Cognitive science: The scientific basis of emerging information technologies

Abstract

The impact of information technology is being felt in education, government, and industry. It is radically changing the way we do things at home and in the workplace. This is felt in a myriad of ways associated with the automation of information flow and management—from office automation to home banking, from expert systems to adaptive sensors and production site robots, from computer aided drawing and instruction to brain imaging. The scientific basis of the emerging information, technologies is cognitive science, involving the relatively new development in our universities of multidisciplinary work concerned with the understanding and modelling of intelligence. The dramatic developments now taking place in this new science will impact increasingly upon the work of professional psychologists in industry, education, research, and clinical practice.