Lesson 10 Information Processing Theory

  

            Information processing theory (IPT) of cognitive development pertains to the study and analysis of what occurs in a person’s mind as he/she receives a bit of information (Miller, 1956).

Information processing occurs in stages that intervene between receiving receiving a stimulus and and producing a response. The form of information, or how it is represented mentally , differs depending on the stage. The stages are qualitatively different form each other. Information processing is analogous to computer processing. The mind receives and represents/encodes the stimulus from the learning environment, processes the information, stores it locate/retrieves it, and gives response to it. Learning is a change/revision in the knowledge that has been stored by the memory (Bulusan, et al., 2019).


Miller explained that the way person learns something new is important as there is a fixed pattern of events that take place in learning something new. In explaining the concept of chunking, he argued that person can only store five to nine meaningful units in short-term memory.

 

Basic Components of the IPT Model


            As you can see on the figure above, there are three major components of the information processing theory model, sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory. These three are elaborated by Bulusan, et al., (2019) below:

            Sensory memory is the state in which the stimuli sensed are temperary held in mere second s for the information to be processed further. As a person is presented a lot of stimuli at a given time, the sensory memory serves as a filter on what to focus on. When viewing a basketball game, you can see one person focused on the one in possession of the ball, while another one’s attention is centered on guard’s action. Selective attention is the individual’s ability to choose and process information while disregarding the other stimuli or information. As information held in the sensory memory is for about three seconds only, unattended stimuli are forgotten. The information the person gave attention to is trasferred to the short-term memory.

            Short-term memory  serves as a temporary memory while the information is given further processing before it is transferred to long-term memory. Information in this stage is 15-20 seconds only and can hold from 5 to 9 bits of information only at a given time. Before the information is transferred to long-term memory, there are two strategies involved: maintenance rehersal and elaborative rehearsal.

            Maintenance rehearsal involves repetition of the information to sustain its maintenance in the short-term memory. An example of which is the use of songs for toddlers and grade school pupils. Elaborative rehearsal, meanwhile, is the process of relating the new information to what is already known and stored in the long-term memory to make the new information more significant. One scheme is the organization, the process of classifying and grouping bits of information into organized chunks. For instance, memorizing the mobile number involves grouping the 11 numbers into set of numbers. Arranging information into heirarchies is another scheme.

            The use of mnemonic devices is also helpful. Mnemonic devices elaborate information in different ways. A Mnemonic is considered as something that can be used to remember things in a faster and an efficient manner.There are basically nine types of Mnemonics which come in the form of devices basis, different individuals and their capabilities. Those nine include music, name, expression/word, model, ode/rhyme, note organization, image, connection, spelling.


            Information that is not rehearsed and maintained in the short-term memory is forgotten. It also involves the relationship between the new information and what is already known.

            The long-term memory is the storehouse of information transferred from short-term memory. It has unlimited space. Varied contents of information are stored namely:

  1.      Semantic memory is the memory for ideas, words, facts and concepts that are not part of the person’s own experiences. Individuals with good semantic memory include those who know the capital of countries, meanings of vocabulary words, the order of planets and other facts.
  2.      Episodic memory includes the memory of events that happened in a person’s life, connected to a specific time and place. An example is a student who can explain the details of his or her most embarrassing moment.
  3.      Procedural memory accounts for the knowledge about how to do things. Examples include making a lesson plan, baking a cake and getting the LCD.

 

Retrieving Information

            Retrieving information from long-term memory involves locating the information and transferring it to short-term memory to be used for a purpose. The quality of how information was stored influences its access and retrieval. Schunk (2012) mentioned two ways of information retrieval.

First is recalling which is either free recall or cued recall. The former rely on the information previously leraned purely by memory. Meanwhile, the latter involved the provision of cues and clues to help recall the information.

Second is recognition, it involves providing learners with stimuli as choices to make decision or judgement . In a multiple-choices test item, the difficulty of retrieving the correct answer is reduced because of the distractors.

 

Forgetting

            Forgetting is the loss of information, either in the sensory memory, short-term memory or long-term memory. Interference is the process that occurs when remembering certain information hampered by the presence of other information (Woolfolk, 2016).  When new information interferes with recalling the previous information, it is called retroactive interference. If the old information interferes with recalling the new information, it is referred to as proactive interference.


            Time decay  is another factor for the loss of stored information from long-term memory. Unused information decays and is forgotten. However some theorists argues that stored information in long-term memory is never lost. A situation which is related to this is the tip-of-the tongue phenonmenon. It involves the failure to retrieve the information, but the person is sure that the information is known.

 

Teaching Implications

            Following the concepts and principles associated with the IPT, Woolfolk (2016), Slavin (2018), and Schunk (2012) recommend the following to be used in helping learners to understand and recall what they have learned:

  1.      Make sure you have the students attention. Practice using signal.
  2.      Move around the room, use gestures and avoid speaking monotone.
  3.      Begin a lesson by asking a question that stimulates interest in the topic.
  4.      Regain the attention of the individual by walking closer to them, using their names and asking them a question.
  5.      Help the student separate essential from non-essential details and focus o n most important information.
  6.      Use mnemonic devices.
  7.      Use graphic organizers for rehearsal.
  8.      Focus on meaning not on memorization.


References

  • Aquino, A. M. (2009). Facilitating human learning (First Edition). Rex Book Store, Inc.
  • Bulusan, F., Raquepo, M. R., Balmeo, M. L., & Gutierrez, J. C. (2019). Facilitating learner-centered teaching (First Edition). Rex Book Store, Inc.
  • CMO No. 75 s. 2017, Policies, Standards and Guidelines for Bachelor of Secondary Education (BSEd), p. 39
  • CMO No. 80 s. 2017, Policies, Standards and Guidelines for Bachelor of Physical Education (BPEd), p. 24
  • Lucas, M. R. D., & Corpuz, B. B. (2013). Facilitating learning: a metacognitive process (3rd Edition). LORIMAR Publishing, Inc.
  • Ornos, P. S., Gonzaga, E. P., Esgra, C. B., Gomez, N. G., Tarinay, A. R., & Verde, S. P. (2008). Facilitators of the learning process. Grandwater Publications.
  • Vega, V. A., & Prieto, N. G. (2012). Facilitating learning (Revised Edition). Books Atbp. Publishing Corp.

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