A while back on Tips I had mentioned that I had made a presentation at APA in the early 1990s on the inception of information processing theories in psychology with an emphasis on information theory. The problem was that I could not find either a paper or electronic copy of the paper that I presented. Well, over the past week I went through some old Zipdisks (remember them?) and found components of the paper -- back in 1992 I was on a Unix system and was using a psroff text formatting program for writing (this meant putting the formatting commands in the paper; the WYSISWYG interface of WordPerfect and Word were not quite ready and using Wordstar, A CP/M program, had problems in translation).
Anyway, I put the paper back together and, if anyone is interested, is available on www.researchgate.net; see: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266855407_The_Birth_of_Information_Processing_Psychology_1948 If you find any problems with the manuscript, please let me know. I proofread it myself but I am *far* from infallible (as one of my grad school buds is fond of reminding me; I missed a typo that turned out to be on the first page of first page of the published article, one of his first).. The "nickel" (i.e., 5 cent) summary of the paper is that it was response to textbooks in cognitive psychology circa 1990 that argued that 1956 should be considered the "birth year" of "contemporary cognitive psychology" while I argue that "1948" is a better candidate. Today we know the situation is somewhat more complicated (especially after one takes into the account the Macy conferences) but some might find some of the presentation useful. At the time I wrote the paper, I asked some people to read it and provide feedback. George Sperling's was that "he thought the role of information theory in psychology was overrated." YMMV. On a related matter: I have been unable to find my copy of APA program for the 1992 meeting. This was the 100th meeting and was a centennial commemoration of the APA meetings, so it was something of a big deal as far as APA meetings went. I then tried to find a copy on the web and was unable to do so. So, does anyone know where one can get access to APA conventions programs of recent decades? -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=39160 or send a blank email to leave-39160-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
