Information Processing Theory - The Four Pillars of The Information Processing Model

The Four Pillars of The Information Processing Model

There are four fundamental assumptions – or four pillars – of the information processing approach. These pillars underlay and support this approach, as well as many other cognitive models.

• Thinking: The process of thinking includes the activities of perception of external stimuli, encoding the same and storing the data so perceived and encoded in one's mental recesses.

• Analysis of stimuli: This is the process by which the encoded stimuli are altered to suit the brain's cognition and interpretation process to enable decision making. There are four distinct sub-processes that form a favourable alliance to make the brain arrive at a conclusion regarding the encoded stimuli it has received and kept stored. These four sub-processes are encoding, strategization, generalization and automatization.

• Situational modification: This is the process by which an individual uses his experience, which is nothing other than a collection of stored memories, to handle a similar situation in future. In case of certain differences in both situations, the individual modifies the decisions they took during their previous experience to come up with solutions for the somewhat different problem.

• Obstacle evaluation: This step maintains that besides the subject's individual development level, the nature of the obstacle or problem should also be taken into consideration while evaluating the subject's intellectual, problem solving and cognitive acumen. Sometimes, unnecessary and misleading information can confuse the subject and he / she may show signs of confusion while dealing with a situation which is similar to one he / she was exposed to before, which he / she was able to handle successfully.