Information processing is a theory of human cognition. It was created by the American psychologist George Miller in 1956. It was created to explain the role played by conscious and unconscious information processing in learning (Mayer, 2012). Additionally, it seeks to establish a theoretical foundation for explaining how people can learn new information and adapt their behaviors to the environment. Information processing explains why people have different levels of knowledge, skills, and competencies and can be applied across many research areas, including education, medicine, communication studies, developmental psychology, philosophy, and mass media studies. It is significant because it originates many theories and research programs in these areas. The theory assumes that all people can communicate information to one another and that unconscious learning plays a role in producing this communication (Mayer, 2012). Information processing is therefore used to explain how individuals can acquire, store, process, and communicate information through perception, language, memory, learning, and behavior. It helps explain aspects of children’s development. Information processing has, at its core, many assumptions about the nature of human cognition.
Information processing makes one of the most critical assumptions that human cognition is meaningful and purposeful. This assumption suggests that humans can categorize information into meaningful groups and process this information accordingly (Mayer, 2012). Data processing process allows individuals to develop a sense of meaning from their environment, which helps them make sense of their world. These groupings help people create associative networks that allow them to work together and form cohesive communities. This notion is essential for children as it allows them to apply the environmental knowledge they gain with others to produce new knowledge through interaction.
Another critical assumption that information processing makes is that all people can communicate with one another and that unconscious learning plays a role in this communication. The theory assumes that all individuals can exchange information with others through language, speech, gestures, facial expressions, and other forms of nonverbal communication (Mayer, 2012). This theory emphasizes the importance of face-to-face communication for learning and development. This communication helps people understand others’ perspectives and ideas and adapt their behavior accordingly. Primarily, this communication allows for the transmission of knowledge from one individual to the next. However, it also allows people to share information they have gained from previous experiences.
The third assumption that information processing makes is that human beings can create categories in their environment and process them through association. This assumption suggests that everyone can create meaningful groupings by finding similarities among seemingly unrelated items and ideas (Mayer, 2012). It suggests that individuals can form “associative networks” based on these groupings. These networks allow people to work together to share new knowledge they have gained over time through interaction. These networks allow individuals to create new information from prior knowledge and adapt their behaviors accordingly.
The final assumption that information processing makes is that human beings can retrieve an appropriate response to a particular situation or set of circumstances from memory. This assumption suggests that human beings must have access to the relevant information for a situation in order for them to react appropriately (Mayer, 2012). It suggests that individuals have unconscious and conscious processes that work together to retrieve this information. These processes allow people to perform behaviors appropriately by accessing environmental knowledge they have gained through previous experience. This theory emphasizes the importance of memory in human cognition as it helps people understand their environment and form effective behavioral responses.
Nonetheless, the implications of human information processing systems on science and technology include that human beings are depicted as information processors. These information processors are composed of three parts: the environment, the person, and the transaction between them. The first part, the surrounding, provides a stimulus for the individual that he or she must process. In this theory, all humans have different levels of competence, depending on their environments and transactions (Mayer, 2012). Competence is considered to be the level of ability that an individual possesses to process the information given by their environment.
There are two main factors that affect anyone’s competence: ability and motivation. Ability is the innate skills, knowledge, and cognitive processes an individual uses to process information. Motivation is the internal or external factors that influence and change an individual’s motivation, affecting their ability to process information (Mayer, 2012). A high level of ability allows an individual to respond more effectively to his or her environment. Competence is a combination of the person and environment working together to produce an appropriate response. This response can be categorized as either adaptation or accommodation (Mayer, 2012). Adaptation occurs when there is a correspondence between the transaction between the person and the environment, thus producing a proportional response. In other words, adaptation is when an individual responds in a way that perfectly matches his or her environment. On the other hand, accommodation occurs when there is a mismatch between the person and the environment, leading to an ineffective response. With accommodation, the person must change his or her response to meet the demands of their environment.
Knowledge-driven is when all knowledge is conscious, learned, and explicit. While information processing theory focuses on explaining human problem-solving skills and reasoning, much of the data collected has been derived from secondary task experiments. In the original experiments by Newell and Simon (1972), subjects were asked to solve problems while performing a separate task that required their full attention (Mayer, 2012). This was to show that humans can only consciously focus on one problem at a time, not two simultaneously. One major criticism was that the tasks used were chess problems, which are already known to humans due to their symbolic nature. Despite these criticisms, the experimental designs have provided useful information about how humans develop automated control in a limited short-term memory regime.
In conclusion, information processing theory is important and influential in psychology. It has been used by many other theorists in the field of psychology to help explain and understand various mental processes. Information processing theory states that we all think differently, but it does not mean we are all right or wrong. There has been much debate over whether or not humans use cognitive processes to make judgments in social situations or whether our emotions heavily influence how we make judgments. The assumptions of information processing are essential because they provide a framework for many theories of human cognition. Other researchers and theorists have used it to help build better models and theories of cognition. Additionally, these assumptions have led to the development of computer algorithms used in artificial intelligence. This theory has had a significant impact on the research in cognitive psychology. Therefore, it is vital to understand how this theory has helped researchers develop more accurate models and predictions of human thought processes.
Reference
Mayer, R. E. (2012). Information processing.