Student No: 011310

Submitted by: Abylaikhan Ladamzahrov

Module Code:C81CMP

Department of Applied Psychology

University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus

Assessed Coursework Cover Sheet

Module Title: The Individual I: Cognition, Memory & Perception

Module Code: C81CMP

Coursework Component:

Coursework Title: What is the information processing model? Discuss how it has been used to explain the processes at work in sensation and perception.

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Introduction

Every day all over the world people receive tons of information. Especially at present century where communication matters a lot, individuals have to make sure that they are being properly understood. Therefore, people tend to speak properly and try to be able to listen to others with understanding. In order to communicate well, a person should have good sensation which includes listening, hearing, speaking, touching and smelling. All of these 5 branches of sensations are really important. It is hard to imagine and even harder lo live a life where an individual is not able to speak or smell. People do not think about how they receive and give information because it seems to be pretty general and obvious. However, the deep studies of psychology show that the statement about the easiness of perception and sensation is wrong. First of all, humans do not just speak and hear one another; it is not so straight forward. There is a chain of activities called the information processing model which shows in what order a person receives information. Thus, this essay will be about the information processing model and how it is helpful in describing processes of sensation and perception.

The information processing model

The information processing model is the chain of processes which help us to understand, store and remember the information we perceived. Here is the table of THE INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL.

This table is similar to the processes which people do every single day with their smartphones.

As it can be seen form the model, the whole process starts from Sensory Section. This section is about sensation (touch, sight, sound, smell and taste) and how we get to know the information. A simple example of sensory input may be noticed almost every minute when people talk to each other, show one another some funny pictures, when they listen to music and there are plenty of other examples. Imagine a person with a smartphone who is trying to type a message to his/ her friend. That person gives the information to the smartphone via touching if the phone has a sensor monitor or via typing on the buttons. Afterwards, it flows to Short Term Memory which states that the information a person got recently may easily be forgotten. People ignore lots of things they hear and see unless they are completely focused. For example, usually, students do not remember what the lecturer was talking about 15- 30 minutes ago. However they do remember the topic and the general idea. The same situation is with a smartphone, if the message the person typed in is not saved it will no longer exist on the hard disk of the device. The third phase of the model is called REHEARSAL that says that the information is stored more effectively if it is being revised or remembered over a period of time. An obvious example about exams can be demonstrated. If a student revises the subject, does readings the exam itself seems to be much easier, because of the fact that he revised the information he/she heard from the lecturer or read from a book. Rehearsal also occurs in a smartphone usage, for example, suppose a student entered www.google.com via his smartphone and now his browser (be it Safari, Google Chrome or Opera) will save in history that this site, in our case www.google.com, was entered. The next part of the model is named as FEEDBACK LOOP. It helps to understand whether a person has learned the needed information or not. In order to understand this simple self –test has to be used. The same example as for the rehearsal part may be used. Usually a student, before going for the real exam, does some past year papers; test him/herself to make sure and to see whether he/she is prepared. In case the results of self-test are bad, then the student reads the notes and books again to improve the knowledge. When a man who wants to set an alarm-clock chooses the time, the programme waits for confirmation of the time which was set to make sure that it will ring at the right time. However, if the time is not being confirmed it has to be set one more time. This example illustrates the feedback loop for smartphones. The following step is called LONG-TERM MEMORY that reports the fact that if information is being constantly revised or thought of it easily stays in people’s minds. A student will definitely find the exam easy if he was preparing and revised notes over a period of time so all of necessary information is in his mind. This information will still be in his mind even after a while because he put a lot of effort to remember it. In smartphones’ turn, one thing has to be noticed which is the layout of the functions on the phone. Messages and Contacts are located on the main screen because they are being used pretty often. However, the settings of the screen are located quite far because they are not used constantly. The last but not the least part of the information processing model is called RETRIEVING. Retrieving is the process of searching and taking the information from the long -term memory. A student who already writes his exam keeps in mind the main information he needs and he arranges it in a proper way so it can be easily found and remembered. A person who always enters websites such as www.google.com ; www.youtube.com; www.vk.com will have them in the top 3 sites and every time the internet browser is being opened, these 3 sites will be shown. As it was mentioned above, the information processing model is pretty complicated and it is very similar to how the electronic devices receive and store needed information.