1. Psychology 235 Dr. Blakemore
Information Processing

2. Consider Development
Information processing theorists consider how children change in basic capacity, skills, processing, and strategies as they develop
They become more efficient information processors for a variety of reasons
We will focus especially on attention and memory, but there are other skills that develop as well

4. Attention Attention Span Planning Attention
Ignoring irrelevant information

5. Attention Span
Increases with age
Affected by task
Large individual differences

6. Ability to Plan Attention
Preschool children have a very poor ability to plan attention to solve problems
Increases in early elementary school

8. Attention to and Memory for Irrelevant Information
Researchers asked 7, 10, and 13-year-olds to recall the location of animals that were hidden in small boxes (all in a row) with lids
Inside each box was an animal but also a household utensil (only the animals were mentioned to the children)
But then the researchers measured the children’s memory for both the animals and the utensils

10. Memory

11. Short Term Memory Duration: 20 - 30 seconds in adults
May be shorter in children
Maintenance rehearsal

12. STM - Capacity
Capacity: 7  2 chunks in adults
What is a chunk?

13. What is a chunk? JFKTWAFBIIPFW JFK TWA FBI IPFW
A single piece of information
JFKTWAFBIIPFW
JFK TWA FBI IPFW

14. STM Capacity in Children
Between 3 and 5 years of age, capacity is about 3 items
By 5 years, 4 or 5 items
By 12 years, 6 items

15. Long Term Memory
Encoding
Storage
Retrieval
Capacity
Duration

16. Capacity of Long Term Memory
Is there a limit to the capacity?
Is human long term memory like a file cabinet – you will fill it up some time?
Or like a scaffold?
New memories build on old and can keep building?

17. World Knowledge
The more you know about a topic, the easier it is to remember or learn more about it
This may be specific to a particular domain
Although, in general, children have a great deal less knowledge in many domains
However, they may know more about some domains

19. Automaticity Well learned processes become automated
For example, driving or reading
When a process is automated, short-term or working memory space is freed to attend to other things
Makes information processing more efficient
Children have fewer automated processes

20. Encoding Strategies
Rehearsal
Organization
Elaboration

21. Rehearsal Repeating information 10% of 5-year-olds 50% of 7-year-olds

22. Organization Two Lists
Boat, match, hammer, coat, grass, sentence, pencil, dog, cup, picture
Knife, shirt, car, fork, boat, pants, sock, truck, spoon, plate
One list is easier to remember. Why?
Organization not used much before aged 10.

23. Elaboration
Adding meaning to information that has no (or little) meaning
mnemonic strategies are all elaborative

25. Elaboration Not used much before late adolescence
May be difficult to train children to use elaboration
People who use elaboration definitely benefit with more effective encoding (and thus memory) of difficult to-be-remembered information