Chpt 7: Information Processing

Analyzes how individuals encode information, manipulate it, monitor it, and create strategies for handling it

Information processing approach

Filed that focuses on creating machines capable of performing activities that require intelligence when performed by people

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Emerging field using robots in examining developmental topics and issues such as motor development, perceptual development, information processing, and language development

Developmental robotics

The process by which information gets into memory

Encoding

The ability to process information with little to no effort

Automaticity

The creation of new procedures for processing information

Ex. reading strategy

Strategy construction

“Thinking about thinking or knowing about knowing” assist in this self-modification

Metacognition

Obtains detailed information about processing mechanisms as they are occurring moment to moment

Microgenetic method

What task is used to assess speed processing information?

Reaction time

Speed improves during what time and declines during what time?

Improves in adolescence

Declines in middle adulthood

The focusing of mental resources

Attention

Focus on one aspect of experience that is relevant while ignoring others that are irrelevant

Selective attention

Focus on more than one activity

Divided attention

Maintaining attention to a selected stimulus for a prolonged period of time

Sustained attention

Planning actions, giving attention to goals, detecting and compensating for errors, monitoring progress, and dealing with new or difficult circumstances

Executive attention

This process dominates attention in the first year of life including directing attention to potentially important locations in the environment and recognizing objects and features

Orienting/investigation process

Decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentations

Habituation

Recovery of responsiveness after a change in stimulation

Dishabituation

Two or more individuals focus on the same object or event

It is frequently observed by the end of the first year

Joint attention

Child’s ability to pay attention improves significantly during what years?

Preschool

Likely to pay attention to stimuli that stand out, even when those stimuli are not relevant to solving a problem or performing a task.

Salient vs relevant dimensions

Use haphazard comparison strategies, not examining all details before making judgments.

Planfulness

Does multitasking considerably reduce or increase attention to complex tasks?

Reduce

Who may not be able to focus on relevant information as effectively

Older adults

The retention of information over time

Memory

3 components of memory

Encoding

Storage

Retrieval

Getting information into memory

Encoding

Retaining information over time

Storage

Taking information out of storage

Retrieval

People mold memories to fit information that already exists in their minds

Schema theory

Mental frameworks that organize concepts and information to influence the way people encode, make inferences about, and retrieve information

Schemas

Infants can remember what type of information?

Perceptual motor information

Memory without conscious recollection

Memory of skills and routine procedures performed automatically

Less likely to be affected by aging

Implicit memory

Conscious memory of facts and experiences

Infants do not show this until after how many months?

Explicit memory (or declarative memory)

6 months

What parts of the brain make you forget memories from your first 3 years of life?

Immaturity of the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex

Relatively permanent and unlimited

Long-term memory

Retention of information for up to 30 sec without rehearsal of information

Short-term memory

What kind of memory increases during childhood?

Short-term

Where individuals manipulate and assemble information when making decisions, problem-solving, and comprehending language

Develops slowly

Working memory

Significant events and experiences

Autobiographical memory

What strategies can be used to improve the processing of information?

Mental strategies

Rehearsal works better for what kind of memory?

Short-term

Involves engaging in more extensive processing of information by thinking of examples and personal associations

Elaboration

States that memory is best understood with two types of representations: verbatim memory trace and gist

Fuzzy trace theory

Precise details of the information

Verbatim memory trace

The centra idea of the information

Gist

Retention of information about the where and when of life’s happenings

Autobiographical memories stored as this

Episodic memory

Working memory declines from what ages?

65-89 years of age

Adults remember more events (positive) from the second and third decades of their lives than from other decades.

Reminiscence bump

Knowledge about the world

Ex. Fields of expertise, general academic knowledge, “everyday knowledge,” meanings of words, names of famous individuals, important places, and common things

May take longer for adults to retrieve

Semantic memory

The ability to remember where one learned something

Ex. physical setting, emotional context, identity of the speaker

Source memory

Remembering to do something in the future

Prospective memory

Manipulating and transforming information in memory to reason, reflect, think critically, evaluate ideas, solve problems, and make decisions

Thinking

Cognitive groupings of similar objects, events, people, or ideas-are key aspects of infants’ cognitive development

Concepts

Infants’ early categorizations are described as what?

Perceptual categorization

A number of higher-level cognitive processes linked to the development of the brain’s prefrontal cortex

Involves managing one’s thoughts to engage in goal-directed behavior to exercise self-control

Executive function

What 3 dimensions of executive function are most important for children’s cognitive development and school success?

Self-control/inhibition

Working memory

Flexibility

Psychological processes involving conscious control driven by logical thinking and critical analysis

Cool executive function

Psychological processes driven by emotion; especially, emotion regulation

Hot executive function

What increases with age and what increases/peaks at ages 14-15 and then declines?

Hot executive function

Cool executive function

Cool executive function increases

Hot executive functions peaks and declines

4 aspects of executive function in adolescents

1. Cognitive control

2. Focusing attention

3. Controlling attention

4. Cognitive flexibility

Thinking reflectively and productively, and evaluating the evidence

Critical thinking

The study of how various types of mental and physical training might enhance development

Contemplative science

What is an important aspect of critical thinking?

Mindfulness

Decision making is influenced by “verbatim” analytical and gist-based intuitional cognitive systems

Fuzzy-trace theory dual-process model

Extensive, highly organized knowledge and understanding of a particular domain

Common among middle-aged or older adults

Expertise

Changes in cognitive functioning are linked more to distance from death or cognition-related pathology than to distance from birth

Terminal decline

The brain is adaptive, compensating for the challenges of declining structures and function with complementary neural circuits

Neurocognitive scaffolding

“Thinking about thinking or knowing about knowing”

Involves several dimensions of executive function, such as planning, evaluation, and self-regulation

Helps people perform tasks more effectively

Metacognition

Knowledge about memory

General knowledge and knowledge about one’s own memory

Metamemory

Awareness of one’s own mental processes and the mental processes of others

Children’s theory of mind is linked to cognitive processes

Theory of mind

From 18 months to 3 years, children begin to understand what three mental states?

Perception

Emotions

Desires

False beliefs develop by what age in most children

Age 5

What can predict severity of autism in children?

Theory of mind

Thinking about what other people are thinking about

Recursive thinking

Metacognition becomes more pronounced at what age?

Adolescence and middle-aged adults