serial processing of information

In psychology, the "serial processing of information" refers to the idea that cognitive processes occur one after another in a sequence. This is a fundamental concept within cognitive theories of intelligence, which aim to understand how the mind functions by examining the underlying mental processes.

Researchers often use mathematical modeling to break down the time it takes to complete a task into the durations of individual mental processes. The assumption in serial processing is that these processes are executed sequentially, meaning their times are additive. For example, understanding a word might involve recognizing letters, retrieving the word's meaning from memory, and then processing its grammatical role. Each of these steps happens in order.

While serial processing has been a dominant model, some researchers propose that cognitive processing can also occur in parallel, with multiple processes happening simultaneously. This distinction is crucial for understanding the complexities of human cognition and intelligence.12