Transcript Chapter 8 – Information Processing

Chapter 8 – Information
Processing
• Approach to cognitive development
• Based on computers
- Hardware = physical structures
- Software* = processes
Processes: Attention & Memory
• Attention
- detecting information to be processed
2 complementary elements
• Filtering
- ignoring irrelevant information
• Searching
- finding the target among many stimuli
• Abilities improve
- very good by 12
Dr. John Richards (USC)
Infant attention (eg sustained)
Attentional aids
• Reduce competing information
- improve filtering
• Contrasts
- make relevant information stand out
- improve searching
• Memory
- retention & retrieval of information
• 2 types of retrieval
Recall
= retrieve information not present
• Easier with cues
• Some recall by 1 year
• Improves with age
Recognition
= realize you have encountered information
before
• Young infants show recognition
• Very accurate by age 4
3 Types of storage
Sensory store
- Holding place for raw sensory impressions
- Can encompass much information
- 2-3 seconds
- Information will disappear
• Children & adults have similar sensory
store
• Down to age 5
Short-term memory (STM)
= “working memory”
• 7 pieces held in mind while processed
• Span increases with age
• 2-year-olds = 2 items
• 12-year-olds = 7 items
• Except when child = expert
& adult = novice
• Knowledge & motivation
Long-term memory (LTM)
= permanent storehouse of knowledge
• Limitless
• Permanent?
• Sometimes hard to retrieve
• Young kids have difficulty retrieving from
LTM via recall
• But none via recognition
Encoding – maintaining – retrieving
Levels of Processing
• Process information at different levels
• Shallow = physical/sensory characteristics
• Deep = meaning/associations
• Depth = time/energy/ put into task
• LOP = processing that is deep
=> better memory
Self-reference effect
• Memory is better if information is
processed in terms of ourselves
Nowatka
• Holds for kids as young as 8
• Suggests memory strategy:
relate information to oneself
Mnemonics
Strategies to improve memory
• Rehearsal - repeating information
- common strategy by age 7
- good for STM, not for LTM
• Semantic & Spatial Organization
- Group items by meaning or spatial
location
- Starts about 9-10
knowledge base
experience/organization at school
logical (concrete) operations
• Elaboration
- Add to information/mental pictures
- Seldom before adolescence
knowledge base
• Scripts
- Framework for action sequences
- Scripts organize memory & fill in
information
- Younger = fewer & simpler scripts
- Problem: Scripts can distort memory
Summary of Info-Processing
Development
1.Information-Processing Capacity
• Increases with age
• Process faster
• More room in working memory
2. Memory Strategies
• Older kids use more effective strategies
• Encoding, storing, & retrieving info
3. Metamemory
• Older kids have greater knowledge of memory
processes
• Can select & monitor best strategy for a task
4.Knowledge base
• Older kids have more knowledge of the
world
• Improves ability to learn & remember
Theory’s Current Status
Problems
1.Fragmented
- Focus on different specific skills
vs. broad development of cognitive abilities
2.Underestimates richness of cognition
- Humans have abilities that computers
cannot model
3.Vague like Piaget
- Poor explanations of cognitive
development
Advantages
1.Piaget’s gaps
Allows for different levels of abilities,
inconsistency across domains
2.More detailed explanations of some
Piagetian concepts