TY  - UNPB
ID  - cogprints337
UR  - http://cogprints.org/337/
A1  - Atkinson, Anthony P.
TI  - Wholes and their parts in cognitive psychology: Systems, subsystems and persons.
Y1  - 1998///
N2  - Decompositional analysis is the process of constructing explanations of the characteristics of whole systems in terms of characteristics of parts of those whole systems. Cognitive psychology is an endeavour that develops explanations of the capacities of the human organism in terms of descriptions of the brain's functionally defined information-processing components. This paper details the nature of this explanatory strategy, known as functional analysis. Functional analysis is contrasted with two other varieties of decompositional analysis, namely, structural analysis and capacity analysis. After an examination of these three varieties of analysis, there follows a consideration of a mistake to avoid when conducting decompositional analyses in psychology, and a possible limitation on their explanatory scope.
AV  - public
KW  - functional analysis
KW  -  decomposition
KW  -  explanation
KW  -  cognitive psychology
KW  -  system
KW  -  subsystem
KW  -  person
KW  -  subpersonal
KW  -  information processing
KW  -  box and arrow
KW  -  constitutive
ER  -

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