1. A Topical Approach to Life-Span Development 6e
Chapter Seven:
Information Processing
John W. Santrock

2. Information-Processing Approach
Analyzes the ways people process information about their world
Manipulate information
Monitor it
Create strategies to deal with it
Effectiveness involves attention, memory, thinking

3. Figure 7.1 - Simplified Model of Information Processing

4. Information-Processing Approach
Mechanisms of Change
Encoding
Mechanism by which information enters memory
Automaticity
Ability to process information with little or no effort
Strategy construction
Discovering new procedure for processing information
Metacognition
Cognition about cognition, or “knowing about knowing”

5. Information-Processing Approach
Speed of processing information
Assessed using reaction time tasks
Changes in speed of processing
Improves dramatically through childhood and adolescence
Changes due to myelination or experience?
Decline begins in middle adulthood; continues into late adulthood

6. Information-Processing Approach
Does processing speed matter?
Linked with competence in thinking
For many everyday tasks, speed is unimportant
Efficient strategies can compensate for slower reaction times and speed
Processing linked to accumulated knowledge and abilities to perform

7. Figure 7.2 - The Relation of Age to Reaction Time

8. Attention Attention: Focusing of mental resources Infancy Four types
First year: Orienting/Investigative process
Directs attention to locations (‘where’)
Recognize objects and their features (‘what’)
Attention gains flexibility and speed
Sustained (focused) attention increases

9. Types of Attention Selective attention
Focusing on specific aspect of experience that is relevant while ignoring others
Divided attention
Concentrating on more than one activity at a time
Sustained attention
Maintain focus on selected stimulus over prolonged period; called vigilance
Executive attention
Focus on action planning, goals, errors and compensation, monitoring, and unknown

10. Attention Infancy Sustained (focused) attention linked to
Habituation: decreased responsiveness to stimulus after repeated presentations
Dishabituation: recovery of a habituated response after change in stimulation
Joint attention begins about 7 to 8 months of age
Gaze following: begins 10 to 11 months of age

11. Attention Infancy Joint attention
Individuals focus on same object or event and requires
Ability to track another’s behavior
One person directing another’s attention
Reciprocal interaction
Frequency of caregiver-infant interactions affect language development and vocabulary size

12. Attention Childhood Attention control ability increases with age
Preschool child: deficits in attention control
Attention to salient stimuli
Planning improves as part of playfulness
Young children: most advances in executive and sustained attention
Affected by early experiences and education

13. Figure 7.4 - The Planfulness of Attention
In three pairs of houses, the windows were different
In three pairs of houses, all windows were identical J
(b)
(a)
By filming the reflection in children’s eyes, one could determine what they looked at, how long they looked, and the sequence of their eye movements.

14. Attention Adolescence Processing of irrelevant information decreases
Ability to shift from one activity to another at will
Better at tasks that require this skill
Better at multi-tasking
Number of competing tasks increases with age
Expands information attended to; distracting
Processing ability varies among adolescents

15. Attention
Adulthood
Older adults may not be able to focus on relevant information as effectively as younger adults
Less adept at selective attention
Older adults (50-80) performed worse in the divided attention condition than two younger groups; affected by vision and environmental distractions

16. Memory Memory: Retention of information over time Processes of memory
Allows humans to span time in reflection over life’s activities
Processes of memory
How information is encoded, retained, and stored in memory
Memory has imperfections

17. Figure 7.5 - Processing Information in Memory

18. Memory Constructing memory Schema theory Schemas
Many reasons for inaccuracy; “we fill in gaps”
People construct and reconstruct memories; mold to fit information already existing in mind
Schemas
Mental frameworks that organize concepts and information; affects encoding and retrieval

19. Memory Culture, gender, and memory linked
Culture selectively sensitizes members of society
Cultural specificity hypothesis
Cultural environment affects experiences
Females better than males at
Episodic and emotion-linked memories
Processing information in elaborately and in more detail

20. Memory Infancy Recent research: limited type of memory at 3 mos.
First memories
Rovee-Collier infant memory experiments
Implicit memory: Memory without conscious recollection; skills and routine done automatically
Explicit memory: Conscious memory of facts and experiences; appears after 6 months

21. Memory Infancy Infantile Amnesia Also called childhood amnesia
One cause: immature prefrontal lobe
Adults recall little or none of first three years
Prefrontal lobes in brain play important role in memory of events

22. Memory Childhood Memory improves considerably after infancy
Short-term memory
Retains information up to 15 to 30 seconds without rehearsal (span is very limited)
Working memory
Kind of mental workbench for manipulating and assembling information
More active, powerful than short-term memory

23. Memory Childhood Working memory Long-term memory
Make decisions, solve problems
Comprehend written and spoken language
Long-term memory
Relatively permanent, unlimited type of memory
Questions about child’s ability to testify in court
Several factors affect this ability

24. Figure 7.9 - Working Memory Model

25. Memory Children’s long-term memory Children as eyewitnesses
Age differences in susceptibility
Individual differences in susceptibility
Interviewing techniques can cause distortions; determines if child’s testimony is accurate
Depends on number of factors involved
Reliability influenced most by interviewer

26. Memory Children’s long-term memory Strategies used to improve Imagery
Rehearsal: repetition better for short-term
Organizing: making information relevant
Imagery
Creating mental images for verbal information
Elaboration
Engaging in more extensive processing of information; use of examples, self-referencing

27. Memory Children’s long-term memory Fuzzy trace theory Knowledge
Two types of memory representations
Verbatim memory trace: precise details
Gist: central idea of information
Knowledge
Influences what people notice and how they organize, represent, interpret information

28. Figure 7.11 - Imagery and Memory of Verbal Information

29. Memory Adulthood Working memory and processing speed
Linked to aging, reading and math achievement
Performance peaks at 45; declines at age 57
Decline affects both new and old information
Long-term memory has two systems

30. Memory Adulthood Long-term memory has two systems
Explicit: conscious/declarative memory
Episodic memory: retention of information about the where and when of events
Autobiographical memory
Reminiscence bump

31. Memory Adulthood Long-term memory has two systems
Explicit: conscious/declarative memory
Semantic memory: One’s knowledge about world including field of expertise
Implicit memory: Routine skills and procedures performed automatically (unconscious memory)

32. Memory Adulthood Aging and explicit memory
Younger adults have better episodic memory
Older adults remember older events better than more recent events; take longer to retrieve semantic information
Accuracy fades with the aging of a memory
Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon

33. Figure 7.13 - Memory for Spanish as a Function of Age Since Spanish Was Learned

34. Memory Adulthood Aging and implicit memory Source memory
Less adversely affected by aging than explicit memory
Source memory
Ability to remember where something is learned
Physical, emotional setting; speaker identity
Failures increase with age in adult years; relevancy of information affects ability

35. Memory Adulthood Prospective memory
Remembering to do something in the future
Age-related; declines depend on task
Time-based tasks decline more
Event-based tasks show less decline

36. Thinking What is thinking? Childhood
Manipulating, transforming information in memory
Childhood
Key aspects of infant cognitive development
Attention, memory, imitation, concepts
Concepts:
ideas about what categories represent
Categories:
Grouping based on characteristics

37. Thinking Childhood Concepts
Perceptual categorization: as young as 7 mos.
Categorization increases in second year; infants differentiate more
Large gender differences based on interests
Infant’s abilities much richer, more gradual, less stage-like, occurs earlier than Piaget thought

38. Thinking Critical thinking
Grasping deeper meaning of ideas; open minded
Ask what, how, and why
Examine facts and determine evidence
Recognize one or more explanations exist
Evaluate before accepting as truth
Speculate beyond what is known

39. Thinking Scientific thinking
Aspects of thinking are domain specific (e.g. math)
Aimed at identifying causal relationships
ChiIdren: emphasize causal mechanisms
Important differences in reasoning
Cling to old theories regardless of evidence
More influenced by happenstance
Have difficulty designing experiments

40. Thinking Solving problems
Involves finding appropriate way to attain a goal
Children: need skill in and out of school)
Teach strategies and rules to solve problems
Teacher is model, motivate children
Use effective strategy instruction
Encourage alternative strategies/approaches
Use analogies to solve problems

41. Thinking Adolescence Critical Thinking
If fundamental skills not developed during childhood, critical-thinking skills unlikely to mature in adolescence
Decision Making
Older adolescents appear more competent
Ability does not guarantee every day usage
Social context plays key role here

42. Thinking Adulthood Practical problem solving, expertise improve
Expertise: extensive, highly organized knowledge and understanding of particular domain
Rely on accumulative experience
Process and analyze data automatically
Have better strategies and shortcuts

43. Thinking Adulthood Education, work, and health
Influence older adult cognitive functioning
Higher educational levels today than in past
Work — now more cognitively oriented
Health: better medicine, longer life spans

44. Thinking Cognitive neuroscience and aging
Studies brain and cognitive functioning links
Relies on fMRI and PET scans
Changes in brain have affects
Decline of neural circuits in prefrontal cortex
Decline in hippocampus functioning
Neural differences in age larger for retrieval than encoding

45. Thinking Older adulthood Use It or Lose It: Cognitive training
Practice helps cognitive skills - mindfulness
Exercise, mental health linked to cognitive fitness
Cognitive training
Training can improve some cognitive skills
Some loss of plasticity in late adulthood

46. Metacognition Metacognition Takes many forms
Knowledge about when and where to use particular strategies
Metamemory: knowledge about memory
Theory of mind: curiosity or thoughts about how mental processes work
Changes as child ages

47. Metacognition Developmental changes
Ages 2 to 3: awareness of emotions, perceptions, and desires
Age 5: learn realization of false beliefs
Age 7: deepening appreciation of the mind itself
Middle and late childhood: mind seen as active constructor of knowledge
Adolescence: realize ambivalent feelings exist

48. Figure 7.17 - Developmental Changes in False Belief Performance

49. Metacognition Individual differences
Evidenced as children reach certain milestones in their theory of mind
Executive function: several functions important for flexible, future-oriented behavior
Theory of mind and autism
Difficulty in social interactions, communication, repetitive behaviors, interests
Have difficulty developing theory of mind

50. Metacognition Metamemory Limited in children
Preschoolers have inflated opinion of memories, little appreciation for memory cue importance
Understanding of memory abilities and skill in evaluating performance on memory tasks improves considerably by years of age

51. Metacognition Metacognition in adolescence and adulthood
Adolescents more likely than children to effectively manage and monitor thinking
Middle age adults have accumulated a great deal of metacognitive knowledge
Older adults tend to overestimate memory problems they experience on daily basis

52. The End