This paper examines information processing theory as a framework for understanding cognitive development across the lifespan. Drawing primarily on Miller (2002), it contrasts the information processing approach with Piaget's developmental theory, highlights the influence of computer science and Noam Chomsky's linguistic theory, and traces how children's executive processes, working memory, long-term memory, and language skills evolve with age. The paper also discusses key cognitive mechanisms — including visuospatial and phonological systems, task analysis, processing speed, memory strategies, and metamemory — that characterize each developmental stage and shape input–output relationships in the developing mind.
Information processing theory might view the human mind as a kind of computer, but even this construct allows that the cognitive development stage of the individual can affect how the brain processes information. In contrast to Piaget's theory of development — which was derived by studying a relatively narrow range of subjects — information processing theory is more expansive (which is why some people resist calling it a theory at all) and instead uses experimental evidence about the brain and functions such as memory. The nature of the "hardware" of the brain will affect perceptions (input), and thus output (responses) will also be affected by developmental stages (Miller 2002: 246).
When a child perceives information for the first time, that information can then be transformed, manipulated, and used in different ways. Information processing theorists study how this data is deployed (Miller 2002: 246). Like Piaget and previous developmental theorists, they often ask how children of given ages have come as far as they have, and why they have not gone further, until the brain exhibits further development (Miller 2002: 247). However, it should be noted that stages of development as they relate to age are not the only concern of information processing theorists. Rather than focusing solely on children, information processing theorists are also interested in the different ways adults perceive and take in information about the world around them. In fact, the approach has been called the first major revolution in the study of how adults — not just children — see and interpret the world.
Two major concepts about human development influenced information processing theorists. The first was the development of computers: machines that seemed to simulate human processing, even though they were not recognizably human. The second was the influence of linguistic theorists, who illustrated that merely studying how humans processed nonsense syllables was not sufficient to understand the input/output model of language. The linguistic theorist Noam Chomsky proposed that the "essence of language is a set of underlying abstract rules that generate sentences" (Miller 2002: 269).
Gradually, human beings acquire these rules as infants, and the human brain appears to be hard-wired to excel at such information processing. The capacity to be creative with language changes and evolves with age, making it very difficult to fully study the development of language — or, indeed, the acquisition of any complex system of knowledge — given that language input can only be inferred from observable outputs (Miller 2002: 269).
"How knowledge states change with development"
"Memory strategies, speed, and metamemory across childhood"
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