Information processing
seeks to identify the ways that individuals take in, use, and store information.
According to this approach, the quantitative (data that is numbers based) changes in infants' abilities to organize and manipulate information represent the hallmarks of cogn
We can best understand cognitive development by considering the ______ by which individuals acquire and use the information to which they are exposed.
processes
According to the Information Processing Approach, cognitive growth is characterized by ________ ______ in information processing, similar to the way a ______ becomes more sophisticated and useful as the programmer modifies it and as the capacity of the co
increased sophistication; computer 193
Encoding, storage, and retrieval:
the foundations of information processing
Encoding
is the process by which information is initially recorded in a form usable to memory. People encode selectively, picking and choosing the information to which they will pay attention.
This part can be thought of as a computer's keyboard, through which one
Storage
refers to the maintenance of material saved in memory. Storage is the computer's har drive, where the information is stored.
Retrieval
is the process by which material in memory storage is located, brought to awareness, and used. Retrieval is an analogous to the computer's screen, where the information is displayed.
Only when all three processes are operating - encoding, storage, and ret
Automization
is the degree to which an activity requires attention. Processes that require relatively little attention are automatic; processes that require relatively large amounts of attention are controlled.
Automatic processes help us in our initial encounters with the world by "automatically" priming us to process information in particular ways.
For instance, children automatically encode in terms of frequency. They automatically become aware of how often they have encountered various people, permitting them to differentiate familiar from unfamiliar people.
Processes that require relatively littl
Without intending to, and without being aware of it, chilren develop a sense of how often different ______ are found together simultaneously. This permits them to develop an understanding of _____, categorization of objects, events, or people that share c
stimuli; concepts
For instance, by encoding the information that four legs, a wagging tail, and barking are often found together, children are able to acquire the concept of "dog".
Cognitive architecture
refers to the basic, enduring structures and features of information processing that are relatively constant over the course of development.
Cognitive architecture determines the ___ ___ through which material is ____ as is travels through the human mind.
specific steps; processed
Developmental change is reflected not in cognitive architecture, but in efficiency and capacity of information processing over time.
Atkinson and Shiffrin's - Three-System Approach
is the oldest - and most influential- of the approaches to information processing.
This model consists of a sensory store, short-term memory, and long-term memory.
This is an abstract way of describing the distinct components or functions of memory as opp
Sensory Store: the initial, momentary storage of information, lasting only an instant.
-Initial, momentary storage of information
-Rapid decay but highly accurate
-Cognitive representations of unfiltered, unevaluated stimuli; not analyzed in terms of meaning
-Types: Visual, sound, smell, pain
Short-Term Memory: the short-duration, limited-capacity memory component in which selected input from the memory is store is worked on.
- Short duration, limited capacity memory
-Processes selected input from sensory store
-Thoughtful, deliberate processing starts here so stimuli may be stored in terms of meaning
-Chunk
-Capacity (memory increases with age) 197
Chunk
a meaningful group of stimuli that can be stored as a unit in short-term memory. A chunk might be a letter or number, a word, or even a well-known maxim ("two's company, three's a crowd").
Remember, that the capacity of short-term memory is not based on the physical size of the information being encoded, but on whether it forms ______ chunks of information.
meaningful
Thus, a list of five random letters will be considered five chunks, while a list of five words (cat, son, hand, tree, car) are also stored as 5 chunks. Clearly, the words contain more physical information and yet are just as easily memorized.
Short-term memory capacity increases
- With age
- With nature of materials being remembered
- Although capacity and speed of processing change with age, rehearsal is assumed to be constant
*With increasing age, the increase in the quantity of numbers that can be recalled slows down
Memory span
aka memory capacity in relation to short-term
Rehearsal
is the repetition of information that has entered short-term memory. As long as the information in short-term momory is rehearsed, it is kept alive and is not lost. Even more important, rehearsal permits the transfer of material into long-term momory.
Working Memory
a set of temporary memory stores that actively mainpulate and rehearse information.
According to working memory view, the way in which we process information is determined by a ____ _____.
central executive
The central executive
controls the functions of short-term memory, coordinating the processing of material, determining problem-solving strategies, directing attention, and selecting strategies for remembering in short-term memory.
If sufficiently processed in short-term memory, information passes into the third and final information processing unit;
long-term memory.
Long-term memory
the memory component in which information is stored on a relatively permanent basis.
-Nearly limitless capacity
-Functions with retrieval process
-Retrieval cues
-Memory modules
Declarative memory:
memory for factual information such as names, dates and facts. We remember information about things in declarative memory.
Procedural memory:
memory related to skills, habits, such as how to ride a bike. We remember information about how to do things in procedural memory.
IP theories differ from other theories of cognitive development
P (Paiget)=stages
IP (Information Processing)=gradual, continuous
P=qualitative change
IP=quantitative change
The fundamentals elements of IP are ____, ____, and ____.
encoding; storage; retrieval
____ refers to the degree to which these processes require attention.
Automatization
The three-system model proposes that IP involves the ____ ____, ____ ____, and ____ ____.
sensory store; short-term memory; long-term memory
Selected information is passes to short-term memory, in which deliberate information processing.
Contemporary approaches consider short-term memory as ____ ____, in which a central executive processor coordinates the processing of information.
working memory
Information that has been sufficiently processed in ____ term memory is passes to ____ term memory, where it is stored on a relatively permanent basis for later ____.
short; long; retrieval
Memory modules
In the same way that short-term memory can be viewed as working memory, contemporary researchers view long-term memory as having different components called memory modules representing different memory systems in the brain. For example, declarative memory
Long term memories can be considered as ____ ____, each of which is related to ____ memory systems.
memory modules; separate
Information processing models assume that development is ____ in nature, rather than ____, as Piaget proposed.
quantitative; qualitative
quantitative
Data that is numbers based.
qualitative
Data that is done with observations (not numbers).
Attention
information processing involving the ability to strategically choose among and sort out different stimuli in the environment.
Attention getting stimuli
some stimuli act as attention-getting stimuli due to their physical characteristics. e.g., a brightly colored mobile
Attention holding stimuli
it is their meaningfulness that sustains attention.
Developmental path of attention
Children and adults initially record information in the sensory store in the same way
-IP failures are likely due to inability to draw out information from sensory store and to processing deficiencies in short term memory
Failures of information processing, are more likely due to the inability to ____ ___ information from the sensory store and to _____ _________in short-term memory.
draw out; processing deficiencies
Control of Attention
-Control of attention increases with age
-Control what attending to
-Exclude irrelevant or extraneous stimuli
Planning
Infants have the ability to plan or calculate how to produce a desired outcome. 201
Planning is the ability to allocate attentional resources on the basis of goals that one wishes to achieve.
-Develops throughout childhood and adolescence
Even infants show their ability to plan. They are able to anticipate when routine childcare procedur
_____ involves knowing what to do and what not to do and to then act appropriately on that information; ___ __ ______ develops slowly; involves maturation of brain; attentional disorders affect many young children.
Planning; ability to refrain
Memorization or planning?
When comparing whether houses such as these were different from one another, preschoolers' eye movements showed that they did not systematically compare the features of the two houses in order to make their determination.
In contrast, school-age children'
What are the most common signs of ADHD?
-Because there is no simple test to identify whether a child has ADHD, it is hard to know for sure how many children have the disorder. Most estimates put the number between 3 to 7 percent of those under the age of
*Persistent difficulty in finishing tasks, following instructions, and organizing work
*Inability to watch an entire television program
*Frequent interruption of others or excessive talking
*Tendency to jump into a task before hearing all the instructions
Diagnostic Criteria
Behaviors must:
-Be excessive, long-term, and pervasive
-Appear before age 7, and continue for at least 6 months
-Create a real handicap in at least two areas of a person's life, such as school, home, work, or social settings
-Different than "normal" dist
ADHD Treatment Controversy
-Ritalin or Dexadrine reduce activity levels in hyperactive children and are routinely prescribe
-Effective in increasing attention span and compliance BUT side effects considerable and long-term health consequences unclear
-Help scholastic performance i
Are there other treatments for ADD/ADHD?
-With behavior therapy, parents and teachers are trained in techniques for improving behavior, primarily involving the use of rewards (such as verbal praise) for desired behavior. In addition, teachers can increase the structure of classroom activities an
The improvements that occur in the control of attention and planning related to attention are likely produced by _____ in maturation of the _____, as well as by the increasing _____ _____ placed on children.
increases; brain; educational demands
According to memory expert Carolyn Rovee-Collier, people, regardless of their ____, gradually lose memories, although, just like babies, they may regain them if ______ are provided. Moreover, the more times a memory is retrieved, the more enduring the mem
age; reminders
What do you think?
Can infants remember?
Memory Capabilities in Infancy:
Infants were taught that they could move a mobile hanging over the crib by kicking their legs. It took only a few days for 2-month-old infants to forget their training, but 6-month-old infants still remembered for as long a
Infantile amnesia
the lack of memory for experiences that occured prior to three years of age.
Is infant memory qualitatively different from that in older children and adults?
-Information is processed similarly throughout life span
-Kind of information being processed changes and different parts of brain may be used
How long do memories last?
Researchers disagree on the age from which memories can be retrieved
Early studies ->infantile amnesia
Myers ->clear evidence of early memory
Physical trace of a memory in brain appears to be relatively permanent
Memories may not be easily, or accurately,
Although the processes that underlie memory retention and recall seem similar throughout the lifespan, the quantity of information stored and recalled does differ markedly as infants develop.
-Older infants can retrieve information more rapidly and they can remember it longer.
-Although early research supported the notion of infantile amnesia, the lack of memory for experiences occurring prior to 3 years of age, more recent research shows that
Recollections of events are sometimes, but not always, accurate
-Typically accurate in responses to open-ended questions
Partly determined by how soon memories are assessed
Affected by cultural factors
Autobiographical memory
-Largely inaccurate before age 3
-Not all last into later life
Autobiographical memory, memory of particular events from one's own life, achieves little accuracy until after 3 years of age. Accuracy then increases gradually and slowly throughout the presc
Despite the occasional failures of autobiographical memory, it is clear that memory
improves throughout the course of childhood and adolescence.
neo-Paigetan theorist
Robbie Case. He has blended information processing and Piagetian approaches.
Case suggests that cognitive development proceeds because of increases in working memory capabilities.
According to the operating efficiency hypothesis
people are able to remember material better with age because they process information more quickly and use more effective, suitable strategies. Memory improvements are NOT due to increases in the size of working memory. The greater efficiency of processin
The NMDA Receptor
Researchers recently discovered that palmitate is involved in activating brain proteins called NMDA receptors
NMDA receptors
Play a significant role in rapid, intense development of the child's brain
Aid long-term memory and learning
Why are some preschool memories inaccurate?
*Preschoolers' memories of familiar events are often organized in scripts
*Scripts become more elaborate with age
*Frequently repeated events meld into scripts
*Particular instances of scripted event are recalled with less accuracy than those that are uns
Infants show memory for behavior and situations that they have only seen once.
Such findings are consistent with evidence that the physical trace of a memory in the brain appears to be relatively permanent; this suggests that memories, even from infancy, may be enduring. However, memories may not be easily or accurately, retreived.
One reason why infants appear to remember less may be because
language plays a key role in determining the ways memories from early in life can be recalled: Older children and adults may be able to report memories using only the vocabulary that they had available at the time of initial event, when the memories were
Data suggests that althought it is at least theoretically possible for memories to remain in tact from a very young age -
if subsequent experiences do not interfere with their recollection - in most cases memories of personal experiences in infancy do not last into adulthood.
Control strategies
children's conscious, intentionally used tactics to improve cognitive processing. For instance, school-age children are aware that rehearsal, the repetition of information, is a useful strategy for improving memory, and they increasingly employ it over th
Keyword strategies
one word is paired with another that sounds like it. Once a key word is chosen, children then form a mental image of the two words interacting with one another.
Scripts
general representations in memory of a sequence or series of events. For instance, when preschoolers experience the same activity or event repeatedly - such as being driven to preshool five days a week - the activity becomes remembered in terms of a gener
Metamemory
an understanding about the processes that underlie memory, which emerges and improves during middle childhood.
Changes in Information Processing During Adolescence
-Gains during adolescence help to explain developmental differences in abstract, multidimensional, and hypothetical thinking.
Adolescent changes occur in five basic areas:
Attention
Memory
Information processing speed
Organizational strategies
Metacognition
How do these changes occur?
_Improvements in basic processes and capacities related to memories occur with age
_Working memory improves with age
_Operating efficiency improves (processing speed)
_Brain maturation
Memory Control Strategies
*Understanding of memory increase
*Control strategy type and use increases with age
*Materials organized in more coherent units
*Use explicitly taught strategies
*Keyword strategies
*Increasingly recall using scripts
Metamemory and Content Knowledge
-Understanding and knowledge children and adults have about memory and memory processes
-Tool for building strategies, organizing content information, and more efficient learning
Metamemory achieved by age 6 (universally)
Perspectives on Memory Development
Progression of memory
-Early adulthood: Memory abilities at peak (only decline in long-term memory)
-Middle age: Minor declines and often compensated
Meaning given to forgetfulness might change
-Old age: More declines
Piaget vs. Information Processing
Memory and Culture
-Similarities and differences in memory across cultures
-Basic memory processes are universal
-Cultural factors affect what information is attended to, learned, rehearsed, and retrieved from memory
-Apparent differences in memory relate to the experiences
Effective Strategies for Remembering
- Get organized
- Pay attention
- Use the encoding specificity phenomenon
- Visualize
-Rehearse
____, which involves being aware of and interested in stimuli, is responsible for ____ in information processing between young children and adults. Some failures of information processing appear to relate to the ____ and ____ of attention.
attention; differences; control; planning
As the age, children become increasingly aware of their sensory and memory limitations and develop ____ to control their attention to stimuli of interest and to exclude ____ stimuli.
strategies; extraneous
With ____, children also become more adept at ____, the use of ____, allocating attentional resources to meet their goals.
age; planning; attention;
Infants have memory capabilities from the ____ ____, but the parts of the ____ involved in memory may change as they age and their ability to ____ and ____ memories efficiently will increase.
earliest ages; brain; store; retrieve
The phenomenon of ____ ____is probably not as absolute as once supposed, but the accuracy of infants' and young children's memory is questionable.
infantile amnesia
____ ____does not achieve much accuracy until after the age of three.
autobiographical memory
Short-term memory increases in ____ during childhood, largely because of increases in ____ ____ that result in greater availability of resources to store information.
capacity; operating efficiency
In addition, memory functioning improves as children use more sophisticated ____ ____ to improve cognitive processing.
control strategies
The use of ____ to store and recall information also conserves memory resources
scripts
____, the understanding of memory and its functioning, permits children to ____ and ____ memory use to meet goals.
metamemory; plan; memorize
Furthermore, children's increasing knowledge of the ____ permits them to ____ and ____ information more efficiently and effectively.
world; memorize; recall
Piaget sees cognitive growth occuring in fairly sudden spurts;
information processing sees more gradual, step-by-step growth. (Think of the difference between a track and field runner leaping hurldes versus a slow but steady marathon racer.)
Becaues IP researchers consider cognitive development in terms of a collection of ____ _____, they are often able to use more precise measures of cognitive ability, such as processing speed and memory recall, than proponents of Piaget's approach.
individual skills
Mnemonics
formal strategies for organizing material in ways that make it more likely to be remembered.
Children's Eyewitness Testimony
-Memories highly subject to suggestion and distortion
-Interview timing is critical
-Specific questions asked in nonthreatening context produce best results
Shaywitz Study
National Reading Panel and National Research Council
-Now support reading instruction using code-based approaches
-This may signal an end to the debate over which approach to teaching reading is more effective
The Act of Reading
The act of reading involves activation of significant areas of the brain, as these scans illustrate.
In the top scan, an individual is reading aloud
In the bottom scan, the person is reading silently.
Critical thinking in Children
With age children improve in:
-Ability to think critically, use cognitive skills and strategies to analyze assumptions, evaluate arguments, solve problems, and make decisions
-Development of critical thinking skills is NOT automatic or universal
-Explicit
The IP approach merits and criticisms
Merits:
Significant contributions to understanding cognition
Coherent, logical, relatively complete account of cognition that can be tested scientifically
Criticisms:
Social and cultural factors not addressed
Overly mechanistic, atomistic view of cognitio
Why It's Good to Read to Young Children
Meta-analysis of nearly 100 studies suggest that a reading routine before age two
-Lays groundwork for enhanced language development
-Sets up self-reinforcing relationship between reading and language
-Is related to beneficial literacy outcomes, including
Because young children's memories are highly subject to ____ and ____, they can be ____ witnesses in emotionally charged law cases.
suggestion; distortion; unreliable
In the classroom, information processing approaches have supported approaches to ____ ____that are based on children's progression from ____cognitive skills to ____ skills.
reading instruction; low-level; higher-level
Code-based reading approach
emphasizes the components of reading, such as the sounds of letters and their combinations - phonics- and how letters and sounds are combined to make words. They suggest that reading consists of processing the individual components of words, combining the
Whole-language approach
to reading is viewed as a natural process, similar to the acquisition of oral language. According to this view, children should learn to read through exposure to complete writing - sentences, stories, poems, lists, charts, and other examples of actual use
A growing body of data, based on careful research suggests that
code-based approaches are superior to whole-language approaches.
Whatever approach is used to teach ______, reading provides significant changes in the wiring of the brain.
reading
It boosts the organization of the visual cortex of the brain and it improves the processing of spoken language.
Information processing has been used to support ____ and ____ approaches to reading, and the best approach is probably a combination of the two.
code-based; whole-language
Critical thinking
thinking that makes use of cognitive skills and strategies that increase the likelihood of solving problems, forming inferences, and making decisions appropriately and successfully.
Less than 40% of 17 year olds can find, summarize, and explain informatio
What are the 4 primary principles of critical thinking?
1. Thinkers must identify and challenge the assumptions underlying a statement or contention.
2. Thinkers must check for factual accuracy and logical consistency among statements.
3. Thinkers need to take into account the context of a situation.
4. Thinke
What is one of the most important features of the information processing approach?`
the reliance on well-defined processes that can be tested by research studies with relative precision.
Information processing approaches have also been used to develop ____ ____instruction, which focuses on the use of cognitive skills and strategies to analyze ____, evaluate ____, solve ____, and make ____.
critical thinking; assumptions; arguments; problems; decisions
Meta-analysis
a way of statistically summarizing the results of multiple experiments.
The information processing perspective has proved fruitful in offering explanations of cognitive phenomena and suggesting additional research through the generation of ____ ____.
testable hypotheses
It is less successful in accounting for ____ and ____ factors that affect cognitive processes and in producing a rich, comprehensive picture of cognitive development.
social; cultural