Information Processing Theory

Background

 Psychologists believe that cognitive process influence the nature of what we learned.
 They consider learning as largely an internal process.
 They look into how we receive, perceive, store and retrieve information.
Information Processing

 A cognitive theoretical framework that focuses on how knowledge enters and is

stored and retrieved from our memory.
 Focus on how people attend to environmental events, encode information to be
learned and relate it to knowledge in memory, store new knowledge in memory and
retrieved it as needed.
 Cognitive psychologists believe that cognitive processes influence the nature of what
is learned.
 They consider learning as largely an internal process, not an external behavior
change.
 They look into how we receive, perceive, store and retrieve information.
 They believe that how a person thinks about and interprets what s/he receives
shapes what he/she will learn.
 All these notions comprise what is called the information processing theory.

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Information Processing Theory (IPT)

 Information is received from environment through the senses.

 If information is not relevant, it decays.
 If information goes to the short memory and if it given attention and relevant, it is
sent to the long term memory.
 If information is not properly encoded, forgetting occurs.
 IPT describes how the learner receives information (stimuli) from the environment
through the senses and what takes place in between determines whether the
information will continue to pass through the sensory register, then the short term
memory and the long term memory.

Types of Knowledge

 General vs. Specific

 Declarative
 Procedural
 Episodic
 Conditional
Types of Knowledge

 General vs. Specific: This involves whether the knowledge is useful in many tasks, or
only in one.
 Declarative: This refers to factual knowledge. They relate to the nature of how things
are. They may be in the form of a word or an image.
 Procedural: This includes knowledge on how to do things.
 Episodic: This includes memories of life events, like your high school graduation.
 Conditional: This is about “knowing when and why” to apply declarative or procedural
strategies.

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Stages in the Information Processing Theory
The stages of IPT involve the functioning of the senses, sensory register, short term memory
and the long term memory. Basically, IPT asserts three primary stages in the progression of
external information becoming incorporated into the internal cognitive structure of choice
(schema, concept, script, frame, mental model, etc.)
Three Primary Stages in IPT
Encoding

➢ information is sensed, perceived, and attended to.

➢ when information comes into our memory system (from a sensory input) it needs to be
changed into a form that the system can cope with so that it can be stored.

➢ “Three Main Ways in which Information can be encoded”

❑ Visual (picture)

❑ Acoustic (sound)

❑ Semantic (meaning)
Storage

➢ The information is stored for either a brief or extended period of time, depending upon
the processes following encoding.

➢ This concerns the nature of memory stores, i.e. where the information is stored, how
long the memory last for, how much can be stored at any time and what kind of information
is held.
Retrieval

➢ The information is brought back at the appropriate time, and reactivated for use on a
current task, the true measure of effective memory.

➢ Refers to getting information out storage

Three Main Stages in the Memory Process
1. Sensory Register
The main purpose of sensory register is to screen incoming stimuli and process only those
stimuli that are most relevant at the present time.

 Capacity: Our mind receives a great amount of information but it is more than what our
minds can hold or perceive.
 Duration: The sensory register only holds the information for an extremely brief – in
the order of 1 to 3 seconds.
 There is a difference in duration based on modality: Auditory memory is more
persistent than visual.

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A Model of Information Processing
The Nature of Recognition:
Noting key features of a stimulus and relating them to already stored information.
The Impact of Attention

 Selective focusing on a portion of the information currently stored in the sensory

register.
 What we attend to is influenced by information in long-term memory.
2. Short Term Memory (STM or Working Memory)

 Capacity: The STM can only hold 5 to 9 “chunks” of information, sometimes described as
7 + /- 2. it is called working memory because it is where new information is temporarily
placed while it is mentally processed. STM maintain information for a limited time, until
the learner has adequate resources to process the information, or until the information
is forgotten.
 Duration: Around 18 seconds or less.
 To reduce the loss of information in 18 seconds, you need to do maintenance rehearsal.
It is using the repetition to keep the information active in STM, like when you repeat a
phone number just given over and over.
3. Long Term Memory (LTM)
The LTM is the final or permanent storing house for memory information. It holds the stored
information until needed again.
Capacity: LTM has unlimited capacity.
Duration: Duration in the LTM is indefinite.
Long-Term Memory
Rehearsal

 Maintenance Rehearsal (rote rehearsal, repetition): Information is repeated over and

over again with no effect on long-term memory storage.
 Elaborative Rehearsal (elaborative encoding): New information is related to knowledge
already stored in long-term memory.
Executive Control Processes

 Executive Control Processes involve the executive processor or what is referred to as

metacognitive skills.
 These processes guide the flow of information through the system, help the learner
make informed decisions about how to categorize, organize, or interpret information.
Forgetting
It is the inability to retrieve or access information when needed.

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Why do we forget?
There are 2 simple answer to this question.

 First, the memory has disappeared – it is no longer available.

 Second, the memory is still stored in the memory system but, for some reason it cannot
be retrieved.
Two Main Ways in which Forgetting Likely Occurs

 Decay – Information is not attended to and eventually “fades” away. Very prevalent in
Working Memory.
 Interference – New or old information “blocks” access to the information in question.
o Proactive (pro-forward) occurs when you cannot learn a new task because of an
old task that had been learn.
o Retroactive (retro-backward) occurs when you forget a previously learnt task due
to the learning of a new task.
Methods for Increasing Retrieval of Information
o Rehearsal – this is repeating information verbatim, either mentally or aloud.
o Meaningful Learning – this is making connections between new information and prior
knowledge.
o Organization – it is making connections among various pieces of information.
o Elaboration – this is adding additional ideas to new information based on what one
already knows.
o Visual Imagery – this means forming a “picture” of the information.
o Generation – things we “produce” are easier to remember than things we “’hear”.
o Context – remembering the situation helps recover information.
o Personalization – it is making the information relevant to the individual.

Other Memory Methods

o Serial Position Effect (regency & primacy) – you will remember the beginning and end
of “list” most readily.
o Part Learning – break up the “list” or “chunk” information to increase memorization.
o Distributed Practice – break up learning sessions, rather than cramming all the info in at
once (Massed Practice)
o Mnemonic Aids – these are memory techniques that learners may employ to help them
retain and retrieved information more effectively.

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Multi Store Model- Atkinson & Shiffrin