COGNITIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING

Information processing is the transformation (processing) of information in any manner noticeable by an observer. Within the field of cognitive psychology, information processing is an approach toward the goal of understanding human thinking. It began in the 1940s and 1950s. Educators have always been interested in the study of how humans learn. This is for the reason that how one learns, acquires new information, and retains previous information guides selection of long-term learning objectives and methods of effective instruction. To this culmination, cognition as a psychological area of study goes far beyond simply the taking in and retrieving information. It is a broad field dedicated to the study of the mind holistically.

Neisser (1967), one of the most influential researchers in cognition, defined it as the study of how people encode, structure, store, retrieve, use or otherwise learn knowledge.

Principles of the Information Processing:

Even though there are widely varying views within cognitive psychology, there is general agreement among most cognitive psychologists on some basic principles of the information processing system (Huitt, 2000).

1. The first principle is of a limited capacity of the mental system. This means that the amount of information that can be processed by the system is constrained in some very important ways. Bottlenecks, or restrictions in the flow and processing of information, occur at very specific points (e.g., Broadbent, 1975; Case, 1978).

2. A second principle is that a control mechanism is required to oversee the encoding, transformation, processing, storage, retrieval and utilisation of information (e.g., Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1971). That is, not all of the processing capacity of the system is available; an executive function that oversees this process will use up some of this capability. When one is learning a new task or is confronted with a new environment, the executive function requires more processing power than when one is doing a routine task or is in a familiar environment.

3. A third principle is that there is a two-way flow of information as we try to make sense of the world around us. We constantly use information that we gather through the senses (often referred to as bottom-up processing) and information we have stored in memory (often called top-down processing) in a dynamic process as we construct meaning about our environment and our relations to it. This is somewhat analogous to the difference between inductive reasoning (going from specific instances to a general conclusion) and deductive reasoning (going from a general principle to specific examples.) A similar distinction can be made between using information we derive from the senses and that generated by our imaginations.

4. A fourth principle generally accepted by cognitive psychologists is that the human organism has been genetically prepared to process and organise information in specific ways. For example, a human infant is more likely to look at a human face than any other stimulus. Other research has discovered additional biological predispositions to process information. For example, language development is similar in all human infants regardless of language spoken by adults or the area in which they live (e.g., rural versus urban, Asia versus Europe.) All human infants with normal hearing babble and coo, generate first words, begin the use of telegraphic speech (example, ball gone), and overgeneralise (e.g., using “goed to the store” when they learn the verbs) at approximately the same ages.

REFERENCES:

Cunia, E. (2005). Cognitive learning theory. Principles of Instruction and Learning: A Web Quest. Retrieved April 2006, from http://suedstudent.syr.edu/ ~ebarrett/ide621/cognitive.htm

Galotti, K.M. (2008). Cognitive Psychology: Perception, Attention, and Memory. London: Cengage.

Goldstein, E. H. (2008). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience. London: Thomson Learning. http://www.well.com/user/smalin/miller.html]

Hunt, R. R., & Ellis, H.C. (2006). Fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology. New Delhi: Tata McGraw Hill.

Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 81-97. [Available online from Classics in the History of Psychology:

Solso, R.L. (2006). Cognitive Psychology. New Delhi: Pearson Education.

Sternberg, R.J. (2009). Applied Cognitive Psychology: Perceiving, Learning, and Remembering. London: Cengage.

Stillings, N, Feinstein, M., Garfield, J., Rissland, E., Rosenbaum, D., Weisler, S., & Baker-Ward, L. (1987). Cognitive Science: An Introduction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Thank you everyone for viewing this blog, liking it, sharing it, sending your comments and subscribing to the blog and letting it fulfill the purpose for which it was made i.e. to make more peaceful and healthy persons.

For more articles:

Ø Want to know more about Left handedness and Right handedness than- Left Vs Right https://psychologybespeak.blogspot.com/2020/04/left-vs-right.html

Ø If you are facing the difficulties in managing stress during this covid times than sure to read this -Combating Stress During Covid Times - https://psychologybespeak.blogspot.com/2020/04/combating-stress-during-covid-time.html

Ø Having difficulties in managing anger- Anger Mangement- https://psychologybespeak.blogspot.com/2020/05/anger-management.html

Ø Poster on Covid-19 by Students during Lockdown- https://psychologybespeak.blogspot.com/2020/05/posters-on-covid-19-by-students-during.html

Ø Keep Moving Even When The World Says NO- https://psychologybespeak.blogspot.com/2020/06/keep-moving-even-when-world-says-no.html

Ø ARE YOU READY FOR TRANSFORMATION OF YOUR LIFE? Ever Powerful OM https://psychologybespeak.blogspot.com/2020/06/ever-powerful-om.html

Ø TO BE A WINNER BE DEAF TO NEGATIVITY https://psychologybespeak.blogspot.com/2020/07/to-be-winner-be-deaf-to-negativity.html

Ø BRIGHTER SIDE OF LIFE https://psychologybespeak.blogspot.com/2020/08/brighter-side-of-life.html

Ø BENEFITS AND TECHNIQUES OF TIME MANAGEMENT https://psychologybespeak.blogspot.com/2020/09/benefits-and-techniques-of-time.html

Ø TIME VS MONEY https://psychologybespeak.blogspot.com/2020/10/time-vs-money.html

Ø ANXIETY DISORER https://psychoknowledgefountainhead.blogspot.com/2020/09/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html

Ø GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER https://psychoknowledgefountainhead.blogspot.com/2020/10/generalized-anxiety-disorder.html?m=1

Ø PANIC DISORDER https://psychoknowledgefountainhead.blogspot.com/2020/10/panic-disorer.html

Ø AGORAPHOBIA https://psychoknowledgefountainhead.blogspot.com/2020/12/agoraphobia.html