Information processing theory abd

2. Information processing
theory
Information processing theory is an approach to the cognitive development of a human
being, which deals with the study and the analysis of the sequence of events that occur
in a person’s mind while receiving some new piece of information. In short, it is the
analysis of the way a human being learns something new. There is a fixed pattern of
events that take place in such a situation, and by knowing this pattern we can enable
children and people with special abilities to learn new things faster.

This theory, laid down by experts in psychology claims that the human mind is very
similar to that of computers, as far as information processing and analysis is concerned.
They also say that any new piece of information that enters the brain is first analyzed
and then put through the test of several benchmarks before being stored in some
vestibules of the memory. Since these actions occur at a very fast speed, we are unable
to notice them in action.

The sensory preceptors of a human being function in the same way as the hardware of
a computer does, and the mindset and the rules and strategies adopted by the person
while learning is equivalent to the software used by computers. The information
processing system of a person can thus be enhanced if these preceptors and rules are
altered.

4. (1), Sensory Input is all the information you get through your five
senses: taste, touch, sight, sound, smell.
 You ignore a lot of sensory input and send some to short-term memory.
 You could compare sensory input to the input you give your computer through
the keyboard's keystrokes.
(2), Short-term or "Working" Memory is a temporary storage area .
 Information you are currently conscious of, or working on, is held here, usually
for very short periods of time.
 Capacity at any given time is limited to about 7 "slots." (Think of your computer
screen and the information it can display at any one time.)
 Unless you begin to work on, or rehearse, the information in some way, it can be
lost very quickly. (You also have to "save" computer input to keep it from being
lost.)
(3), Rehearsal is the work you have to do to understand and store
information.
Effective rehearsal is crucial.
You don't remember what you don't understand.
- Rehearsal is more effective when it happens over a period of time
-Rehearsal must be ACTIVE.
-Rehearsal takes EFFORT.
1. Paraphrase ideas - put them in your own words instead of memorizing.
Sure, this isn't always easy. But it's worth it because it shows you understand the
concept.
2. Relate new information to what you already know and understand .
--Think of your computer again.
--Do you have an existing file where this new information can fit?
If you do, you can just add to it, creating a richer, more complete file.
--If you have no existing file on this topic, you have to start a new one. The new
file will be small at first. As you add to it, it will be more useful.

5. 3. Organize information into chunks or hierarchies.
Grouping ideas into meaningful categories lets you get the big picture and not be
swamped by details.
4. Use your visual sense.
Draw it, chart it, or make a timeline, graph, or diagram to remember what it
looks like, how it works, or when it happened.
(4), The Feedback Loop lets you know whether you've learned.
- TEST YOURSELF to see if you're getting it.
Can you explain or write it in your own words?
Can you work the problems without looking?
Is the feedback positive? Go on to new material.
Is the feedback negative? OK - Keep studying.
- OVERLEARN: STUDY BEYOND BASIC UNDERSTANDING.
STUDY UNTIL YOU KNOW YOU KNOW IT, NO MATTER WHAT!
(5), Long-term Memory files and stores unlimited amounts of
information in clusters or schemas.
 New information that can be linked to existing schema is easier to understand,
find and use.
 Carefully organized and labeled "files" are easier to retrieve. (Think of your
computer files!)
 "Files" that are used often are more up-to-date and easier to locate.
(6), Retrieval is the process of finding and bringing information
from long-term memory .
 Retrieval involves problem solving. Asking yourself the right questions is
important.
 Memory "cues," or reminders, can help you retrieve.
 Frequent review keeps memories from "fading" over time.
Similar kinds of information can "interfere" with each other and prevent accurate
retrieval

6. Behaviorism
Behaviorism, a highly influential academic school of psychology that dominated
psychological theory between the two world wars. Classical behaviorism, prevalent in
the first third of the 20th century, was concerned exclusively with measurable and
observable data and excluded ideas, emotions, and the consideration of inner
mental experience and activity in general. In behaviorism, the organism is seen as
“responding” to conditions (stimuli) set by the outer environment and by inner biological
processes.
Behaviorism is an approach to psychology that combines elements of
philosophy, methodology, and theory. It emerged in the early twentieth century as a
reaction to "mentalistic" psychology, which often had difficulty making predictions that
could be tested using rigorous experimental methods. The primary tenet of behaviorism,
as expressed in the writings of John B. Watson, B. F. Skinner, and others, is that
psychology should concern itself with the observable behavior of people and animals,
not with unobservable events that take place in their minds. The behaviorist school of
thought maintains that behaviors as such can be described scientifically without
recourse either to internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as
thoughts and beliefs.
From early psychology in the 19th century, the behaviorist school of thought ran
concurrently and shared commonalities with the psychoanalytic and Gestalt movements
in psychology into the 20th century; but also differed from the mental philosophy of the
Gestalt psychologists in critical ways. Its main influences were Ivan Pavlov, who
investigated classical conditioning although he did not necessarily agree with
behaviorism or behaviorists, Edward Lee Thorndike, John B. Watson who
rejected introspective methods and sought to restrict psychology to experimental
methods, and B.F. Skinner who conducted research on operant conditioning.
In the second half of the 20th century, behaviorism was largely eclipsed as a result of
the cognitive revolution. While behaviorism and cognitive schools of psychological
thought may not agree theoretically, they have complemented each other in practical
therapeutic applications, such as in cognitive–behavioral therapy that has demonstrable
utility in treating certain pathologies, such as simple phobias, PTSD, and addiction. In
addition, behaviorism sought to create a comprehensive model of the stream of
behavior from the birth of the human to his

7. Cognitivism
In psychology, cognitivism is a theoretical framework for understanding the mind that
gained credence in the 1950s. The movement was a response to behaviorism, which
cognitivists said neglected to explain cognition. Cognitive psychology derived its name
from the Latin cognoscere, referring to knowing and information, thus cognitive
psychology is an information processing psychology derived in part from earlier
traditions of the investigation of thought and problem solving. Behaviorists
acknowledged the existence of thinking, but identified it as a behavior. Cognitivists
argued that the way people think impacts their behavior and therefore cannot be a
behavior in and of itself. Cognitivists later argued that thinking is so essential to
psychology that the study of thinking should become its own field.
Cognitivism
is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences express propositions and
can therefore be true or false (they are truth-apt), which no
cognitivists deny. Cognitivism is so broad a thesis that it encompasses (among other
views) moral realism (which claims that ethical sentences express propositions about
mind-independent facts of the world), moral subjectivism (which claims that ethical
sentences express propositions about peoples' attitudes or opinions), and error
theory (which claims that ethical sentences express propositions, but that they are all
false, whatever their nature).
Cognitive psychologists challenge the limitations of behaviorism in its focus on
observable behavior. They incorporate mental structure and process into their learning
theories. Like behaviorists, they engage more in the hypotheico-deductive scientific
inquiry. The primary focus of the research study in cognitive psychology emphasizes the
internal processes and structures processes inferred through the observation of
behavior. However, the focus on the mental structures and processes in cognitive
psychology does not explicitly indicate its philosophical position.

The internal representation of the learners can echo the external reality, which asserts a
position of objectivism that the mind can stand separate and independent from the
body. Thus, knowledge can be transferred from the outside of the mind into the inside of
the mind. Knowledge is transferred from the outside of the mind into the inside of the
mind. Wilson and Meyers (2000) illustrate such a position pretty well by indicating its
impact on instructional design that "Instructional designers could now think of learning in
terms of taking experts' cognitive structures and mapping that knowledge into the heads
of learners. The degree of similarity in cognitive structure between expert and novice
was a good measure of whether learning objectives were being met." However, the
internal representation of learners can also be regarded as a subjective construction of

8. integrating incoming information and the existing knowledge structures, which entails a
position of constructivism that knowledge cannot exist independently from the knower.
The central issues that interest cognitive psychologists include the internal mechanism
of human thought and the processes of knowing. Cognitive psychologists have
attempted to find out the answers to mental structures, such as what is stored and how
it is stored, and to mental processes concerning how the integration and retrieval of
information is operated. The theoretical assumptions in cognitive psychology lend
instructional systems a hand in the design of efficient processing strategies for the
learners to acquire knowledge, e.g. mnemonic devices to reduce the workload of the
short-term memory, rehearsal strategies to maintain information, and the use of
metaphors and analogies to relate meaning of the new information to prior knowledge.
Theoretical Foundations
The date cited as marking the beginning of psychology as a science is 1879, when
Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany.
Introspection, the method of inquiry used by Wundt, is claimed to be a cognitive
approach, since it is a tool of self-observation to examine the working of the mind. Winn
and Snyder (1996) claimed that Wundt's methodological contribution was "the
development of introspection as a means for studying the mind". Many ideas and
assumptions of cognitive psychology can be traced back to the early decades of
twentieth century, i.e. Gestalt psychology, Edward Tolman's cognitive learning (1932),
and Jean Piaget's cognitive development theory.
Anderson (1985) lists three main influences for the modern development of cognitive
psychology:
1. Information processing approach: Broadbent's information (1958) processing
model gives consideration to perception and attention. The important
characteristic of an information-processing analysis is that it involves a tracing of
the sequence of mental operations and their products in the performance of a
particular cognitive task
2. Artificial Intelligence: Allen Newell and Herbert Simon's work in cognitive
psychology has promoted use of concepts from computer science in the
development of psychological theories.
3. Linguistics: Noam Chomsky asserted that language learning must include
internal constructs. A theory that only considers the observable stimuli and
responses in linguistic interaction is not sufficient.

9. The Difference between
Behaviorism and Cognitive
Psychology

Behaviorism and cognitive psychology are two schools of psychology.
Behaviorism is conducted by Watson and then becomes popular in the whole
psychology field, as the mainstream of psychology research. Behavioristic
psychology believes that the mind is unknown, and psychology should study at
the behavior. According to the Ivan Pavlov's reflex system, human behavior is
shaped entirely by the environment. Human generate conditioned reflex in the
process, and all the acts can be decomposed into a series of conditioned reflex.
There are several important conceptions, such as stimulus, reinforcement and
operant conditioning. They ty to control the act by stimulus and reinforcement.

Cognitive psychology is gradually developed with the science and the agreement
against behavioral psychology and has become the most popular mainstream of
psychology. Cognitive psychology was originally to take human as computer, and
the process of information management by the human brain as computer
processing. The biggest advances of cognitive psychology is to focus on the
effect of human internal mental process on behavior. E.g. behavioral
psychologists believe that learning is to control the behavior of students to study
hard through rewards, reinforcement, and some stimulus. The cognitive
psychologists pay more attention to the students' self-evaluation of learning
ability, the students' awareness of the importance of learning, and the students'
learning experience and other cognitive factors.

Anyway behaviorism and cognitive psychology reflect the two aspects of modern
spirit. Behaviorism refers to the arrogance that human can control the all, nature,
society and human, while cognitive psychology indicates the
Introspection.

Behaviorism vs Cognitivism

10. They are both a good way of teaching and learning processes, however, there are
some differences between them which is very significant.
Control
Behaviorist: presentation of “scientifically” graded language items.
Cognitivist: grading, but not so “scientifically” controlled. Cognitive grading is also
important, in terms of what the learner brings to the activity of learning.
Error
Behaviorist: should not be made at all.
Cognitivist: can be made, since through errors one can learn.
Exposure
Behaviorist: necessary, but in a linguistically controlled way.
Cognitivist: plenty, and it’s necessary.
Practice
Behaviorist: drills and drills, constant repetition is definitely necessary.
Cognitivist: is important, but rote learning and meaningless repetition is out.
Role of the Learner
Behaviorist: a passive recipient of planned instruction.
Cognitivist: an active processor of learning. One whose internal data processing
mechanism operate.
Role of the Teacher
Behaviorist: one who teaches, plans, presents language items and exercises,
makes students repeat drills and gives correct language forms.
Cognitivist: one who creates opportunities for learning to occur with the help of the
learner’s data processing mechanism.

11. The Language Syllabus
Behaviorist: based on the structures and vocabulary of language presented
systematically.
Cognitivist: could be less systematically presented structures and vocabulary,
functions, notions, situations, and cognitive functions.
Grading of Items
Behaviorist: Strict, clear, step by step (lock-step method)
Cognitivist: no so definite, since the individual language learner is involved.
In End
Behaviorism and Cognitivism are two learning theories that even though they have
their differences, both theories emphasize the role that environmental conditions play in
facilitating learning, as well as emphasis on the role of practice with corrective
feedback.