The media and cognitive information processing

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The media and cognitive information processing

• Theory and research in cognitive effects of the
  mass media

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Psychology

• One of the great questions is How do we think?
• It involves the mind-body duality
• It relates to human ascendance and mastery
• It presents us with a powerful tool for good or
  ill

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• Psychologists have struggled with the question
  since the inception of the discipline
• One early group of psychologists tried to
  determine what goes on inside the mind
• Methods of introspection
• Freudianism

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• Another group declared that only behavior that
  the researcher could see was an appropriate
  domain of research
• Experimentation
• Watson/Behaviorism

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New emphasis on the black box

• Beginning in the late 1950s and accelerating
  through the 60s and 70s, a paradigm known as
  cognitive information processing developed
• Rejected behaviorisms rules limiting acceptable
  study to observable behavior
• However, tried to use more traditional scientific
  methods to study what goes on inside peoples
  heads

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Cognitive information processing

• An attempt to map the inner workings of the brain
  using carefully constructed experiments and
  scientific techniques
• Experimental studies
• Memory studies
• Physiological measures (more recent)
• Brain imaging
• Case studies of people with mental disorders
• Brain damage

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Cognitive information processing

• Combination of three influences
• Computers/information processing
• Information theory
• Cognitive psychology
• Dominant paradigm in current psychological theory
  and research

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A number of recurrent findings

• Limited capacity
• Different kinds of memories
• Visual
• Auditory
• Meaning (semantic)
• Ability to recall memories from childhood, etc.
  during brain surgery
• Brain damage in certain areas leads to short-term
  memory loss, etc.

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Recurrent findings

• Automatic reactions to light, loud sound, etc.
• Ability to focus attention on certain things
• Impact on memory
• Similar mistakes made in tasks
• Sources of confusion, distraction
• Forgetting

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Major approaches

• Structures approach
• Process approach
• Schematic approach

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Series of actions

• Perception
• Sensory reaction
• Human limitations/abilities
• Pattern matching
• Comparison with stored information to identify
  objects, words, etc.

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Sensory limitations

• Wolfen

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Pattern recognition
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Pattern recognition

• Apocalypse Now

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Dual processing

• Sound and visual information are encoded
  separately but simultaneously
• If they are mutually supportive memory is
  enhanced
• If they are contradictory or just unrelated,
  memory for the content may be reduced

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• Rehearsal
• Repetition
• Elaborative rehearsal
• Encoding
• Laying down a memory trace
• Primacy/recency
• Trace strength (intensity)
• Schematization

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Schema

• Most CIP theorists argue that networks of
  concepts are maintained in memory
• These networks develop as the individual grows
  and gains experience, learns, etc.
• Each individual develops a unique set of schema

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• Knowledge acquisition is guided by existing
  schema
• What to pay attention to
• What the new information is related to
• What the object of attention means
• Action is guided by schema

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• Retrieval
• Matching current information with stored
  information
• Memory loss may be inability to find information
  rather than actual decay
• Ability to effectively match stored info and new
  info crucial
• Interpretation is the effectiveness of matching
• Must have appropriate and well-formed schema in
  memory to draw upon

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Attention

• Attention is the allocation of processing effort
• Attention is crucial for moving information
  through the series of transformations necessary
  to remember and use information
• Without attention, there will be no consciousness
  or memory of experience, no response, no reasoning

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Attention allocation

• Attention can be allocated either automatically
  or intentionally
• Certain stimuli draw attention without conscious
  intent on the part of the audience member
• Novelty, intensity, movement, danger
• Other stimuli draw attention based on interests,
  needs, etc. of the audience member
• Ranges from conscious control to relatively
  automatic

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Automatic attention
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• Other stimuli draw attention based on interests,
  needs, etc. of the audience member
• Ranges from conscious control to relatively
  automatic
• Most such attention allocation is based on
  personal relevance, likely impact on yourself or
  valued others, moral implications, emotionality
  or personal interest

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Personal relevance

• Relation to your background, demographic
  characteristics, life history
• For example, a story about Kentucky may hold
  special interest for Kentuckians
• Ratings for television shows are significantly
  higher in towns they portray
• Drew Carey in Chicago
• Designing Women in Atlanta
• Fargo

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Likely impact

• This is probably most clearly tied to news
• National v. local
• Local news watchers often are interested in
  socially rather unimportant events
• Local sports
• Graduations
• Traffic accidents
• Weather
• News is supposed to provide information that
  allows the public to make wise democratic choices
• Its success is hotly debated

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Moral implications

• When your values are implicated in a cop story,
  news, reality show, etc., you are more likely to
  attend to the content

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Emotionality

• Portrayal of some emotional content draws fairly
  automatic attention, while other types are
  learnedwell address this later in the semester
• Fight or flight emotions
• Social emotions

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Personal interest

• Nature v. nurture
• Personal experience generates unique schema that
  influence attention
• May develop a taste for rap music or for
  orchestral music
• May gain a taste for science-fiction
• Childhood experience may generate a positive
  attitude toward books, reading, etc. and help the
  child learn to focus on plot, etc.

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Personal interest

• Topical
• Sports narratives v. romance v. horror

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Personal background

• Attention is directed by existing knowledge and
  interests
• Based on genetics and/or experience
• Individual differences are probably more heavily
  related to experience
• Interests
• Personal needs/life stage
• Generational experience

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• New information is encoded more easily if a
  well-formed schema is available that relates to
  the new informationwill tend to draw attention
  to new information that corresponds to existing
  knowledge
• Likely source of much of the selectivity (limited
  effects) findings

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Schema

• The schema chosen to interpret the new
  information largely determine its meaning
• People will interpret the same content in
  different ways
• Meaning is at least somewhat individual
• Through the socialization process, people learn
  similar schemas for topic domains

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Schema

• When the audience member applies a schema unlike
  that of the producer to a text, she is often said
  to have misinterpreted or distorted the
  meaning of the text
• If we look at it differently, it is simply a case
  of meaning formation like any other

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Long-term memory

• Once the information has been interpreted, it
  enters into long-term memory in the adjusted
  schema
• The information may be retrieved in response to
  new information in the working memory that is
  determined to be related to it

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• The likelihood of being retrieved varies with
• Recency of activation
• Frequency of activation
• Strength of memory trace
• Related concepts in schema

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