INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY ATKINSON & SHIFFRIN

BY: wan mohd ridzaudin bin wan majid mohd asrul hafiz bin ali@ yusof nuranis farhana binti khamis noor azma binti ab. Rahman nasuha binti kamaruldin siti norhanani binti che mat

Information Processing Theory

approach to the study of cognitive development evolved out of the American experimental tradition in psychology. Information processing theorists proposed that like the computer, the human mind is a system that processes information through the application of logical rules and strategies - the mind has a limited capacity for the amount and nature of the information it can process. Finally, just as the computer can be made into a better information processor by changes in its hardware (e.g., circuit boards and microchips) and its software (programming), so do children become more sophisticated thinkers through changes in their brains and sensory systems (hardware) and in the rules and strategies (software) that they learn.

Sensory Memory
Information enters the human information processing system via a variety of channels associated with the different senses. Perceptual systems operate on this information to create perceptions. But because of a limited processing ability at the higher levels, most incoming information cannot be immediately dealt with Instead, we attend only to certain information. However, information not immediately attended to is held briefly in a very temporary "buffer" memory, making it possible to attend to some of it a bit later -- as when you can still hear someone asking you a question even though you weren't really listening when they asked it. This buffer memory is called sensory memory.

Sensory memory is really have many sensory memory systems, one associated with each sense. Eg: for vision, called iconic memory, for audition (hearing), called echoic memory
Here are some characteristics of these two sensory memory systems:

Iconic Memory (vision) Capacity: Essentially that of the visual system (Sperling) Duration: About 0.5 to 1.0 seconds (Sperling) Processing: None additional beyond raw perceptual processing
Echoic Memory (hearing} Capacity: ???? Duration: About 4 to 5 seconds Processing: None additional beyond raw perceptual processing

Short-term memories (STM)

Information that is attended to arrives in another temporary store called short-term or working memory. The more recent term "working memory" is intended to convey the idea that information here is available for further processing. In general information in working memory is information you are conscious of and can work with.
Here are some properties of STM: Capacity: About 7 plus or minus 2 "chunks" of information (Miller, 1956) Duration: About 18 to 20 seconds (Peterson & Peterson, 1959) Processing: To hold information in STM, it is often encoded verbally, although other strategies may also be used such as visualization. These strategies make it possible to "rehearse" the information.

The low capacity of STM was first noted by George Miller in a famous paper intitled The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two. Miller concluded that about seven (plus or minus two) "chunks" of information could reside in STM simultaneously. Miller defined a "chunk" as an independent item of information -- one whose recall did not aid in the further recall of the other items. Random letters such as "GJK" would each be considered a chunk, but letters that form a recognizable larger whole, such as "CAR" would not. (In this case the word "car" is a single chunk.) Information that enters STM fades away, or decays as soon as it is no longer attended to. (The duration of 18-20 seconds assumes that the information is not being actively rehearsed.)

Information that is being actively attended to is represented by a pattern of neural activity in the brain may become represented more permanently by guiding changes in neural connectivity in the brain, a process referred to as storage.

But information that is not more permanently stored is simply lost shortly after attention is directed elsewhere.
Because STM presents severe limits on the amount of information that can be held in mind simultaneously and on the duration for which it lasts once attention is withdrawn from it, STM has been described as the bottleneck of the human information processing system.

Long-term Memory (LTM)

Long-term memory is also called preconscious and unconscious memory in Freudian terms. Preconscious means that the information is relatively easily recalled. unconscious refers to data that is not available during normal consciousness. Here are some properties of LTM: 1. Capacity: Virtually unlimited 2. Duration: Up to a lifetime 3. Processing: Information is organized according to meaning and is associatively linked

1. Capacity: Virtually unlimited :

Capacity is unlimited in the sense that nobody seems to run out of the capacity to store new information. Except if our brain deteriorate.
2. Duration: Up to a lifetime : We cant determine how long memory can exist in our LTM. If you cannot remember something ; it is because of it has been lost from the system, or because you have developed a problem locating it for retieval Permanent loses;(occurred due to damaged brain and it is not been accesed for a long time) Permanent losses do occur as a result of brain damage and it is possible that some memories simply decay away if they are not accessed for a very long time. HOWEVER; some failures of retrieval are due to temporary blockages and not to the loss of the information in memory example-: You may be unable to remember someone's name at present, for example, but later it comes to you. Obviously, it was there in memory all the while.

3. Processing: Information is organized according to meaning and is associatively linked :

A common idea is that everything we have ever experienced has created a long-term memory, but this is unlikely to be so.

Much of what we experience is never attended to, or not attended to beyond a few brief moments, and probably does not result in activation of the storage process.

Implications for teaching primary science

1.Teachers need to recognize the importance of teaching higher order thinking skill(Lawrenz.,1990) Teachers must try to change their mind set from teaching science just as a body of facts. The higher-order thinking skills, which focus on students ability to hypothesize, analyse, synthesize and evaluate facts and concepts, are considered important for students to interact effectively with the real world environment of day to day problem solving. Teachers are encouraged to employ an inquiry-oriented investigative approach to teach science.

2.Teachers need to play a facilitative role in teaching problem solving(Pizzini et al.,1989)

Teachers assist students in identifying problems and developing strategies to obtain and process information. They could help students by identifying logical errors in their thinking (such as inconsistencies or unjustifiable inferences), challenging students to consider other possibilities, and pointing out to students when they have over generalized on the basis of false assumptions.

3.Teachers need to change their mode of assessment ( Stiggins et al.,1989)

In order to encourage higher-order thinking in students, the assessment mode needs to be changed.
It is suggested that teachers should ask more higher-order thinking questions involving analysis, comparison, inference and evaluation.

4.Schools need to improve science facilities and resources (Chin et al.,1994)

To encourage teachers to teach higher-order thinking skills in science, an increase in the number of science laboratory/science rooms and additional resources such as teaching materials for conducting hands-on activities, is necessary. At present, supporting laboratory staff at the primary level is lacking. If a problem-solving approach is to be seriously employed by teachers as part of science instruction, they need assistance and support from laboratory staff to cut down the time required in preparing hands-on activities

Baddeley & Hitch: Working Memory

The central executive This is the master controller of the working memory system. Its functions are thought to include switching attention between tasks, selecting/ignoring stimuli, and activating necessary information from long-term memory. At the moment its unclear whether the central executive is one unitary mechanism, or whether it can be broken down into subsystems.

The phonological loop This component holds speech-based information. It has two parts a phonological store, which temporarily holds speech information, and the articulatory control process (ACT; the arrow in the diagram), which is the part thats working when youre talking to yourself in your head. The ACT is one way of getting information into the phonological store, but, information in the phonological store starts to decay after a few seconds. This is why to remember a phone number you need to keep repeating it over and over until you find a pen youre refreshing the decaying information by it by putting it through the ACT again.

Visuo-spatial sketch pad Not surprisingly, this is the part that processes visual information. This might be from your eyes, recalling a memory, or creatively visualising something. If youre seeing with your minds eye, or mentally manipulating an image, this is the part thats working.

The episodic buffer Information is encoded differently in the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketch pad, while the central executive can only process, not store. The episodic buffer is able to combine information from the above components into a single representation. This was added to the model only recently (2000), because a number of research findings were hard to explain without it. (2)

Thats all.. Tenkiuuuu.