Chapter 6 Outline.docx - Chapter 6 Outline I....

Chapter 6 Outline
I. INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACHES are approaches to cognitive development
that seek to identify the ways that individuals take in, use, and store information.
A. Encoding, Storage, and Retrieval: The Foundations of Information Processing
1. INFORMATION PROCESSING is the process by which information is
encoded, stored, and retrieved.
a. Encoding is the process by which information is initially
recorded in a form usable to memory.
b. Storage refers to the maintenance of material saved in memory.
c. Retrieval is the process by which material in memory storage is
located, brought into awareness, and used.
2. Automatization is the degree to which an activity requires attention.
a. Processes that require little attention are automatic.
b. Processes that require large amounts of attention are
controlled.
c. Automatization processes help children in their initial
encounters with the world by “automatically” priming them to process
information in particular ways.
d. Children learn how different stimuli are found together
simultaneously. This permits the development of concepts,
categorizations of objects, events, or people that share common
properties.
e. Automatization permits more efficient processing to enable
concentration.
f. Sometimes automatization prevents more focused, intentional,
nonautomatic responses.
B. Cognitive Architecture: The Three-System Approach
1. Information moves through the cognitive architecture: the basic,
enduring structures and features of information processing that are constant
over the course of development.

a. Atkinson and Shiffrin posit processes for encoding, storage, and
retention that are not located in physical locations in the brain but are
more abstract functions performed by the brain.
2. The SENSORY STORE is the initial, momentary storage of information,
lasting only an instant.
a. If information is not attended to and sent on for further
processing, it is lost forever.
b. highly accurate and detailed information
3. SHORT-TERM MEMORY is the short-duration, limited-capacity memory
component in which selected input from the memory store is worked on.
4. WORKING MEMORY is a set of active, temporary memory stores that actively
manipulate and rehearse information.