Information Processing
• Reminder: Assignment due next week!!
Information Processing
• Basis in mechanistic models
• Some philosophical background
Information Processing Theories of
Cognitive Development
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Likens human mind to a computer,
consisting of hardware and software
Has 4 main assumptions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Limited Capacity
Serial processing system
Procedural vs declarative knowledge
Automatic vs effort
Different theories exist within the info processing
domain, but all have these basic assumptions
Limited capacity assumption
• Pascual-Leone’s M-space
X P U A Z Q B G P R K L D E
LSAT M C A T M R I P E T
$ & * # @ X ¶ ¥ ψ š
    ® ©   
8 6 5 1 0 9 2 4 7 3
4 1 6 9 6 7 1 1 1 1
Information Processing System
(Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968)
Response : via
recognition or recall
Input from
outside
Storage
Attention
Sensory
Register
Working memory:
holds info for short time;
can do stuff with it
Retrieval
Executive Functions: plan and perform
each step of info processing
Long-term
memory:
Permanent store
of info;
knowledge
about world;
past events;
procedures;
Metaknowledge
Representation of Knowledge
• declarative and procedural
• 2 types of declarative knowledge (episodic, semantic)
• Procedural knowledge is more for motor sequences,
unconscious activities
• Both types are shown to be distinct
– Hippocampus / temporal cortex = declarative
– Cerebellum / spinal chord = procedural
• Can show loss of episodic memory, but not of
procedural, and other way around
Automatic versus Effortful Processing
• Some things come easily, and some do not…
– Blinking VS holding your eyes open
• Some things can start out difficult and end up being
automatic or effortless, eg standard driving, reading
• Executive functioning allocates our resources to various
tasks
Changes that occur in the hardware
• Processing Capacity (reaches adult-like levels by 12)
– Children cannot cope with as much information as adults;
capacity increases with age, e.g. digit span
– Problem: They actually can in some cases, and even more
than adults if they know enough about it, e.g. karate class!
• Speed of processing (reaches adult-like levels by 12)
– Kids do get faster with age
– Older people slow down
The Simon Task
Press the green button if you see a
green square, and the red button if
you see a red square.
The display will show opposite
mapping on half of the trials.
Kids go slower, AND they make
more mistakes than adults.
Changes that occur in the hardware
• Processing Capacity (reaches adult-like levels by 12)
– Children cannot cope with as much information as adults;
capacity increases with age, e.g. digit span
– Problem: They actually can in some cases, and even more
than adults if they know enough about it
• Speed of processing (reaches adult-like levels by 12)
– Kids do get faster with age
– Role of myelination
• Efficiency of processing: Case’s Theory of Processing
Space
– Operating Space VS storage space
Case’s theory of processing efficiency
Younger Child
Operating
Space
Storage
Space
Older Child
Operating
Space
Storage Space
Changes that occur in the software
• Changes in strategies…to be elaborated next week…
• Role of knowledge base
Experts VS Novices
• Domain-general VS. domain-specific knowledge
• Increases in capacity can show domainspecificity
• Same is true with experts
• Top-down processing (karate e.g. revisited, golf)
• If you are a novice, bottom-up processing
dominates
Read the colour names
Blue
Red
Green
Orange
Yellow
Blue
Green
Orange
White
Yellow
Orange
Black
Black
Yellow
Black
Red
Green
Yellow
Yellow
Green
Blue
Black
Red
White
Name the patches of colour
Name the ink colour
Blue
Red
Green
Orange
Yellow
Blue
Green
Orange
White
Yellow
Orange
Black
Black
Yellow
Black
Red
Green
Yellow
Yellow
Green
Blue
Black
Red
White
Attention
• Look at the system again, and see where
attention is necessary
Information Processing System
(Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968)
Response : via
recognition or recall
Input from
outside
Storage
Attention
Sensory
Register
Working memory:
holds info for short time;
can do stuff with it
Retrieval
Executive Functions: plan and perform
each step of info processing
Long-term
memory:
Permanent store
of info;
knowledge
about world;
past events;
procedures;
Metaknowledge
Attention
•
•
•
•
Any non-attended-to information will be lost
20 seconds
Small babies have trouble sustaining attention
Children improve in sustained attention, as seen
through play patterns
Selective Attention
• We attend selectively to things
• Babies can selectively attend to one
picture over another ( cognitive ability)
• Children < 7 bad at directed ignoring
• Have a hard time with simple distractions
• Negative Priming (See Stroop eg)
Name the ink colour
Blue
Red
Black
Orange
Yellow
Blue
Green
Orange
White
Yellow
Orange
Black
Yellow
Yellow
Green
Green
Blue
Red
Black
Green
Red
Yellow
White
Bunge et al (2002)
• Compared children 8-12 and adults 19-33
on two tasks (Flanker and Go/No Go)




X
X
X
X
Bunge et al (2002)
• Compared children 8-12 and adults 19-33
on two tasks (Flanker and Go/No Go
• fMRI
• Children were less accurate and slower
than adults
• Did not show activation of relevant brain
areas, ie frontal lobes
Summary of Information-Processing Theory
• Children are inefficient information processors
• Changes mainly quantitative
• Children improve in how they cope with
incoming information
• top-down processes preferred
• Need to selectively attend to incoming
information, or irrelevant information will take up
valuable processing space
Case’s theory of processing efficiency
Younger Child
Operating
Space
Storage
Space
Older Child
Operating
Space
Storage Space
Theories derived from InformationProcessing 1: Fuzzy Trace model
• IP cannot explain some phenomena; not all
recall is literal and we can recall less frequent
events better (sometimes)
• We work at getting the gist of a problem, rather
than a verbatim representation
How do we recall this picture?
Theories derived from InformationProcessing 1: Fuzzy Trace model
• IP cannot explain some phenomena; not all
recall is literal and we can recall less frequent
events better (sometimes)
• We work at getting the gist of a problem, rather
than a verbatim representation
• How do we recall the picture? Probably in
general ideas rather than verbatim
• Traces exist on a verbatim – to – gist continuum
Fuzzy Trace continued…
• Idea is that young children tend towards the
verbatim and older children towards the gist
• People prefer to use gist, they want to record in
fuzzy traces
• Once you start using gist, you can still go back
to verbatim
• Verbatim traces more susceptible to interference
Theories derived from InformationProcessing 2: Inhibition Theory
• Children are increasingly able to inhibit
irrelevant information of any kind
• Diamond and the A-not-B task
– Improvement in task related to frontal lobe
maturation
– Need inhibition and working memory to solve
problems (tapping; day/night)
– Both improve with age
Inefficient inhibition con’d
• Bjorklund & Harnishfeger
– Memory interference task
– Children cannot leave irrelevant information
out of working memory
• Bear-dragon, gift-wrapping, candy bowl
Inhibition continued
• Simon task: children need to inhibit
tendency to respond to location
The Simon Task
Press the green button if you see a
green square, and the red button if
you see a red square.
The display will show opposite
mapping on half of the trials.
Kids go slower, but they make
more mistakes than adults.
Inhibition continued
• Simon task: children need to inhibit
tendency to respond to location
• Moving Word Task: Must inhibit tendency
to assign picture identity to written word
Moving Word Task
BUS
Moving Word Task
BUS
Children under 5 will say the card now says frog!!
Inhibition continued
• Simon task: children need to inhibit
tendency to respond to location
• Moving Word Task: Must inhibit tendency
to assign picture identity to written word
• Dimensional Change Card Sort: Children
must inhibit tendency to respond by preswitch rules
Dimensional Change Card Sort: PreSwitch Rules: Colour Game
Give child 5 green
circles and 5 red
squares and explain
rules of the 1st game
Dimensional Change Card Sort: PreSwitch Rules: Colour Game
Child correctly sorts card!!
Dimensional Change Card Sort: Post-Switch
Rules: Shape Game
Dimensional Change Card Sort: PostSwitch Rules: Shape Game
Child continues to sort by Pre-switch dimension!
Why do they do this?
• Once a card is blue, it can’t be a round thing
• The pictures on the boxes are distracting
• If you change them…
Dimensional Change Card Sort: PreSwitch Rules: Colour Game
Give child 5 green
circles and 5 red
squares and explain
rules of the 1st game
Dimensional Change Card Sort: PreSwitch Rules: Colour Game
Child correctly sorts card!!
Dimensional Change Card Sort: Post-Switch
Rules: Shape Game
Dimensional Change Card Sort: Post-Switch
Rules: Shape Game
Remove
distraction,
card is sorted
correctly
Inhibition continued
• Simon task: children need to inhibit
tendency to respond to location
• Moving Word Task: Must inhibit
tendency to assign picture identity to
written word
• Dimensional Change Card Sort:
Children must inhibit tendency to
respond by pre-switch rules
All of these are hard to do before the
age of 7!
Quick Quiz!! WITHOUT TEXT, find a word
for each of the following
• Vast storehouse of acquired information
• “Small man” that monitors information processing
• Fuzzy representation of information one has
encountered
• Cortical site of all conscious intellectual activity
• Hardware improvements that contribute to age-related
increases in information-processing
• Software improvement that contributes to age related
increases in information processing abilities
• Error exhibited by infants when trying to get a toy from a
well
Answers
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LTM
Executive function/homunculous
gist
Frontal lobes
Capacity, speed, efficiency
Knowledge base
A-not-B
Summary information-processing
• Processes like attention and memory
change with age and influence children’s
thinking
• Led to a good understanding of some
academic skills
• In turn has led to instructional changes
that enhance scholastic performance
Educational Implications of research on IP
• Analyze the requirements of problems that you
present to your class.
• Reduce short-term memory demands to a bare
minimum.
• Encourage children to have fun using their
memories
• Provide opportunities to learn effective memory
strategies
• Structure lessons to encourage metacognitive
knowledge acquisition
IP Summary - Shortcomings
• Not enough attention to brain and
neurological correlates
• Ignore social aspects of development, too
fragmented
• Underestimates richness of cognition, and
the single limited capacity working
memory notion is challenged
• Some see it as a complement to rather
than a substitute for Piaget
Piaget VS Information-processing
• Both saw child as active
• Both talked about underlying “schemes”
• IP: changes are quantitative; Piaget:
qualitative, stage-like
• How they interpret children’s errors:
– Piaget: “They lack the cognitive structures”
– IP: “May not be attending to relevant aspects,
maybe can’t handle all of the information,
don’t have right strategy…”
Suggestions
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Examine assumptions of each approach
Commonalities?
Differences?
How do they see the child?
What changes in child to allow changes?