My Idea about Sequence of Information Processing Model

    The first three lectures give us many ideas about the concepts of social networks, which make me realize that social networks are not only Facebook or RenRen(which is widely used in mainland China),but also include Yahoo, Amazon, Twitter and other websites.

     In addition to these websites mentioned above, the more important ideas are the notions that related to the designing and strategies of a social network. It is not only technical issue, but also refer to psychology, sociology, philosophy and others subjects. All of these recall me about the idea that we human beings are social animals. Except these, the knowledge of three levels of cognitive is significant and can be used to design a charming websites, especially what can be attained by a good design on the epistemic cognitive level.

    In the second lecture of course IEMS5720, we learned the model about sequence of information processing, which stimulated my interest and reflection. Here is the model:

    The model above can explain many phenomena we met during our ordinary lives and studies. For example, when we learn some thing new like a new English word “cholesterol”. At first, we will look for this unfamiliar word by using dictionary and the explanation gives us its main meaning and its grammar, I think it is the perception step. Then we try to remember it and associate the new word with our old knowledge, In order to make it be our “own” word, we need to categorize the word into different categories by its meaning or usage, like to categorize it as a word of medicine area, I consider this procedure as the initial encoding and categorization stage. After few days, it maybe very cool when we recall “cholesterol” from our memory and use it. We call this step “behavioral response ”.

    But, I still think there should be a feedback from our behavior response, which can be used to update our “coding and categorization” part directly. Let us use the example “cholesterol” again. The step initial encoding or categorization may not always correct, somehow we may categorize “cholesterol”  as a word in engineering or remember it as “colestero”, hence the incorrect encoding or categorization will lead to incorrect memory or organized knowledge. Therefore, we will use it incorrectly. For example, here is another stimulus event, because of the incorrect memory, English teacher will point out the mistake and tell you more about the word, which I think will affect the step “initial encoding and categorization” and update the old memory and incorrect organized knowledge. So the feedbacks from our own behavioral responses and their consequences are other factors that affect our information processing process. Here is the model that considering feedback:

(click here)




  This model takes the idea from closed-loop control structure from control theory, which derived from output and input and tells us how to use error to achieve the output we want. Also, in order to digest new knowledge, we should put new knowledge into practice and use it, as what Karl Marx says. He points out the importance of practice and its significance in the exploration of the world by human beings.