PSY 423-Exam 2-Information Processing Theory

@What are the general characteristics of Information Processing Theories?

Comparisons are drawn between information processing of computers and that of humans

First of all information processing theories indicate that:

Computer’s ability to process information is limited by its
•Hardware (e.g., memory capacity, speed/efficiency of operations)
•Software (e.g., strategies, information available)

Second of all information processing theories indicate that:

Individuals' thinking is limited by
• Memory capacity
• Speed/efficiency of thought processes
• Availability of relevant strategies and knowledge

What was Microgenetic Designs created to help us answer?

HOW learning occurs

What are the 3 "essential" characteristics of Microgenetic Designs?

1) Observations are made during a time period in which children's competence in solving a particular type of problem is changing quickly (want to see the change as it occurs)
2) A lot of observations are made in a relatively short time period
3) Observations are analyzed intensively to try to understand underlying processes/mechanisms of change

What is the Overlapping Waves Theory?

Microgenetic studies of different phenomena consistently indicate that children's thinking at a given age is highly variable

According to O.W.T children typically:

know and use varied strategies for solving a given problem at any one time.

According to O.W.T with age and experience:

• Relative frequency of existing strategies
changes
• New strategies are discovered
• Some older strategies are abandoned

According to OWT, cognitive change can be analyzed along five dimensions, what are they?

1) Source of change
2) Path of change
3) Rate of change
4) Breadth of change
5) Variability of change

What was Siegler's (1995) method with six types of problems and different types of strategies?

- Examined effects of training on strategy use for number conservation problems (N=45; 54-73 mos., mean = 5.17 years)
- Random assignment to one of three training conditions
• Feedback only (answer correct/incorrect)
• Feedback plus explain-own-reasoning ("How did
you know that?" followed by feedback)
• Feedback plus explain-experimenter's reasoning (Feedback followed by "How do you think I knew that?")

What is the cognitive change dimension source of change?

What are the causes of cognitive change (i.e., a change in performance on a particular type of problem)?
•Combination of feedback and explain-experimenter’s-reasoning led to greater learning than explain-own-reasoning and feedback or feedback alone
•Subsequent analyses focused on the group of children in the feedback-explain experimenter’s reasoning condition

What is the cognitive change dimension path of change?

What is the sequence of strategies that children use while gaining competence on a particular type of problem?
•Children relied initially on relative length, then abandoned this strategy but did not adopt a consistent alternative, then usually adopted the type of transformation strategy

What is the cognitive change dimension rate of change?

The amount of time/experience between a child’s first use of a strategy and their consistent use of the strategy.
•Most children required multiple sessions to progress from initial use to consistent use of the type of transformation strategy

What is the cognitive change dimension breadth of change?

How widely does the strategy generalize to other problems and contexts?
•Relatively narrow (low generalizability). Even some of the best learners continued in the final session to offer relative length explanations (rather than type of transformation explanations) when the longer row also had more objects

What is the cognitive change dimension variability of change?

How do children differ from each other with respect to source, path, breadth, and rate of change? How do individual children’s strategies change over time?
•Substantial variability in individual children’s strategies over time: only 2% of children relied on a single strategy throughout the study; 70% used three or more strategies