Even adults in unfamiliar situations in which they are expected to note and use different features will be confused and make mistakes. How can Information Processing approaches help us understand and provide for young children's learning?Įarly Information Processing work in the 1950s by George Miller showed that adults have a relatively fixed channel capacity (think of television channels) - that is, they find it difficult to deal with more than seven random items. * using computer simulations of human thought, as well as using computers as models analogous to human information processing systems. * exploring and modelling the changes in cognitive processing over relatively short time spans so they can observe those changes using data about errors and error patterns (for example in maths calculations) representing complex, dynamic systems through diagrams and notation, such as flow charts and tree diagrams The main methods used by Information Processing researchers include: * the proposition that cognitive development occurs when that information processing system modifies itself (this reminds us of Piaget's accommodation and assimilation, as well as Alison Gopnik's team's claim, in How Babies Think, that young children's brains reprogramme themselves as a result of experiences). * the assumption that children manipulate symbols during mental activity and that these symbolic processes are part of a system Key features of Information Processing approaches to cognitive development The main ideas Information Processing theorists put forward include: Its beauty is that it offers a language for modelling particular areas of human activity involved in cognition. With the advent of computers and Artificial Intelligence came the prospect of modelling how minds might work.ĭavid Wood and David Klahr both argue that Information Processing is more an approach than a theory. Meanwhile, new ideas from four areas of study - genetics, brain research, and the sciences of mind and evolution - were developing too. It was only over the next 30 years that approaches to research widened, to try to understand how the shared meanings and cultures in a community influenced children's development. The methods were similar to those used by colleagues who were observing apes and we were supposed to keep the data 'clean' and scientific. When working on a large research project in the early 1970s, I was instructed that I must not ask the children questions about what I had observed. They either set up laboratory experiments or systematically watched human behaviours in natural settings, including those of children, in order to attempt to explain the how and what of learning. They saw the mind as an enigma and so they focused on observable behaviours as their best evidence. Until about 50 years ago, psychologists were wary of trying to explain the 'internal workings' of human beings. Our series about some of the main theories of development by Tricia David concludes with a look at information processing
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |