Information Processing Theory
Dietrick L. Smith Jr.
AED/202
May 5, 2013
Sheila Brock

Information Processing Theory

The information processing theory approach to the study of cognitive development evolved out of the American experimental tradition in psychology. Developmental psychologists who adopt the information-processing perspective account for mental development in terms of maturation changes in basic components of a child’s mind. The theory is based on the idea that humans process the information they receive, rather than merely responding to stimuli. Next, is the sensation component of this theory which is a process that allows the senses to pick up and almost record what they find such as what they are seeing in their vision, also what they hear as well whatever the senses come in contact with then goes to the brain to be stored. Following these is the working memory component this is what allows us to keep all the information we come across in our mind. Although the working memory only allows us to keep it there for a short period of time. Which then takes us to the short memory portion of the working memory. This perspective equates the mind to a computer, which is responsible for analyzing information from the environment. According to the standard information-processing model for mental development, the mind’s machinery includes attention mechanisms for bringing information in, working memory for actively manipulating information, and long-term memory for passively holding information so that it can be used in the future. [1] This theory addresses how as children grow, their brains likewise mature, leading to advances in their ability to process and respond to the information they received through their senses. The theory emphasizes a continuous pattern of development, in contrast with Cognitive Developmental theorists such as Jean Piaget that thought development occurred in stages at a time. As humans we process information with amazing efficiency and often perform better than highly sophisticated machines at task such as problem solving and critical thinking (Halpern, 2003; Kuhn, 1999). The information processing theory is a group of theoretical frameworks. These frameworks address how humans receive, think about, mentally modify, and remember information, and how these processes change over the course of development (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004). The most researched and articulated model is the information processing model (IPM), developed in the early 1950s. The IPM consists of three main components sensory memory, working memory, and long-term memory (Schraw.G, 2006).
The first component is the sensory memory; this processes incoming sensory information for very brief periods of time, usually within ½ to 3 seconds. The amount of information held in the sensory memory is limited to five to seven discrete elements such as letters of the alphabet or pictures of human faces. The main purpose of sensory memory is to screen incoming stimuli and process only those stimuli that are most relevant at the time. Information processing in sensory memory usually occurs too quickly for people to consciously control. Rather attention allocation and sensory processing are fast and unconscious. Information that is relevant to the task at hand and information that is familiar is therefore subjected to automatic...
Cognitive processes include perception, recognition, imagining, remembering, thinking, judging, reasoning, problem solving, conceptualizing, planning and more terms and applications. These cognitive processes can emerge from human language, thought, imagery and symbols.

Out of all of these specific cognitive processes, many cognitive psychologists study language-acquisition, altered states of mind and consciousness, visual perception, auditory perception, short-term memory, long-term memory, storage, retrieval, perceptions of thought and much more. Factors affecting physical and motor development Culture.

Although processing theorists do not always agree on the specifics of the mechanisms involved in learning and information, the do tend to agree on several points. It is agreed upon that the components necessary for information processing rely on; input from the environment, a sensory register and the use of long term and short term memory, attention, the different processes involved in the moving of memories from short to long term, the ability for people to have control on how they may process this information. Last but not least they agree that cognitive development will involve gradual changes in various components of the information processing theory.
Input from the environment is very important to the children’s development by providing raw data through sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch. “Individuals differ in how they process information in their social environments. Social information related to parents and peers is often processed with varying degrees of accuracy, objectivity and positivity. These and other variations in social processing information processing are considered to play a significant role in development because they affect individual’s social and emotional adaptation over the life span”. (Dykas & Cassidy, 2008).
This theory also describes the way each of these component parts and the system linking them improves with time. Strong inclusion of the information processing theory can lead to more effective ways of teaching, which will result in children becoming better at retaining and processing information. They also learn to integrate it into their knowledge base so it can be reused in the future more effectively. The information processing theory was developed to help social learning theorists and others understand how humans learn and solve problems. When applying information processing theory to child development, researchers examine how the mental processes mature to explain changes in problem-solving behavior, decision-making, information gathering and storage, and other cognitive processes.

Some of the most basic parts of the information processing theory is the way our minds absorb, process, and holds any information. This process consists of three basic parts and a central executive that controls the information flow among those three basic parts. The three parts are the sensory register, working memory, and long-term memory. It is believed that the sensory register holds raw sensory data for very brief periods. This means that it gathers almost all the raw data from the different senses like sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. The amount of the information it gathers explains why the register only holds it for such a brief period, and its existence is also explained by the amount of information. Even the smallest, easiest event is not recorded completely and the brain needs to take some time to strip down.
As the information surrounding us continues to increase at an exponential rate, it is essential that we find a way to keep up with it. Schools deal with this surge of new information by cramming their programs full of every subject that could benefit a child. At this point in time there have been no flawless ways of teaching or learning material. This is noteworthy because researchers, educators and physiologists will surely try to develop innovative ways to more efficiently teach new information to upcoming generations. The information-processing theory is ranked as one of the best ranked learning theories to be developed in the last century. The theory likens the cognitive development of the human mind to that of a computer. This theory became popular in the 1950s when high-speed computers started to appear (Information-Processing Theory, n.d.a.). In this paper I will provide an extensive synopsis of the Information Processing theory. However, with so much material available on the subject, readers will realize that this synopsis is only the tip of the iceberg.
Brief History. When an individual modifies and adjusts responses to preceding dilemmas, e.g. self-modification, in order to deal with new problems, a person develops perception and reasoning skills to better deal with similar future issues without recreating analogous errors. Encoding, strategy construction, automaticity, and generalization, are the key aspects involved in an individual’s self-modification. Regardless of any limitation or faults the information processing model of cognition may hold, its broad influence is still prominent in modern psychology, education, and cognitive science.
Cognitive psychologists believed that cognitive process influenced the nature of what is learned. They considered learning as largely an internal process, not an external behavior change (as behavior theorist thought). They looked into hoe we receive, perceive, store and retrieve information. They believed that how a person thinks about and interprets what he/she receives shapes what he/she will learn. Therefore, there is a group of processes that help move the information we receive from the working memory to the long-term memory. However, unlike working memory, the long-term memory has an unlimited capacity and the information can be accessed to modify or relearn again in the working memory at a later time.