Cognitive information processing

• Cognitive information processing studies the internal mental processes involved in the capture and manipulation of information, the use of information to solve problems, and the processes and structures involved in these actions.

Development of CIP

• Research on memory• Development of networking concepts• Development of computers• Development of information theory

• By the 1960s, a significant number of researchers were studying cognitive phenomena

• By the 1970s and early 80s the cognitive revolution had changed psychology as a discipline

Issues

• How is ‘information’ in the environment scanned?

• What leads to further processing?• How is information included in memory?• How is information recalled from memory?• How is information used in later

thinking/action?

Some general rules

• Environmental input is massive and continual• Cognitive capacity is limited• Much cognitive functioning can be automated• Satisficing rules are applied to deal with the

flow of information and to generate effective actions and knowledge– Selectivity

Some general rules

• A form of control is necessary to make decisions on what to attend to, how to process important information, what decision rules to apply in Working Memory, etc.

• Control of both automatic and ‘willful’ types– Automatic control resides in “lower” brain– Control functions the individual can ‘decide’ to use

reside in the ‘more advanced’ parts of the brain

General principles

• Control mechanism– Allocates processing capacity– Prioritizes activities– Coordinates actions

To begin

• Sense organs are excited by environmental stimuli

• The stimuli are ‘transduced’ into signals (electrical) that can be carried in the neural pathways

Sensory activation

– Environmental cues generate changes within specialized organs• Eyes• Ears• Skin• Tongue

– Only a portion of environmental phenomena generate sensual changes• Infrared light• X-rays

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Limitations

• There are very significant limits as to what stimuli can be perceived via human sense organs– Visible spectrum of light– Audible sounds– Haptic limitations

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Transduction of sensual reaction

• Sensory organs create patterns of electrical impulses as a response to environmental stimuli– (Transduction)

• Qualitatively different patterns are produced for visual, sound, touch (haptic), and language (semantic) memory systems

Buffering and filtering

• Sensual buffers are thought to exist that retain the electrical impulses for a short period of time

• The ‘most important’ content is passed along while the ‘less important’ content is filtered out

• Cannot handle the vast amount of information that senses generate

• Filtering is based on ‘pattern recognition’

Attention

• Recognition of content of various types leads to the allocation of processing capacity—the physical component of attention– Limited resource– Influenced by a number of factors, some content-

based, some ‘feature’ based– Much attention is allocated “automatically” and

not under the control of the individual

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Determinants of attention

• Most content is disposed of quickly—recognized as routine and then ignored– “Habituation” of repetitive tasks, experiences

leads to ‘monitoring’– Attention allocated to divergence from the norm,

expectations

Determinants of attention

• Hard-wired to attend to cues that had survival value (those that didn’t left the gene pool)

• “Orienting response” due to– Movement– Loud noises– Bright colors/contrasts

Formal features

• All media content has certain ‘formal features’ that impact the experience the audience has when watching, reading, listening to the content– Formal features are not specific to a story line,

genre, etc.• Brightness, pacing, color intensity, cuts,

camera angles, and so on

• Overuse of volume change, sudden movement, etc. can impede encoding

• Processing capacity tied up interpreting formal features– overloading can lead to confusion, inadequate time for

building memory trace or schematization

• What topics did you just see? What animals?

• Overuse may be annoying so that the audience member may quit attending or switch channel, etc.

Learned automaticity

• Some kinds of content are “overlearned’’ to the point where the viewer processes them without thinking about it—so well-known that they do not command precious processing capacity– Driving well-known routes– Listening to favorite CDs– Walking across campus– Greetings for good friends– Your name—“Cocktail party phenomenon”

Personal relevance/Involvement

• Impact on you or those you care about– News

• Relationship to your values/morals– Note: the way something is presented may

determine whether it is interpreted as relevant or not

Determinants of attention

• Internally-generated needs draw attention to content perceived to relate to those needs– Hunger– Pain– Fear– Sexual desire

Controlled attention

• “Intentional” focus on particular content– Recognized as interesting or important• Emotionally compelling (relatively automatic)• Cognitively challenging (relatively intentional)• Personally impactful/“Involving”

– Based on existing schema developed over time by the audience member

Individual interest

• Experience with place/time depicted• Mystery stories set in your home town

– Fargo

• Feelings toward actors, spokespeople, etc.• Trust• Parasocial interaction

• Experience with various types of content• Background makes it possible to limit attention necessary to

process the content• Genre knowledge and preference• Taste development• News habit

Working and Short-Term Memory

• For further processing to occur, the information must be held in memory long enough to compare the information with existing knowledge

• Relationship between STM and WM is controversial

Capacity of STM

• Often considered “7+/-2 chunks” of information

• More recent research has argued that we have greater capacity– Ability to monitor many environmental cues at

one time, shift attentional resources as needed

Working memory

• The active portion of memory (including consciousness) where processes reject, evaluate, interpret information– Where “consciousness” lies

• Thought to hold info for 15-30 seconds unless rehearsal occurs– Decay/displacement

• Repetitive v. elaborative rehearsal

Rehearsal/Encoding

• Decisions must be made as to what information within WM will receive the processing effort (attention) necessary to encode it for storage

• The chosen portion is prepared for transfer to LTM (“encoding”)

• When transferred, a “memory trace” must be constructed in order to find it again

Distraction

• If memory traces are not laid down prior to shift in cognitive focus, the content being evaluated is probably lost

Working memory

• Must activate stored material in LTM to assign meaning to the new patterns of electrical impulses– What does “economic impact” (a pattern of

impulses representing a set of characters on a page) mean?

Long-Term Memory

• A small portion of ‘information’ from working memory is prepared for transfer to long-term (permanent) storage– To do so, it is integrated into structures of

meaning (schema) held within long-term memory– The integration gives ‘meaning’ to the new

information while reconfiguring the schema that are activated to interpret the new info• Reconfiguration of schema is usually minor

• The portion of schema activated depends on attention allocation, nature of new information

Forms of LTM

• Episodic LTM– Sounds– Sights

• Semantic LTM– Concepts (generalization)

Into LTM

• A memory trace to the new information is laid down along with the concepts– More powerful impact of info leads to stronger

trace– Trace will fade with time or else be eclipsed by

newer traces

SchemaStructure of Semantic LTM

• Concepts and the network of associations among them

• [Nodes and links]

Out of LTM

• Information in WM cues a search for similar info held in LTM– Search is partly under conscious control and part

automatic• That info may be excited and the new info is

given meaning through its connection to existing knowledge

Retrieval from LTM

• Information retrieved from LTM is limited – Would quickly reach overload if we tried to access

all potentially relevant info– Would take far too long—can’t spend long periods

of time on anything but the most crucial new info/decision-making

• Retrieval based on perceived shared or similar meaning/concepts– Memories in LTM organized hierarchically?

Schematically? Etc.• Belief that more specific concepts are ‘filed’

under more general ones– Efficient

• When a decision is needed, decision rules are applied to retrieved info from WM – could contain current sense info along with

retrieved LTM info• Action or decision leads to new environmental

input that will likely be stored with the original information

Influences on retrieval

• Primacy– Earliest concepts draw info from particular parts

of schema/schemas• Recency– Recently activated concepts more likely to be

retrieved• Commonly used concepts– Concepts/schemas heavily used tend to be

activated to deal with new concepts

Influences on retrieval

• Concepts are retrieved according to their relationships with other concepts– Spreading activation

• The structure of relationships varies by individual– Culture influences structure of relations/

topics/concepts held

• http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-december-14-2006/confusing-sects

• http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ed0ad6a632/dazed-and-confused

Behavior

• Behavior is mostly controlled by the outcome of info processing in working memory– Actions taken to meet needs/drives/motivations– Responses to environmental demands

Behavior adjustment

• The environmental change observed after behavioral action acts as new information that goes through the info processing system and is encoded into our schema relating to the topic– Perceived success, failure becomes a guide to new

action brought on by perceived needs, etc.– Self-regulating model