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MENTAL MODEL · M4109

Information Processing Theory

Information Processing Theory
Learn & MetacognitionHigh supportCognitive Psychology
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Updated 2026-08-01

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

Developed from the mid-twentieth-century cognitive revolution, associated with researchers such as George Miller and later John Sweller. The theory treats cognition as a flow of information through three stores: sensory memory holds raw input briefly, working memory holds and manipulates a small amount of information at once, and long-term memory stores it durably. Processing depends on attention, encoding, and retrieval strategies, and the binding constraint is working-memory capacity, commonly estimated at a handful of chunks. Because that bottleneck is fixed, learning outcomes depend on how information is organized and rehearsed.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Capacity budgeting: treat attention and working memory as scarce resources and spend them deliberately. - Encoding design: choose chunking, elaboration, or dual coding to match what the material demands. - Retrieval planning: build in spaced testing and self-quizzing instead of relying on repeated reading.

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Anchor fast decisions

The architecture explains the effect: input enters through the senses, attention selects a small subset for working memory, and only what is encoded reaches long-term storage. Working memory is the narrow gate, so material that arrives in chunks, connects to prior knowledge, or is encoded in two formats passes through more reliably. Retrieval then depends on the number and quality of the pathways laid down at encoding.

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Source support: Explicit

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    en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_processing_theoryZH · Explicit
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