Psychology of computerization as a step towards the development of cyberpsychology

Abstract

Psychology of computerization: its background and developmentAmong areas of academic work that Oleg K. Tikhomirov focused on, there was a field which he himself called the psychology of computerization. This title can be traced in his works starting in mid-1980s (Tikhomirov, Babanin, 1986), though in fact Tikhomirov has advanced this field starting in mid-1960s. Indeed, first volumes that were collected, edited and partly authored by Tikhomirov which were fully devoted to pioneering psychological study of use of computers (needless to say, exclusively mainframe computers were available at that time) and human-computer interaction, initiated by Tikhomirov, were published in early 1970s (Chelovek i komputer, 1972; Chelovek i EVM, 1973). All in all, during a quarter of a century Tikhomirov initiated work on over ten published books (monographs, collective monographs and edited volumes) in Russian on various themes related to psychology of computerization.The psychology of computerization has been first referred to as a by-product of theoretical and empirical studies in psychology of thinking, which was carried out by Tikhomirov and his disciples and colleagues. But since late 1980s, it was becoming more and more obvious that any studies of impact of information and communication technologies on human psyche that were carried out by qualified scholars, need to be considered a priority and thus are worth of a special title within range of psychological disciplines. The special title chosen by Tikhomirov was 'psychology of computerization'; now, after about three decades have passed, we have to admit that this title has not been widely used and has proved to be impractical; reasons will be discussed later in this paper.In current section of paper we are going to reconstruct reasons for providing a special title to scholarly work in this field as early as in 1980s (Tikhomirov, Babanin, 1986). As has already been mentioned, reasons came to light much earlier: Tikhomirov's initial impulse for carrying out studies related to psychology of computerization goes back to 1960s, when he started his life-long project of developing original psychological of thinking: personal meanings theory (Tikhomirov, 1969). Prior to starting his own study, Tikhomirov, as a young researcher, browsed and thoroughly studied scientific literature in order to gain full knowledge of academic sources on theme. He found that newest published materials were at that time describing recently developed computer models which were developed to simulate human thinking processes while solving puzzles, learning, controlling complex processes, playing intellectual games, recognizing simple objects, comprehending and translating texts, creating music, performing mathematical and logical reasoning, etc.Indeed, parallel to advancement of computers that has taken place since late 1940s (especially in 1950s and later), several shockingly new theories have been developed -- in particular, cybernetics (Ashby, 1956; Wiener, 1948), game (Neumann, Morgenstern, 1944), information (Shannon, Weaver, 1949), systems (Bertalanffy, 1950), formalized linguistic (Chomsky, 1957), and artificial intelligence (Computers and Thought, 1963; McCarthy et al., 1955; Newell, Shaw, & Simon, 1958). The rapid escalation of computer productiveness in various fields of practice, intertwined with fascinating new theories mentioned above, seemed to promise that computer models of human thought, digital models of visual perception or language learning, as well as simulations of most broad psychological constructs such as conscience, creativity, or personality, could be easily enough realized, given existing and would-be (in closest future) hardware and software. Starting in mid-1950s, ideas of this type emerged under a provocative and promising name, 'artificial intelligence', and dominated in academic literature, including respectful psychological journals and monographs. …