSING
An Introduction to Psychology
Second Edition
PETER H. LINDSAY DONALD A. NORMAN
University of Toronto University of California, San Diego
ACADEMIC PRESS New York San Francisco London
A Subsidiary of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers
COPYRIGHT © 1977, BY ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED OR
TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, ELECTRONIC
OR MECHANICAL, INCLUDING PHOTOCOPY, RECORDING, OR ANY
INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, WITHOUT
PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER.
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
Ill Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10003
United Kingdom Edition published by
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. (LONDON) LTD.
24/28 Oval Road, London NW1
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Lindsay, Peter H
Human information processing.
Bibliography: p.
1. Human information processing. I. Norman,
Donald A.Joint author. II. Title. [DNLM:
1. Perception. 2. Communication. 3. Psycho-
linguistics. BF455 L749h]
BF455.L494 1977 153 76-27448
ISBN 0-12-450960-6
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Illustrations for cover and text by Leanne Hinton
Preface
The field flourishes: the study of human information processing con-
tinues to produce important insights into our understanding of human
mental processes. New phenomena challenge the old ideas. New ideas
have advanced our understanding of old phenomena. Each year, new
developments enrich our knowledge and widen the scope of behaviors
that we can begin to comprehend.
This second edition of Human Information Processing was written to
reflect recent developments, as well as anticipate new directions, in this
flourishing field. We believe that the ideas of human information process-
ing are relevant to all human activities, most especially those of human
interactions. We discuss all the traditional areas, of course, but we go on:
consciousness, states of awareness, multiple levels of processing (and of
awareness), interpersonal communication, emotion, and stress. In doing
this, we tried to keep on the scientific side of the narrow division be-
tween scientifically based speculation and fantasy.
We believe our extensions of the area of information processing re-
search show how the scientific analyses of this book can help illuminate
many if not all human phenomena. Even if substantive experimental
research has not yet been performed in many fields, this is no reason to
deny that these fields exist. Adding these topics enhances the generality
of this course. (Still, note the things we have left out, including most of
the phenomena of abnormal psychology: a good area for your students to
try their own extensions of the basic principles of this book. )
In this revision, we have tried to remedy the shortcomings of the
earlier edition. We, too, teach from this book, and thus we, too, have en-
countered some problems in the first edition. A few chapters were
obscure ( or just plain difficult—such as Chapter 2 ). Others were difficult
in parts, while some chapters worked very well. Furthermore, the first
edition had an unwanted and accidental emphasis on masculine activity.
We have therefore "desexed" the book. This may seem to be a subtle
issue, but to some people ( including us ) it is important.
This edition is a thorough, extensive revision. We have reordered the
chapters, reordered and reworded the material. We have deleted a lot
and added a lot. Each chapter contains two new features: a preview and
121 Preface
a review of terms and concepts. We have revised and updated the "Sug-
gested Readings" section at the end of each chapter. Throughout the
book, our aim was to maintain the more exciting and intriguing parts
of the old edition while including current research findings, adding
greater breadth of coverage, and explaining ideas better.
New to this edition is a comprehensive study guide, written by Ross
Bott and Allen Munro expressly to accompany this text. The study guide
is not the usual fill-in-the-blanks workbook. It is much more than that:
it is actually a miniature text in its own right, explaining new concepts,
amplifying and extending this text. The study guide reflects our experi-
ence in using the book in a self-paced course, and we recommend its use,
either in a PSI course or as a valuable supplement in a lecture course.
Our goal remains the same as it was with the first edition—to try to
convey the excitement of modern psychology to the beginning student.
We want to explain what we, as researchers, are doing. We want to get
the student actively involved in working with the concepts of psychol-
ogy, rather than simply committing to memory long lists of facts and
experiments. We want to communicate how we think and how we
approach the study of the human mind. We hope that the second edition
has brought this book closer to this ideal.
Acknowledgments
As the material in the book was rewritten, we were guided by a number
of professional reviewers. Lynn Cooper (of Cornell) advised us on the
perception chapters. Donald I. A. MacLeod (of the University of Cali-
fornia, San Diego) and Fred Wightman (of Northwestern) advised us
on the visual and auditory material, respectively. Steve Hillyard and
Larry Squire (both at the University of California, San Diego) read the
material on neural information processing and the neural basis of
memory and offered numerous good suggestions. Allen Munro (of the
University of California, San Diego) and Pamela Munro (of the Uni-
versity of California, Los Angeles) gave voluminous comments on our
material on language, saving us from the errors of the first edition. And
Elissa Newport (of the University of California, San Diego) and Dedre
Gentner (of the University of Washington) commented on the develop-
mental material and on language. These people have aided the technical
content of the book immensely.
The contents of the book owe much to those who helped with the first
edition. We thank the LNR Research Group, and in particular, David
Rumelhart, for their continuing inspiration.
Joyce Farrell helped to compile all the material, editing our rough
manuscripts, commenting upon the material, and putting together read-
able pages from our scribbles. Kris Stewart typed the final manuscript.
Julie Lustig, as usual, supervised the whole operation, from cajoling
the authors to correcting the spelling, from suggesting topics to rewrit-
ing sections. Leanne Hinton came back again from her academic duties
( at the University of Texas, Dallas ) to add more demons, to redo draw-
ings, and to add new illustrations. Her drawings have played an im-
portant role in the book, and we are pleased that she was able to help
illustrate this edition.
Figures 1-9 and 7-18 From J. Thurston and R. G. Carraher, Optical FIGURE, TABLE,
illusions and the visual arts. © 1966 Litton AND QUOTATION
Educational Publishing, Inc. Reprinted by per- CREDITS
mission of Van Nostrand Reinhold Company.
Figure 1-28 From James J. Gibson, Perception of the visual
viii Acknowledgments
world (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
1950). Used by permission of the publisher.
Figure 2-7 From S. Polyak, The vertebrate visual system.
Copyright © 1957 by the University of Chi-
cago Press, and used by permission.
Figure 3-3 From Stevens (1961b). Copyright 1961 by the
American Association for the Advancement of
Science.
Figure 3-17 From D. B. Judd, Basic correlates of the visual
stimulus. In S. S. Stevens (Ed.), Handbook of
experimental psychology. New York: Wiley,
1951. By permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Figure 3-22 From Wald (1964). Copyright 1964 by the
American Association for the Advancement of
Science.
Figures 4-4 and 4-5 From Denes and Pinson (1963). Courtesy of
Bell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporated.
Figure 4-13 Photograph from Bredberg et al. (1970). Copy-
right 1970 by the American Association for
the Advancement of Science.
Figure 5-2 From Robinson and Dadson ( 1956 ). By permis-
sion of the Institute of Physics and the Phys-
ical Society.
Figure 5-3 Illustration courtesy of C. G. Conn, Ltd., Oak
Brook, Illinois.
Figures 5-7 and 5-9 From E. Zwicker and B. Scharf, Model of loud-
ness summation. Psychology Review, 1965, 72,
3-26. Copyright 1965 by the American Psycho-
logical Association. Reprinted by permission.
Figure 5-11 Excerpted by permission from Consumer Re-
ports, July 1975. Copyright 1975 by Con-
sumers Union of United States, Inc., Mount
Vernon, New York.
Figures 5-13 and 5-14 From J. Zwislocki, Analysis of some auditory
characteristics. In D. R. Luce, R. R. Bush, and
E. Galanter (Eds.), Handbook of mathemat-
ical psychology, Vol. III. New York: Wiley,
1965. By permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Figure 5-20 From R. R. Fay, Auditory frequency stimulation
in the goldfish ( Carassius Auratus ). Journal of
Comparative ir Physiological Psychology,
1970, 73(2), 175-180. Copyright 1970 by the
Acknowledgments fv
American Psychological Association. Re-
printed by permission.
Figure 6-1 From Pomeranz and Chung (1970). Copyright
1970 by the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science.
Figure 6-24 From Hurvich and Jameson (1974). Copyright
1974 by the American Psychological Associa-
tion. Reprinted by permission.
Table 7-3 Table adapted from pp. 176-177 and 303 of The
sound pattern of English by Noam Chomsky
and Morris Halle. Copyright © 1968 by Noam
Chomsky and Morris Halle. By permission of
Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.
Figure 8-9 From B. B. Murdock, Jr., The retention of in-
dividual items. Journal of Experimental Psy-
chology, 1961, 62, 618-625. Copyright 1961 by
the American Psychological Association. Re-
printed by permission,
Figures 9-1, 9-3, and From B. B. Murdock, Jr., The serial effect of free
9-4 recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology,
1962, 64, 482-488. Copyright 1962 by the
American Psychological Association. Re-
printed by permission.
Figure 11-5 Adapted from Kandel (1974) in The neuro-
sciences, third study program, F. O. Schmitt
(Ed.) by permission of The M.I.T. Press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Copyright © 1974
by The M.I.T. Press.
Figure 11-9 From Squire et al (1975). Copyright 1975 by
the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science.
Figure 11-13 Graph from E. H. Lenneberg, Biological founda-
tions of language. New York: Wiley, 1967. By
permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Table 13-3 From R. Brown and C. Hanlon, Derivational
complexity and order of acquisition in child
speech. In J. R. Hayes (Ed.), Cognition and
the development of language. New York:
Wiley, 1970. By permission of John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.
Figure 14-7 From Herbert A. Simon and Allen Newell,
Human problem solving © 1971. By permis-
X Acknowledgments
sion of Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs,
New Jersey.
Figure 15-4 From N. Kleitman, Sleep and wakefulness (2nd
ed.). Copyright © 1963 by the University of
Chicago Press, and used by permission.
Quotation, Pp. 648ff. From S. Milgram, Behavioral study of obedi-
ence, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychol-
ogy, 1963, 67, 371-378. Copyright 1963 by the
American Psychological Association. Re-
printed by permission.
Figures 16-7 and 16-8 From S. Siegal and L. E. Fouraker, Bargaining
and group decision making: Experiments in
bilateral monopoly. Copyright 1960 by Mc-
Graw-Hill, Inc. Used with permission of Mc-
Graw-Hill Book Company.
Figure 17-1 Reprinted from D. B. Lindsay, Psychophysi-
ology and motivation. In M. R. Jones (Ed.),
Nebraska symposium on motivation, by per-
mission of University of Nebraska Press. Copy-
right © 1957 by the University of Nebraska
Press.
Figures A-3 and A-4 From Stevens (1966a). Copyright 1966 by the
American Association for the Advancement of
Science.
1
Human perception
PREVIEW
INTERPRETING SENSORY MESSAGES
Matching templates
DATA-DRIVEN AND CONCEPTUALLY DRIVEN PROCESSING
SOME PERCEPTUAL PHENOMENA
Organizing degraded images
Competing organizations
ORGANIZING AUDITORY PERCEPTIONS
Organization without meaning
Making the data fit the conceptualization
THE IMPORTANCE OF RULES
Perception of space
Impossible organizations
The importance of context
FEATURE ANALYSIS
Stopping the image
Aftereffects
WHAT TO LOOK AT FOR MOTION AFTEREFFECTS
Color aftereffects
The explanation of aftereffects
Orientation-specific color adaptation
Perception without features
REVIEW OF TERMS AND CONCEPTS
Terms and concepts you should know
SUGGESTED READINGS
Perception
Art