Information Processing Blog Post 2

On the first day of school, little Becca wants to learn her teacher’s name. She is fortunate enough to have me, Miss Pinkston, as her teacher for this school year. I greet the class, and write my name (input) on the board. As Becca sees it, the visual representation of my name in chalk enters her sensory memory. She chooses to pay attention and try to learn this information before the loss of the sensory memory can occur. She writes down a list of all the teachers she has ever had with my name at the bottom, chunking me into a set of teachers with whom she is familiar. She temporarily forgets my name, as she has failed to encode it, and looks back at the board. She comes up to my desk to ask a question and practices, or rehearses, using my name to address me. Eventually, when Becca notices that I wore a bright pink sweater, she is able to pair the pink sweater with the name Pinkston and encodes the information. She is now able to retrieve this information to tell her mother about her day. Because it is in her long-term memory now, she also is able to use this information for the rest of the year.