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Information processing is the change (processing) of information
Information

Information as a Conveyed concept has a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control system, data, form, instruction, knowledge, Meaning , stimulation, pattern, perception, and knowledge representation....
 in any manner detectable by an observer
Observation

Observation is either an activity of a living being , consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments....
. As such, it is a process which describes everything which happens (changes) in the universe
Universe

The universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and physical constants that govern them....
, from the falling of a rock (a change in position) to the printing of a text file from a digital computer system. In the latter case, an information processor
Information processor

An information processor or information processing system, as its name suggests, is a system which takes information in one form and Information processinges it into another form, e.g....
 is changing the form
Content format

A content format is an encoding format for converting a specific type of data to information. Content formats are used in recording and data transmission to prepare data for Information processing or interpretation....
 of presentation of that text file. Information processing may more specifically be defined in terms used by Claude E.






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Information processing is the change (processing) of information
Information

Information as a Conveyed concept has a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control system, data, form, instruction, knowledge, Meaning , stimulation, pattern, perception, and knowledge representation....
 in any manner detectable by an observer
Observation

Observation is either an activity of a living being , consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments....
. As such, it is a process which describes everything which happens (changes) in the universe
Universe

The universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and physical constants that govern them....
, from the falling of a rock (a change in position) to the printing of a text file from a digital computer system. In the latter case, an information processor
Information processor

An information processor or information processing system, as its name suggests, is a system which takes information in one form and Information processinges it into another form, e.g....
 is changing the form
Content format

A content format is an encoding format for converting a specific type of data to information. Content formats are used in recording and data transmission to prepare data for Information processing or interpretation....
 of presentation of that text file. Information processing may more specifically be defined in terms used by Claude E. Shannon as the conversion of latent information into manifest information . Latent and manifest information is defined through the terms of equivocation (remaining uncertainty, what value the sender has actually chosen), dissipation (uncertainty of the sender what the receiver has actually received) and transformation (saved effort of questioning - equivocation minus dissipation) .

Within the field of cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language.The school of thought arising from this approach is known as cognitivism which is interested in how people mentally represent information processing....
, information processing is an approach to the goal of understanding human thinking. It arose in the 1940s and 1950s. The essence of the approach is to see cognition
Cognition

Cognition is the science term for "the process of thought."Its usage varies in different ways in accord with different disciplines: For example, in psychology and cognitive science it refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological Functionalism s....
 as being essentially computational
Computational

Computational may refer to:*Computer*Computational chemistry*Computational complexity theory*Computational biology*Computational geometry*Computational linguistics...
 in nature, with mind being the software and the brain being the hardware. The information processing approach in psychology is closely allied to cognitivism
Cognitivism

The word cognitivism is used in several ways:* In ethics, cognitivism is the philosophical view that ethical sentences express propositions, and hence are capable of being true or false....
 in psychology and functionalism
Functionalism

Functionalism may refer to:* Functionalism * Functionalism * Functionalism versus intentionalism * Functionalism In social sciences:...
 in philosophy although the terms are not quite synonymous. Information processing may be sequential or parallel, either of which may be centralized or decentralized (distributed). The parallel distributed processing approach of the mid-1980s became popular under the name connectionism
Connectionism

Connectionism is a set of approaches in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience and philosophy of mind, that models mind or behavior phenomena as the emergence of interconnected networks of simple units....
. In the early 1950s Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich Hayek

Friedrich August von Hayek Order of the Companions of Honour was an Austrian economist and philosopher known throughout the world for his defense of classical liberalism and free market capitalism against socialism and collectivism thought....
 was ahead of his time when he posited the idea of spontaneous order in the brain arising out of decentralized networks of simple units (neurons). However, Hayek
Friedrich Hayek

Friedrich August von Hayek Order of the Companions of Honour was an Austrian economist and philosopher known throughout the world for his defense of classical liberalism and free market capitalism against socialism and collectivism thought....
 is rarely cited in the literature of connectionism
Connectionism

Connectionism is a set of approaches in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience and philosophy of mind, that models mind or behavior phenomena as the emergence of interconnected networks of simple units....
.

In the 1970s, Abraham Moles
Abraham Moles

Abraham Moles was an engineer of electrical engineering and acoustics, and a doctor of physics and philosophy. He was one of the first researchers to establish and analyze links between aesthetics and information theory....
 and Frieder Nake
Frieder Nake

Frieder Nake is a professor for computer graphics at the department for computer science at the University of Bremen and visiting professor for hypermedia design at the University of the Arts Bremen....
 were among the first to establish and analyze links between information processing and aesthetics
Aesthetics

Aesthetics or esthetics is commonly known as the study of senses or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste ....
.

See also

  • Educational psychology
    Educational psychology

    Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations....
  • Information Processing Language
    Information Processing Language

    Information Processing Language is a programming language developed by Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw, and Herbert Simon at RAND Corporation and the Carnegie Institute of Technology from about 1956....
    s (IPL), by Newell
    Allen Newell

    Allen Newell was a researcher in computer science and cognitive psychology at the RAND corporation and at Carnegie Mellon University?s Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, Tepper School of Business, and Department of Psychology....
    , Shaw
    Cliff Shaw

    J.C. Shaw was a systems programmer at the RAND Corporation. He is a coauthor of the first artificial intelligence program, the Logic Theorist, and was one of the developers of Information Processing Language, a programming language of the 1950s....
    , and Simon
    Herbert Simon

    Herbert Alexander Simon was an United States psychologist whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, computer science, public administration, economics, management, philosophy of science and sociology and was a professor, most notably, at Carnegie Mellon University....
  • Information Processor
    Information processor

    An information processor or information processing system, as its name suggests, is a system which takes information in one form and Information processinges it into another form, e.g....
  • Information processing theory
    Information processing theory

    The information processing theory approach to the study of cognitive development evolved out of the American experimental tradition in psychology....
  • Information science
    Information science

    Information science is an interdisciplinarity science primarily concerned with the collection, Categorization, manipulation, storage, information retrieval and dissemination of information....


Bibliography

  • Lehrl, S., and Fischer, B. (1990), "A Basic Information Psychological Parameter (BIP) for the Reconstruction of Concepts of Intelligence", European Journal of Personality, 4, 259-286.
  • Allen Newell
    Allen Newell

    Allen Newell was a researcher in computer science and cognitive psychology at the RAND corporation and at Carnegie Mellon University?s Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, Tepper School of Business, and Department of Psychology....
     (1990), Unified Theories of Cognition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
  • Frieder Nake
    Frieder Nake

    Frieder Nake is a professor for computer graphics at the department for computer science at the University of Bremen and visiting professor for hypermedia design at the University of the Arts Bremen....
     (1974). Ästhetik als Informationsverarbeitung. (Aesthetics
    Aesthetics

    Aesthetics or esthetics is commonly known as the study of senses or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste ....
     as information processing
    Information processing

    Information processing is the change of information in any manner detectable by an observation. As such, it is a Process which describes everything which happens in the universe, from the falling of a rock to the printing of a text file from a digital computer system....
    ). Springer, 1974, ISBN 3211812164, ISBN 9783211812167


External links

  • Herbert Simon
    Herbert Simon

    Herbert Alexander Simon was an United States psychologist whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, computer science, public administration, economics, management, philosophy of science and sociology and was a professor, most notably, at Carnegie Mellon University....
    ,