The Information Processing system

Chapter 2

The Information Processing system

Environmental information is successively encoded, stored, and retrieved by a set of distinct mental structures. The emphasis is on the flow of information through the system. Environmental stimuli – the constellation of sight, sound, and other sensory event to which we are constantly exposed are represented in each structure in a particular way.

Sensory Stores

The sensory stores take in the variety of color, tones, tastes, and smells that we experience each day and retain them, for a brief time in a raw, unanalyzed form. It is assumed that we have one sensory store for each sensory system, although only the visual and auditory sensory stores have been studied in any detail.

Working Memory

The second type of memory has been traditionally referred to as short-term memory and more recently as working memory. Short-term storage is easy to state, the content of the sensory stores are held for at most a few second. Short-term memory is severely limited in size, it can hold approximately seven plus or minus two unit of information. Working memory differs from short-term memory in that the term conveys a more dynamic view of memory processes.

Permanent Memory

Permanent Memory which is also known as long-term memory is a repository of our knowledge of the world, this include general knowledge, such as the rules of grammar or arithmetic, along with personal experiences, such as memories of your childhood. Semantic and episodic memory interact in our processing of information, for example the knowledge that princess Diana died in a car crash will be stored in our semantic memory as part of our general knowledge, and our memory of how we learned about this event will be part of our episodic memory.

Relevance For Language Processing

Pattern recognition occurs when information from one of the sensory stores is matched with information retrieved from permanent memory. Permanent memory plays several roles, semantic memory contains information on the speech sound and words that we retrieve during pattern recognition.

Central Issues In Language Processing

Serial And Parallel Processing

If a group of processes takes place one at a time, it is called serial processing. If two or more of the processes take place simultaneously, it is called parallel  processing. The serial model would assume that these stages occur one at a time, with none overlapping. If, on the other hand, we assume a parallel model, all of these processes could take place at the same time. Parallel distributed processing models have been described as neutrally inspired because they use brain, rather than computer, as the dominant metaphor.

Top Down And Bottom Up Process

Suppose you are listening to a lecturer, trying to comprehend what is being said remember the main points of lecturer. We may know define bottom-up processing as that which process from the lowest level to the highest level of processing. A top-down processing models in contrast, states that information at the higher levels may influence processing at the lower levels. The distinction between top-down and bottom-up processing is similar in some respect to the distinction between serial and parallel process. In fact, a top-down process is often a parallel process and a bottom-up  process is usually serial.

Automatic And Controlled Process

Task that draw substantially from this limited pool of resources are called controlled tasks, and the process involved in these tasks are referred to as controlled process, tasks do not require substantial resources are called automatic tasks.

Modularity

Within cognitive psychology the issue of modularity has two meanings, first, it pertains to the degree of independence of the language processing system. The second meaning of modularity is that linguistics sub system, such as : semantic and syntax, operate independently rather than interactively.

Development Of The Processing System

This may seems an unlikely hypothesis for we ordinarily think of children and especially infants as cognitively very different creatures than adults. Children and adult have some important cognitive similarities.

Perceptual Processing

Distinction between different speech sound very early in life, these researchers examined infant perception of the voicing contrast in English. The sound differ in the time between when the sound is released at the lips and when the vocal cords begin vibrating.

Working Memory

These result, however, do not tell us much about the development of working memory, recall that, working memory consist of both storage and processing functions, and these compete for limited resources, thus a developmental change in either of these functions would affect the other.

Sensorimotor Development

This is directly pertinent to language acquisition for to acquire a language a child must ultimately perform correct analyses simultaneously on the phonological, semantics, morphological, and pragmantic levels.