Cognitive View

 

Assumptions

Psychological processes and prior knowledge intervene between the stimulus and the response. This means that the response is not always predictable (thus contradicting Behavioral theories)

Mechanisms occur between stimulus and response that affect our memory of incoming information. These mechanisms include chunking and mental imagery. Chunking is what occurs when information is collapsed into manageable grouping or chunks, between the presentation of the stimulus and the resulting response. Chunking occurs because of the limits of short-term memory, which can only store up to 7 items. To remember more than seven individual items, one must form groupings. Chunking is most efficient when the items in the grouping have something in common. Interactive mental imagery is when an individual forms a mental image of two items interacting in order to remember a listing, etc. This type of mechanism works best if the items can be related to each other or something in prior knowledge in a meaningful way.

There exists a circular relationship between learning, meaning and memory. What is learned is affected by its meaningfulness, and the meaning is determined by what is remembered, and the memory is affected by what we learn. Basis for cognitive theories.

Cognitive psychologists still use the experimental methodology developed by the Behaviorists - they rely on observable, measurable behavior in their studies.

Mental models and schema change through experience over time. It becomes more easy to access and requires less conscious effort to use. It also becomes internalized and automatic.

Mastery learning occurs through instruction. Expertise develops after instruction and through maturity and experience. Mastery and Expertise are not the same.

Experts organize information differently from Novices - they chunk the information in a way that leads them to consider patterns of information when needed to solve problems - it is the chunking of information rather than searching techniques that causes quicker, more effective responses.

According to information processing models, memory consists of a sensory register, a long term store and a short term store. Information is registered by the senses then placed in the short term storage area where it will decay after 15 seconds unless rehearsed in some manner. If rehearsed, it will go into the long term storage area where it remain permanently. Through additional studies on information processing, it was revealed that through the process of sufficient rehearsal, one can automatize an number of items into a single chunk. It was also revealed that one does memorize text verbatim, but rather one memorizes an abstract representation of the meaning of the text (schemata).