Information Processing Theory: What it Is, Characteristics and Examples

Within cognitivism two currents can be distinguished. The first, called Human Information Processing (HIP) or theory of human information processing. This trend is inspired by cybernetics. Specifically, it is based on the analogy between the operations of the human mind and the data processing processes carried out by computers.

The HIP analyzes operations of cognitive processes such as memory, thought, language, movement and perception. In this PsychologyFor article, we will delve together into information processing theory

What is information processing theory

Human information processing is not a true theory of cognitive development, but rather a approach in which the mind is compared to a computer that processes stimuli applicable to various cognitive processes such as memory, thinking, language, movement and perception. This approach focuses on performance (not competence), views changes as quantitative (not qualitative), and is interested in how a process develops (not what is developed).

Background of information processing theory

The first models of mental functioning proposed by the HIP in the sixties of the last century were characterized by the rigidly serial processing of information and by the final placement, in the sequence of the elaboration operations and the selection phases.

These models provided for a limited capacity for processing information and autonomous treatment channels. The merit of these “pipeline” models lies in their simplicity. However, experimental data have not always confirmed their validity.

Since the seventies, “cascade” or “parallel” models have appeared that provide for the prosecution of the information simultaneous through communicating channels and that the selection operations are located in the first phases of the information preparation process. These models imply an unlimited processing capacity, the possibility of interaction between the different levels of information processing and resorting to alternative strategies.

While the structural oil pipeline models postulated the existence of “blocks” of information processing operations, these latter are of a functional type, since they imply, above all, information flows on which the different operations.

Authors of information processing theory

Who created the theory of information processing? The name of this type of study derives from the title of the book written in 1972 by Peter H. Lindsay and Donald A. Norman “Human information processing: an introduction to psychology”, but the foundations of the theory must be sought since the dawn of cognitivism. Let’s look at all the authors of the information processing theory:

• Neisser, father of cognitivism. He proposed the HIP model considering the human mind as an information processor.
• Serial models are models of mental functioning proposed in the sixties. The most famous of them is the multi-store or modal model proposed in 1968 by Richard Chatam Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin
• The successive “cascade” and “parallel” models, which appeared since the 1970s, provide for the simultaneous processing of information through communicating channels. An example of a “waterfall” model, which has appeared since the 1970s, is the “Dual Path Waterfall Model” of Max Coltheart, Brent Edward Curtis, Paul Atkins and Michael Haller
• An example of a “parallel” model, on the other hand, is “Parallel Distributed Processing” (PDP), which became popular in the 1980s thanks to studies by psychologists. David Rumelhart and James McClelland

Features of information processing theory

When talking about the characteristics of the processing theory, different elements must be highlighted:

• It is a psychological theory that considers man as an information processor and uses the computer as a model of the functioning of the human mind. Humans are explicitly viewed as information processors.
• The cognitive system is seen as a calculator of the type of the so-called “von Neumann machine”, a system equipped with a memory, theoretically expandable to infinity, and a central processing unit called central processing unit (CPU).
• The central hypothesis of the HIP paradigm is that A series of mental operations intervene between stimulus and response called elaboration phases, which are developed on the information transmitted by the stimuli. Each of these operations requires a certain time to develop, but if the information was not prepared in each phase, it would not be available for the following phases.
• There are two constructions of the paradigm: the functional and the structural. The latter defines or describes the nature of the information in a certain phase. The first is that of the operations that are carried out.

Examples of information processing theory

According to early HIP theories, To process information the human system must do it with serial phases, not in parallel. Each stage requires a few milliseconds. Processing is based on the comparison of acquired information with new information. Let’s look at examples of the theory of information processing through the functioning of memory:

1. The phenomenological reality provides a series of stimuli (inputs) in the form of energy that is recognizable and transformable by the perceptual system. Stimulus detectors are nothing more than nerve cells. For example, the sound of a melody or the smell of perfume.
2. All entry and exit information is stored in a small short-term memory It stores little information, but very quickly. That sound or smell is momentarily stored in short-term memory.
3. The cells that detect the stimulus activate and extract information from working memory to compare it with long-term memory and allow recognition
4. Long-term memory contains an infinite number of quickly compiled data stored, unlike short memory, with a rather slow process.

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