Activity 4.1: Input, Sensory Registers, and Pinker

Activity 4.1: Input, Sensory Registers, and Pinker

Pinker states very simply that “The brain is an information-processing system” (slide 20). James adds, “To remember, one must think to connect” (slide 57). Context is critical to the learning process in which the learner “selects relevant information” organizes it “into a coherent whole” then “integrates that information with appropriate existing knowledge” (slide 56). With the dual-memory model, control processes move information or input, through sensory registers, short and long-term memory, and retrieval. Characteristics effecting information processing are, “clarity and complexity, role of prior knowledge, and time” (slide 39). How we perceive reality, in terms of attention, context, physical and psychological environment, imagery, and meaningfulness is important to how we acquire knowledge, and make sense of data we take in. I like Pinker’s (2002) discussion about stereotypes that they exist because our minds create categories corresponding to experiences we take in from reality. Some categories are “socially constructed” (i.e. race, gender, danger, AIDS, dementia). Sometimes our minds lump things together based on shared characteristics. People are individuals, and do not want to be lumped into a category resulting in prejudices, until more experience and exposure, new data, creates a new reality, thus changing the stereotype.