In simple words, the Information processing means to process any information in that way which is easily understood by any user. In the field of cognitive psychology, information processing is the way to understand human thinking. In the 1940s and 1950s, educators are interested in the study of how humans learn and think about anything. Educators want to know how the human brain learns any information and acquire it; how they retain that information and use the information as per the requirement.
In 1967 Psychologist Neisser research about cognition and defined that cognition is all about the study of how people encode the information through senses, then restructure it, store it in the brain, retrieve that information and use it when required.
PRINCIPLES OF THE INFORMATION PROCESSING
There are few principles of the information processing system by Huitt (2000). Based on these principles various researchers do their research. These principles are as follows:-
- The limited capacity of a mental system
- The requirement of the control mechanism
- Two –way flow of information
- Genetic preparation of the human organism
Explanation of above:-
The limited capacity of a mental system: – As per this principle our mind can process only limited information at a particular period. Our mind has its capacity.
For Example– We stored water in a bottle but when we take out the water from the bottle it depends on the size of a bottleneck. We can’t take out the whole water in a single go; water comes at its speed at a time. Similarly, our brain process limited information at a time
The requirement of control mechanism: – According to this principle Human are not using his whole capacity or capability all the time. When any person learning a new skill he is learning it with full concentration and doing it with higher capacity as compared to the one who is doing that task for so long. This principle is required to oversee the encoding, transformation, processing, storage, retrieval, and utilization of the information.
For Example– A person who knows how to drive a car is simultaneously doing lots of things at a time without even realizing like turning to steer, changing the gear, pressing the clutch, checking the rare view, and side-view mirror. But when a person is at a learning stage he is doing all the things with more consciousness and with its 100% potential. As per the new learner driving a car is not a piece of cake. It uses its whole brain with 100% potential at a time. It requires his whole attention on a single task.
Two–way flow of information: – In a two-way flow of information we have two ways of processing the information. First is Bottom-Up Processing and second is Top-Down Processing. Bottom-Up Processing means we gather the information with the help of our senses. Our senses perceive the information and we store it in our mind and use it as per the requirement. Top-Down Processing means the information which is already stored in our memory like the way of our thinking style.
For Example– Few people always think about positivity whether the situation is good or it’s bad and some find the negativity in good situations also. It all depends on our thinking style, how we perceive things.
Genetic preparation of human organism: – As per this principle every human being is born with basic abilities and instincts whether that person is living in India or any country of the world irrespective of the cultures also. Few things are common in everybody.
For Example, The initial sounds or the crying sound of new born babies are similar, whether they are born in India or anywhere in the world, they behave in a same manner. This principle shows that few genetic features are common in everybody during initial days of birth, after learning from the culture and environment everyone’s thinking becomes different and they start behaving differently.
