Information Processing

Information Processing Assumptions

• Thinking is about the flow/processing o information

• Rather than focus on stages, they focus on how we mentally act on info to know it…

• We conduct operations on an external stimulus or on something in our heads

• We consider core constraints especially memory and resource allocations

• Development occurs via advances in information treatment and strategy development

Information Processing System

• The classic IP cognitive architecture:

  1. Sensory

  2. Short-term

  3. Long-term

Sensory

• Sensory Memory - visual and auditory modalities; rapid fraction of a second storage

  • Fully developed by 5 yrs / “adult-like”

Short-Term

• Working memory - home of “active thinking”; use of sensory information + information in long term memory in order to “transform” that information into new forms

  • 3-7 “items” / “units” / “chunks”

  • 15-20 second degrade time

  • Rehearsal (especially for words/numbers)

  • Rapid development from 5-10 years of age

Long-Term

• Long-term memory - children’s early form of LTM is often “episodic”

  • LTM is episodic, declarative and procedural

  • No outer limit of amount of info or length of time stored

  • Not an “all or nothing” system

Information Processing Process

• There is a continuum of mental processes based on “effort”

• Automatic/automatization (no STM needed; won’t interfere with other processes)

  • E.g., children as young as 5 years are as strong young adults on auto recall of frequency of info (imp for word/language learning and concept formation)

• Effortful (need STM/LTM; subject to interference; improves with practice)

• Effortful processing helps advance children’s executive function - the planning and monitoring what we attend to (prefrontal cortex)

  • A form of metacognition

  • Under voluntary control

  • Can require inhibition of resistance to interference (staying on task…)

Information processing Encoding

• To retain (or “encode”) information, we must attend

• Children’s memory is initially “weaker” as they don’t know what to attend to

• Social case for the role of attention

  • Consumes limited resources

  • Control like a “spotlight”

  • Infant attention (~1 & 2 years) predicts childhood attention (~3 & 5 years)

  • Relationship to action (motor)

  • Discussed in the context of hab-Dishabituation

  • Consumes limited resources

  • Control is like a spotlight

  • Infant attention (~1 & 2 yrs) predicts childhood attention (~3 & 5 yrs)

Information Processing Attention

• Special case for the role of attention

  • Bridging Piaget with IP is to highlight the relationship of thinking (cognition) to acting (motor)

  • Action = cognition (Piaget)

  • Cognition = action (NeoPiagetian)

  • Why infants/children can’t drive scooters or cars

  • Thoughts mapped onto the body

• A-not-B task (object permanence)

A-not-B Task

• Hide under A multiple times (infant finds toy so clearly has OP mastered)

• Hide object under B

• Infant under 10 months fail to seek object at B

• Piaget suggested they lack the complete “schema” for OP until 12 or later (closer to preoperational

• » IP explanation?

  • Over attention to A (repeated “build up” of resourced directed to A)

  • Failure to inhibit information (old location) linked under-development prefrontal lobe

  • Failure to reflect/update previous knowledge (metacog)… “I know it, but acted incorrectly”

  • Motor perseveration/habit

Information Processing - Additional Features

• IP theories general focus on:

  • Speed of working memory

  • Strategy construction

  • Attentional automaticity

  • Redundancy elimination

  • Language input/parameters

  • Image/schema mapping

  • Brain based evolutionary input [math-models]

  • Novice-to-expert shifts

Robbie Case Neo-Piagetian Theory

• 4-stage theory

• Transition processes that advance change/development

4-Stage Theory

• Sensorimotor (sensory and physical movements… e.g., see-then act)

• Representational (concrete internal images… e.g., see, create internal image, produce image, act)

• Logical (representing stimuli abstractly… e.g., know that 2 friends don’t get along… tell them that they can have more fun if they do)

• Formal operations (complex transformations… child works on building better relationships feeling to enhance friendship…)

Transition Processes That Advance Change/Development

• Working Memory Capacity helps determine cognitive advances

• Automatization in the critical “glue” that distinguished changes in the working memory capacity

• Biological Maturation - pervasive changed in frontal lobe activity

Production-System Theories

• AIM to provide a more precise/technical explanation of cognitive change (development)

• Largely a computer-simulated approach

• Two Steps of “Channels”

• The basic premise is that children develop cognitive skills in different orders - each child detects information (for problem solving) at different times

• There is no “Lock Step” stage-like model (more fluidity between systems)

• Children are continually assessing information determining what is relevant via a “self-modification” process across the production and working memory

Two Steps of “Channels”

1. Production memory (the systems general knowledge) has a condition (goal) & action (what to do) components (The knowledge we currently have)

2. Working memory (Current task/thinking)

In Summary, Production Models Are:

• Based on declaritive (factual input only)

• Use if/then statements (production rules)

• Driven by goal-based production memory

• Monitored via working memory (current task)

• Not “named” theories per se, but an advanced frame for studying CogDev (especially for language development

Connectionist Theories

• Knowledge is embodied in patterns of connections (units) that specify information (sound, shape, colour, category, etc.)

• Model the neuroanatomy of the brain (cells/action-potentials)

• Interconnections occur in parallel (at the same time) with each “unit” co-dependent on each other

• Cognitive change (development) occurs as each unit gains new information (experience) → change in connection weights

• To study early perceptual knowledge, language, reading, ability, problem solving, social cognition, etc.

• E.g., Samuelson’s model for early word learning

Samuelson’s Model for Early Word Learning

• Children generalized names for objects to other objects similar in one feature ingnoring other features

• Her model shows how children generate a shape bias in word learning that is based on repeated presentations (experience) vs built in proclivitives

• Tested her “theory” in the lab manipulating the amount of experience (practice)

Socio-Cultural Theories

• “Cognition does not take place in a vacuum”

  • Piaget and the IP theories place the child and the neurocognitive system at the centre of knowledge production

  • Socio-cultural approached place the context of child at the centre of knowledge production 

  • Obviously, BOTH are essential 

Lev Vygotsky

• Cognition is achieved via social interaction

• Psychological advances are shaped via ‘cultural tools’ namely language

• Change = internationalization of ‘socially shared processes’ (“embodying the intentions of others…”

• Social interaction is causal (not just correlation)

  • Textbook examples: Pointing, shoe tying

• Zone of proximal development (ZPD = child’s contribution + child & adult’s contribution)

• In addition to the social influence, children also need cultural tools:

  • Language

  • Visual aids (maps/diagrams, number systems)

  • Technical tools (physical devices)

  • Tools unique to specific cultures (child rearing, physical environment)

Albert Bandura

• Social-observational learning creates a cognitive outcome: learning

• Process Steps:

  • Attentional

  • Retention (visual maps under 5 yrs, words after 5 yrs)

  • Motor reproduction

  • Motivational process

  • Self-efficacy appraisal (early self-monitoring)

• Bandura - children don’t so much “learn on their own” - their minds are structured by ‘reciprocal influences’ of the environment (models / social-training practices)

• We need to motivate children to learn (“teach them”) - then they become self-motivated

Modern Socio-Cultural Approaches Incorporate

• Socio-economic factors

• Socio-emotional awareness

• Shared understanding (joint attention) with others (intersubjectivity)

• Social/educational practiced (types of formal education models)

• Formal “play” or organized extracurricular activities (incorporate peer-on-peer interaction)