The Theory of Information Processing

An especially influential current within cognitivism has been information processing theory, which compares the mind human with a computer to develop models that explain the functioning of cognitive processes and how they determine the conduct.

In this article we will describe the approaches and main models of information processing theory. We will also make a brief historical tour of the conception of the human being as a machine, proposed by all kinds of theorists for centuries but that reached its peak with the appearance of this focus.

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Information Processing Theory

Information processing theory is a set of psychological models that conceive of the human being as an active processor of stimuli (information or "inputs") that it obtains from its environment. This vision is opposed to the passive conception of people that characterizes other orientations, such as behaviorism and psychoanalysis.

These models are included in cognitivism, a paradigm that defends that thoughts and other mental content influence behavior and must be distinguished from it. They became popular in the 1950s as a reaction to the prevailing behaviorist stance at the time, which viewed mental processes as forms of behavior.

Research and theoretical models developed within the framework of this perspective have been applied to a large number of mental processes. It should be noted particular emphasis on cognitive development; From the theory of information processing, both brain structures themselves and their relationship with maturation and socialization are analyzed.

Theorists of this orientation defend a fundamentally progressive conception of cognitive development, which is opposed to the cognitive-evolutionary models based on stages, such as that of Jean piaget, focused on the qualitative changes that appear as children grow (and that are also recognized from information processing).

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The human being as a computer

The models that emerged from this approach are based on the metaphor of the mind as a computer; In this sense, the brain is conceived as the physical support, or hardware, of cognitive functions (memory, language, etc.), which would be equivalent to programs or software. Such an approach serves as a skeleton for these theoretical proposals.

Computers are information processors that respond to the influence of "internal states", software, which can therefore be used as a tool to operationalize the contents and mental processes of the persons. In this way, it seeks to extract hypotheses about human cognition from its unobservable manifestations.

Information processing begins with the reception of stimuli (inputs in computational language) through the senses. Next we actively encode information in order to give it meaning and be able to combine it with the one we store in the long term memory. Finally a response (output) is executed.

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Evolution of this metaphor

Different authors have drawn attention to the similarities between people and machines throughout history. The ideas of Thomas Hobbes, for example, manifest a vision of people as "machine animals" that also collected the father of behaviorism, John Watson, and other representatives of this orientation, such as Clark L. Hull.

Alan Turing, mathematician and computer scientist, published in 1950 the article "Computational machinery and intelligence", in which he described what would later be known as artificial intelligence. His work had a great influence in the field of scientific psychology, favoring the appearance of models based on the metaphor of the computer.

Computational-type psychological proposals never became hegemonic in themselves; Nevertheless, gave way to the "cognitive revolution", which was rather a natural progression from American mediational behaviorism, with which mental processes had already been added to the basic statements of the behaviorist tradition.

Models and main authors

Below we will summarize four of the most influential models that emerged within the framework of information processing theory.

Together these proposals explain many of the phases of information processing, in which memory plays an especially prominent role.

1. The Atkinson and Shiffrin multi-warehouse model

In 1968 Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin proposed a model that divided memory into three components ("Programs", from the metaphor of the computer): the sensory register, which allows the entry of information, a store of short duration that would come to be known as "short-term memory" and another of long duration, long-term memory.

2. The Craik and Lockhart Processing Levels

Shortly thereafter, in 1972, Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart added to the multistore model the idea that information can be processed in increasing degrees of depth depending on whether we only perceive it or also pay attention to it, categorize it and / or grant it meaning. Deep, as opposed to shallow, processing favors learning.

3. Rumelhart and McClelland's connectionist model

In 1986 these authors published "Parallel Distributed Processing: Investigations in the Microstructure of Cognition," which remains a fundamental reference book on this approach. In this work they presented their model of the information storage neural networks, endorsed by scientific research.

4. Baddeley's multicomponent model

Alan Baddeley's (1974, 2000) proposal currently dominates the cognitivist perspective on working memory. Baddeley describes a central executive system that monitors inputs obtained through receptive language (phonological loop), images and literacy (visuospatial agenda). The episodic buffer would equal short-term memory.