1. Information-Processing
Model
By: Michael Gabany

2. Let’s Start by Testing Yourself
Goal: To remember as much as you can before time expires!
▪ You will be asked to remember as many details at you can when
looking at the following slide
– Examples: Colors of sweaters, hats, guy/girls ratio, etc…
▪ There is a 10 second time limit…
When you’re ready you may proceed.

3. 100
Mike is
cool
Teachers rock!!! 13

4. What do you remember?
Questions to ask yourself:
1. How many students were there?
2. Number of empty seats?
3. What was the color of the carpet?
4. Were there any sounds or smells that you were hearing/smelling
when doing this task?
And most importantly….
5. Did you notice the numbers/statement written on the edges?
Let’s Look Again!

5. 100
Mike is
cool
Teachers rock!!! 13

6. What was the point of the task?
▪ To demonstrate that the whole process of information gathering may
take place consciously(storing information), unconsciously(smelling),
or even both at the same time.
– Remembering certain details can be triggered depending on many factors, not
just your vision but also smell, sound, taste and touch.
– Noticing every detail can be impossible without time
▪ To get your brain warmed up for the rest of this presentation!!!

7. Information Processing

8. Information- Processing(IP) Model
Definition: Cognitive theory Atkinson – Shiffrin model of
of learning that describes the
processing, storage, and information processing
retrieval of knowledge in the
mind1
What is information?
The representations derived
by a person from
environmental stimulation r
from processing that
influences selections among
alternative choices for belief
or action.2

9. Information- Processing(IP) Model cont’d
Massaro (1996) Van der Heijden & Stebbins (1990)
▪ IP means that one must trace ▪ The IP approach in describing
the progression of information behavioral changes is a
through the system from function of external/internal
stimuli to responses conditions and the differences
– Like behaviorism, but seen amongst the population
understanding the mental process can be attributed to the
behind the learning is the goal difference in conditions
experienced
Information Stimulus Response Behavior/Memory

10. Sensory Registers
Component of the memory system in which information is received and
held for a very short time1

11. Let’s do another test!
Goal: To remember as much as you can before time expires!
▪ You will be asked to remember as many details at you can when
looking at the following slide
▪ There is a 5 second time limit this time
When you’re ready you may proceed.

12. W K X G
R H A P
Y I O E
M Q V J

13. What was that?!?!?
1. If you could, try to recall the letters in each row.
2. Now each column.
3. Can you remember them all?
I’m fully aware that I would (not) remember all the
letters so…..

14. Sensory Registers
Receive so much information from each of your senses in such a short
amount of time that we have to process most information unconsciously
2 implications for education
1. In order to retain information
the person(or student) must
be actively participating/
paying attention
2. It takes some time to import
the information into our
brains from our senses to our
consciousness

15. What Can Affect the Sensory Registers
Ability to Gather Information?
Perception and Attention

16. Test #3-Perception!
Goal: To see both women in the picture!
▪ There is a NO time limit this time!!!
▪ Can you see both the young and old
woman in the picture?
When you’re ready you may proceed.

18. Perception
A person’s interpretation of stimuli
▪ Involves mental
interpretation which is
influenced by our current
mental state, our past
experiences, knowledge, m
otivations, etc…

19. Theories of Perceptional Learning
Proposed by Other Educators
Gibson’s Theory (1969)
• Extracting information out of the sensory data of the environment; Person must learn how to response to distinctive features of stimuli
• Application to teaching: the teacher should emphasize distinctive features by supplying examples of clearly contrasting examples.
Transactional Theory(Ittelson & Cantril,1954)
• Perception is considered to be dependent on the person’s past transactions with the environment; it is an active process of interpretation of
environmental events in terms of the person’s purpose, values, and past learning (e.g., expectations and assumptions).
Categorizations (Bruner, 1958)
• when some object or event is first perceived it is classified according to a system of categories.
• Any difference between the actual object or event and the category under which it was classified may result in a distortion in the perception
of the object or event, in order to make it fit the category.
The Hebbian Model (Hebb, 1949)
• There are neural representations that correspond to environmental stimuli, and that learning involves neuronal associations between such
representations.
• The perception and memory of a figure that includes this angle and line require a learned association between the two sets of neurons.

20. Due to FAA regulations the
Cinderella’s Castle was not as
tall as Walt Disney wanted. To
make up for this Disney used a
technique called forced
perspective. As the castle gets
taller, its proportions get
smaller. So the very top
"piece" of the castle is close to
1/2 the size it "appears".

21. Attention
Active focus on certain stimuli to the exclusion of others
Cocktail Party Example
If you are in a room that is filled with people
talking to each other you are able to
actively choose which stimuli to focus your
attention and ignore the background
noise.
Perceptual Vigilance Perceptual Vigilance
The hypothesis that events of particular The hypothesis that it’s possible for an individu
importance to the individual are easier to to not perceive some events which are
perceive psychologically unpleasant

22. Gaining Attention
Ways of Getting Your Students Attention
1. Cues (Verbal and Non-Verbal)
a) Gestures, Repetition, Body Position
b) Lowering Voice
2. Increasing the Emotional Content of the Material
3. Presenting Unusual, Inconsistent, or Surprising Stimuli
4. Flicking the Lights Off(No More Than Once)
5. Informing Students What Follows is Important to
Them
6. Hold You Hand Up

23. Short Term Memory
Also referred to as working memory, the component of memory in
which limited amounts of information can be stored for a few seconds

24. Let’s do another test!
Goal: To remember as much as you can before time expires!
▪ You will be asked to remember as many words as you can when
looking at the following slide
▪ There is a 10 second time limit this time
When you’re ready you may proceed.

25. Lettuce Bacon Dogs Table Golf Mouse
Grass Hair Soda Dice Paper Shits
Table King Purple Nose Book Chair
Pool Desk Pencil Photo Light Bone

26. What do you remember?
▪ Do you remember all the words?
- Don’t feel ashamed if you could not remember all the information.
There is only a hand full of people in the world who could have
memorized that entire list in that amount of time.
▪ How many words do you remember?
- The average capacity for short term memory is 5-9 units of
information
▪ Did you use any tricks to help you remember the words?

27. Tricks to Enhance Your Short Term Memory
1. Rehearsal
- Mental repetition of information which can
improve its retention
2. Learn More About the World!!!
- Research has shown that the more background
knowledge you know about something the better
able the person is to organize and absorb new
information
3. Relate to the information (Journey Method)
- Turning information in images that are linked
Austrian Grand Master
together and placing the information at
straining for a digit in a predetermined points along a route they know well
memory competition

28. The History of the Journey Method
According to Harvard memory researcher Daniel Schacter, this
method of using visual imagery as a mnemonic device was first
employed by a Greek poet named Simonides in 477 BC. Simonides
was the sole survivor of a roof collapse that killed all the guests at a
large banquet he was attending. He was able to reconstruct the
guest list by visualizing who was sitting at each seat around the
table. What Simonides had discovered was that people have an
astoundingly good recollection of location. In his book Searching
for Memory, Schacter explains that this same technique was later
used by Roman generals to learn the names of thousands of
soldiers in their command and by medieval scholastics to
memorize long religious tomes5.

29. Long Term Memory
The component of memory in which large amounts of information can
be stored for long periods of time

30. Properties of Long Term Memory
▪ Thought to be a very large- capacity,
very long-term memory store.
▪ Tulving & Craik (2000) argue that we
may never forget long term
memories, rather we just misplace
them!
▪ Learning strategies are also stored
long term for easy access.
– Seen in practice by doctors who retain a
variety of methods for diagnostics and
medical practices

31. Long Term Memory: Episodic Memory
A part of long-term memory that stores images of our personal experiences
▪ Do you remember your childhood house? How it looked?
▪ Do you remember your first date? What car you drove?
- Images are important in episodic memory
- Cues related to space and time help us to
retrieve information
- Contains images of experiences
organized by when and where they
happened (Tulving & Craik, 2000)

32. Another Test of Memory!
Goal: Remember where you were on 9/11 when you first heard the news

33. Episodic Memory: flashbulb memory
Important events that are fixed mainly in visual and auditory memory
Remembering where you were on 9/11 is a flashbulb memory. Do
you remember how you felt? Who was around you? Where did you
watch the news? How vivid is it in your memory?
Are not as accurate or permanent compared to permanent
memories, but forgetting the flashbulb memory is one
of the least affected by time. Could even be retained and
easily accessed for an entire lifetime.

34. Episodic Memory: Application to Teaching
Knowing that imagery helps memory, educators could improve
retention by creating lesson plans involving visual and/or auditory
imaged.
-e.g. Plays, projects, simulations, power points, singing
One problem of episodic memory is that one
often relates the information to the location of
learning. If placed in a different setting the cues
are not there to help someone remember.

35. Long Term Memory: Semantic (declarative) Memory
A part of long-term memory that stores facts and general knowledge
▪ Examples of semantic memory: concepts, principles, rules and how to use
them, problem solving skills and learning strategies.
Schemata
Mental networks of related concepts that
influence understanding of new information
•New Information is retained more readily
in a developed schemata.
Example of schemata. The house is the
central idea, and each subsection in
the picture represent a
connection/network to the house.

36. Long Term Memory: Semantic (declarative) Memory
Exercising Semantic Memory6
1) Rote Rehearsal: memorization and
repeated rehearsal
2) Elaborative rehearsal: thinking
about the meaning of the term to
be remembered
3) Peer Teaching
4) Categorizing Information
5) Visual Reflections(notice a common
theme emerging in memory?)
6) Tell Stories

37. Long Term Memory: Procedural Memory
A part of long term memory that stores information about how to do things
• Commonly referred to as “knowing how” rather than “knowing what”
• Examples commonly include:
- Driving, riding a bicycle, handwriting, typing
• Information is stored as a complex of stimulus0response
pairings(Anderson, 1995)
• Operations relating to procedural memory take place in different parts
of the brain

38. Long Term Memory: Factors to Enhance LTM
Long term retention in school varies a great deal according to the type of
information.
-Concepts are retained much longer than names (Conway, Cohen &
Stanhope,1991)
-The degree to which students learned the material the first time around
affects their long term information. The more information that a students has
to learn at a given time can affect the degree to which a student learns the
material.
-If students are more involved in the lessons it contributes to longer terms of
retention

39. Comparison of Storage Structures

40. Other Information-Processing Models

41. Level of Processing Theory
Explanation of memory that links recall of a stimulus with the amount of
mental processing it receives
▪ The more the information has been processed the better
the chance of the information being retained.
▪ Study done in 1974 (Karlin)
– Students were asked to categorize faces as either very/less
honest or male/female.
– The students who were asked to categorize their honesty
remembered the faces far better than those who categorized
their sex.
– Study showed that the brain treats “deep processing” and
“shallow processing” very differently

42. Level of Processing Theory
Explanation of memory that links recall of a stimulus with the amount of
mental processing it receives
Criticisms 7
▪ There is an argument about whether it is the depth of
processing that leads to better recall or the amount of
processing effort that produces the result.
▪ Because processing the information means taking a
longer time, it is difficult to asses which factor affects the
ability to recall more.
▪ How do you define what level of process took place?

43. Dual Code Theory
Theory Suggesting that information coded both visually and verbally is
remembered better than information coded in only one of those two ways
▪ “The theory has been applied to many cognitive
phenomena including mnemonics, problem-
solving, concept learning, and language” 8
▪ “Dual Coding Theory is supported by neuropsychological
evidence on the functions of the hemispheres of the
brain. EEG studies (Ley, 1983) support the contention
that the left hemisphere is primarily in control of verbal
processing, while the right and left hemispheres both
contribute to performance in nonverbal tasks. Paivio
(1986) claims that such studies support the
independence assumption of Dual Coding Theory.” 8

44. THE END!!!
Or is it? This presentation was about attention as much as it was
about memory. If you were paying attention you would have seen
this pencil floating throughout the presentation:
There are a total of 14 pencils(not including this one) . Did you see
them all?