One of the most influential working hypotheses in psychology, to this day, is that human information processing in higher-order cognition (e.g., judgment and decision-making) is constrained by having to process objects serially, one at a time. However, a rather large body of research, accumulated over the past 50 years, has demonstrated that serial-processing models provide a poor descriptive account of human information processing. An alternate to the serial-processing view is that people can process information concurrently; many cognitive processes can advance independently of each other even if the system involves only a single central information-processing unit (i.e., central executive). Perhaps this general idea can be advanced beyond its present standing and is to provide new powerful tools in the pursuit of understanding human behavior. To this end, the article provides a review of (i) the conceptual differences between different types of processing (serial, concurrent, parallel), (ii) recent advancements in the field of computer science, and (iii) existing research on human information-processing, which is in line with the advancements in computer science. Finally, the article provides a discussion of outstanding research questions gleaned from these reviews—questions that could stimulate entirely new research programs.

迄今为止，在心理学上最有影响力的工作假设之一是，高阶认知中的人类信息处理（例如判断和决策）受制于必须一次一次地串行处理对象。但是，过去50年来积累的大量研究表明，串行处理模型无法很好地描述人类信息处理。串行处理视图的另一种替代方法是人们可以同时处理信息。即使系统仅包含一个中央信息处理单元（即中央执行器），许多认知过程也可以彼此独立地进行。也许可以将这一一般思想超越目前的现状，并为追求人类行为提供新的有力工具。i）不同处理类型（串行，并发，并行）之间的概念差异；（ii）计算机科学领域的最新进展；以及（iii）现有的有关人类信息处理的研究，这与以下方面的进展是一致的计算机科学。最后，本文讨论了从这些评论中收集到的优秀研究问题，这些问题可能会激发全新的研究计划。