Information Processing Theory

Information processing theory, which arose in the 1940s and 1950s, seeks to explain how the mind functions and encompasses a range of processes, including gathering, manipulating, storing, retrieving, and classifying information. While information processing theories are used to inform instructional design and approaches to learning, these theories tend to emphasize the understanding of how information is processed rather than how learning happens. This entry examines the core beliefs of information processing theory as well as its applications to theories of intelligence and development and to learning and instruction.

Unlike the behaviorist perspective about how the human mind functions, which focuses on how people respond to stimuli, information processing theory posits that the human mind is like a computer or information processor. Information is gathered through the senses (the brain’s input devices) and processed via short-term memory (the brain’s CPU), resulting in storage in long-term memory (the brain’s hard drive storage). Long-term memory includes three types of knowledge: declarative (knowing that), procedural (knowing how), and episodic (personal stories). Some researchers argue that our memory for images differs from our memory for words and that our memory for other senses may differ as well. Other researchers have focused on the mechanisms we use to control how we process information (metacognitive processes and strategies).

Researchers have expanded upon the basic metaphor of “brain as computer” in several ways. Some researchers have focused on the sequential nature of information processing (e.g., stage theory’s three-stage model: input→processing→output). Others explored the relationship between how information is processed and our ability to later access the information (e.g., the level of processing model). Research using the level of processing model has found that the degree of elaboration affects how well information was learned and that information was more easily retrieved if the way it was accessed was similar to the way it was stored. The connectionist model, supported by neuroscience research, focuses on how information is stored simultaneously in different areas of the brain and is connected as a network. Research using this model found that the ease of retrieval of a piece of information was related to the number of connections it had.