Human information processing

Definition

• Human information processing theory deals with how people receive, store, integrate, retrieve, and use information.

See also cognitivism.

A short history

Since the first computers, psychologists have drawn parallels between computers and human thought. At its core are memory models. The memory model which dominated the 1970’s and 80’s is the three component information processing system of Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968, 1971) insprired by a typicial computer hardware architecture:

• Sensory Memory (STSS): Analogous to input devices such as a keyboard or more sophisticated devices like a voice recognition system

• Short Term Memory (STM) or working memory: Analogous to the CPU and it's random-access memory (RAM)

• Long Term Memory (LTM) : Analogous to a storage device like a hard disk

Principles of the information processing approach

According to Huitt (2003), there are a few basic principles that most cognitive psychologists agree with:

• The mental system has limited capacities, i.e. bottlenecks in the flow and processing of information, occur at very specific points
• A control mechanism is required to oversee the encoding, transformation, processing, storage, retrieval and utilization of information. This control mechanism requires itself processing power and that varies in function of the difficulty of the task.
• There is a two-way flow of information. Sensory input is combined with information stored in memory in order to construct meaning.
• The human organism has been genetically prepared to process and organize information in specific ways.

References

• Atkinson, R., & Shiffrin, R. (1968). Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes. In K Spence & J Spence (Eds.). The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 2). New York: Academic Press.

• Huitt, W. (2003). The information processing approach to cognition. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. HTML (Retrieved DSchneider)

• P. H. Lindsay and D. A. Norman. Human Information Processing. Academic press, New York, 1977.

• Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 81-97 HTML

John D. Bransford, Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking (eds). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning, National Research Council, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, HTML and HTML