INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY

BY
AROOBA RUBAB
PHD INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
SEMESTER 1ST
SESSION 2023 2026

Course Supervisor: Dr. Khursheed Ahmed

Department of information Management, Islamia
University of Bahawalpur
 CONTENTS
 What is information?
 What is information processing?

 Information processing theory

 Stages of IPT

• Encoding
• Storage
• Retrieval
 IPT Model
 Atkinson & Schifrin Model of IP
 Sensory memory
 Short term memory

 Long term memory

 WHAT IS INFORMATION?
 knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction.
 Processed data that is given meaning by its context.

 An assemblage of data in

Comprehensible form.
 INFORMATION PROCESSING
(IP)
 Acquisition, recording, organization, retrieval, display, and
dissemination of information.
 Initially proposed by George A. Miller and other American
psychologists in the 1950s, the theory describes how people focus on
information and encode it into their memories.
 INFORMATION PROCESSING
THEORY (IPT)
 Cognitive theoretical framework
 Focuses on how information enters, stored and retrieved from our
memory.
 Focus on how people attend to environmental events, encode
information to be learned and relate it to knowledge in memory,
store new knowledge in memory and retrieved it as needed.
 CONT.…
 This theory uses the computer metaphor with its inputs and outputs.

Cognitive psychologists:
They believe that how a person thinks about and interprets what
she/he receives shapes what he/she will learn. All these notions
comprise what is called the information processing theory.
STAGES OF IPT

Encoding Storage Retrieval

 ENCODING
 Encoding information is sensed, perceived, and attended to.
 when information comes into our memory system (from a sensory
input) it needs to be changed into a form that the system can cope
with so that it can be stored.
 “Main Ways in which Information can be encoded”

• Visual (picture)
• Acoustic (sound)
 STORAGE
 The information is stored for either a brief or extended period of
time, depending upon the processes following encoding.

 This concerns the nature of memory stores, i.e. where the

information is stored, how long the memory lost for, how much can
be stored at any time and what kind of information is held.
RETRIEVAL
 The information is brought back at the appropriate time,
and reactivated for use on a current task, the true
measure of effective memory.
 Refers to getting information out storage
IP MODEL
 Development
Us cognitive psychologist
Atkinson & Richard Shiffrin (1968)

Known as Three stage model of memory

MAIN IDEA OF MODEL
 Memory as system
 Three components

Sensory memory (SM)

Short term memory (STM)
Long term memory (LTM)
SENSORY MEMORY (SM)
Initial momentary storage of information
Iconic Memory
Echoic Memory
Duration: – 1 to 3 seconds.
 SHORT TERM MEMORY (STM)
The memory in which material initially has meaning
STM can only hold 5 to 9 “chunks” of information, sometimes
described as 7 + 2 (Miller 1956)
it is called working memory
STM maintain information for a limited time, or until the
information is forgotten.
Duration: Around 18 seconds or less.
ENCODING IN STM
 Encoding involve placing information into memory
system
 Two important variable in encoding information are:

 Meaningfulness

 Chunking
 MEANINGFULNESS

Refer to the informational value of material.

High meaningful material encode more easily then low
meaningful material
Example: T HE C AT S AW T HE R AT

 CHUNKING
Information is presented in meaningful units.
Example: THE CAT SAW THE RAT
REHEARSAL
 It is a way to keep information in the STM store for a
much longer time
 This model include rehearsal buffer in STM.

 Rehearsal has two form

 Maintenance rehearsal

 Elaborative rehearsal
 Maintenance rehearsal
Repeating the material over and
over again without thinking about it.
Example: repeating phone number

 Elaborative rehearsal
It occur when the material is
considered and organized in some fashion.
 LONG TERM MEMORY (LTM)
The LTM is the final or permanent storing house for memory
information.
It holds the stored information until needed again
 Capacity: unlimited capacity.
 Duration: indefinite.
REHEARSAL IN LTM
 Pulling information out of the memory system
 Episodic memory is more difficult to retrieve then
semantic memory

 Tip of the tongue phenomenon:

McNeil and Brown
Closer to come to recall a name or word
ATKINSON AND SHIFIRIN MODEL
 REFERENCE
 Lucas, Maria Rita D. and Brenda B. Corpuz.(2013). facilitating
learning: a metacognitive process.(3rd Edition).

 Quezon City, Metro Manila: Lorimar Publishing, Inc.Matlin,

Margeret W. (2005). Cognition. Crawfordsville: John Willey & Sons,
Inc.

 Miller, G.A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two:
Some Limits on our capacity for processing information.
Psychological Review, 63 (2):
THANK YOU