How the Brain Processes Information

Knowing how the brain processes information and learns can help all educators plan lessons so that students are more likely to understand and retain new concepts and skills. Below is a model of how our brains process information.

The Information Processing Model

The Information Processing Model represents a simplified explanation of how the brain deals with information from the environment. Information from the senses passes through sensory register to immediate memory and then on to working memory for conscious processing. If the learner attaches sense and meaning to the learning, it is likely to be stored. The self-concept often determines how much attention the learner will give new information. See below for more discussion on this complex process and the implications for teaching.

Model by David Sousa, adapted from Robert Stahl

The Senses

Our body has special sensory receptors that detect internal signals however, in The Information Processing Model, we focus only on the five external senses for simplicity.

Our brain takes in more information in a day than a typical computer does in a year. Sight, hearing, and touch (kinesthetic experiences) contribute the most to our learning over a lifetime.

Sensory Register

Given the amount of information that our senses detect every moment, our brain has a sensory register that filters information based on how important it is. Think of how a partially closed venetian blind works to block out some sunlight while allowing some light to pass through. Most data signals detect by our senses are unimportant and therefore, dropped out of the processing system.

Short-Term Memory

Short-Term Memory is made of the immediate memory and working memory. Information is processed in short-term memory if it passes through the sensory register.

Immediate Memory

The immediate memory holds sensory data that was not discarded. Information is held on this "clipboard" for about 30 seconds before the brain decides to keep it or discard it. If you ask for a phone number and then dial it to reach your intended party, your immediate memory stored the sequence of numbers just as long as it was useful and relevant for you. Then your immediate memory discards the information because it no longer perceives it as useful. This is why you will not remember the phone number an hour later.

Emotions and threats play a large role on the immediate memory. You might hear a police siren while watching Law & Order on TV one night. But the next day, you may not be able to recall if the show featured a police siren. However, if you are at work or home and hear sirens, your brain connects sirens to danger and perceives threat. It will likely be easy for you to recall hearing the siren the next day because your brain stores this same information (the sounds of a siren) only because it perceived a threat. In fact, you might be able to tell in great detail where you were, who was with you, and what someone was even saying at the exact moment that the sounds of the siren was detected. This is the same reason why some of our staff can remember exactly where we were when we learned about the attack on September 11, 2001 but cannot remember which shoes we wore to work yesterday.

Because threats play such an integral role in our ability to process information, creating environments where students feel safe and secure is critical. Students must feel physically safe and emotionally secure before they can access the curriculum. Students must be able to sense that their teachers want to help them be right over catching them being wrong.

The brain will always prioritize information/data in this hierarchy:

Am I physically safe?
Am I emotionally secure?
Is there new learning my brain can engage in?

The trickiest part of this hierarchy is that the physical safety and emotional security of one is not always the same of the other. You may have felt deeply unsafe and insecure when the pandemic hit in March 2020 and therefore, unable to process important information for your job while your colleague might have carried on as "business as usual." This is because our brain perceives threats depending on our past experiences and no two past experiences are exactly alike.

Working Memory

The working memory is just like a work table or work station. It holds a limited amount of items and is the place where our brains build, take apart, and rework ideas. Information comes into working memory from two places: the sensory and immediate memory, described above, and from long-term memory, which will be explained below.

The central executive of the working memory drives the whole system (e.g., it's the boss of working memory) and allocates data to the subsystems: the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, and the episodic buffer. It also deals with cognitive tasks such as mental arithmetic and problem-solving.

The visuospatial sketchpad is a component of working memory model which stores and processes information in a visual or spatial form. The visuospatial sketchpad is used for navigation.

The phonological loop is a component of working memory model that deals with spoken and written material. It is subdivided into the phonological store (which holds information in a speech-based form) and the articulatory process (which allows us to repeat verbal information in a loop).

Because our brains rely on these two main components of working memory, using verbal and visual information combined is one of the most powerful pedagogical practices.

The episodic buffer integrates the phonological loop (information heard) and visuospatial sketchpad (information seen) with a sense of time, so that things occur in a continuing sequence, like a story from a book or movie. This explains why memories can be experienced as a coordinated sequence of events rather than as discrete segments.

Putting it Together

Consider these facts about working memory:

Children younger than 5 years old can hold about 1-2 pieces of information in working memory.
Children between 5 and through adolescence can hold about 3-5 pieces of information in working memory.
Adults can hold about 3-5 pieces of information in working memory.
Information is stored in working memory for about 5-10 minutes for preadolescents and between 10-20 minutes for adolescents and adults.

Reflect: What are the implications for teaching when considering for the amount of information and length of a lesson (introducing new information)? (HINT: Less is more!)

From working memory to long-term storage

This simple diagram shows the relationships between sense making, meaning making, and probability of storing information into long-term memory.

Just because information makes its way into working memory does not mean that the brain decides to encode it into long-term storage. The brain will ask two questions before deciding if information is saved or rejected:

Does this make sense? New information makes sense when we have the sufficient foundation to build new learning. This is why prerequisite skills and knowledge are critical to students successfully understanding more complex skills and concepts. Sense making also occurs when our brains connect new learning to something that is familiar. That is why activating prior knowledge is crucial for students to learn new concepts.
Does this have meaning? If items are relevant for learners, the likelihood of long term storage increases. When a student asks, "Why do I have to know this?" or "When will I ever use this?" indicate that a students brain is not making new information relevant. (The student is also verbalizing what his/her/their brain is trying to answer!) Activating prior knowledge and/or building background knowledge are two ways in which teachers can help students make meaning of new learning.

Sense and meaning are independent of one another. You can learn something that makes sense but has no meaning and vice-versa. Of the two criteria, meaning has the greater impact on the probability that information is stored. Consider the following: You might not remember much about a TV show you watched yesterday even though it made sense at the time. However, there are details of a TV show watched months ago that you can remember because the show profoundly by reminding you of a personal experience.

Reflect: As you plan lessons, think about how much time you spend planning for new concepts to make sense to students. How does this compare to the amount of time you spend planning for new concepts to have meaning for students?

Recall that long term storage is represented by file cabinets. Information from working memory (the messy working table where new ideas were built, taken apart, and reworked) is encoded into long-term storage in some type of order by our long-term memory. The hippocampus is responsible for this.

Long-term memory is a dynamic, and interactive system and the number of long-term storage sites is unknown (but it is more than the three represented on the model). Memories are not stored as a whole in one site. Rather, different parts of memories are stored in different sites and then reassembled when the memory is recalled.

Our cognitive belief system, or our thoughts and understanding about the world, is developed by information in long-term storage. Because different brains put experiences together in different ways, our cognitive belief systems are different from one another. For example, most people agree on the concept of gravity because we experience it everyday. However, people have deep disagreements about social issues and this is often a result of differing cognitive belief systems.

Even though sense and meaning play the largest role in determining whether information is encoded into long-term storage, notice that self-concept also "lives" in long-term storage. Self-concept is actually deep within our cognitive belief systems and is it how we see ourselves in relation to the world. Past experiences shape our self-concept. Even adults say, "I'm not a math person" based on experiences in a math classroom 20 years ago. If we had a significant relationship in which a partner lied or cheated, we might develop a self-concept that we are unworthy.

The powerful part about self-concept is that it can control the venetian blinds (sensory register) and cause a learner to immediately shutdown to new learning. Even though we can change our self-concept or override the messages from our self-concept, we have all seen students who easily "shut down" even before attempting a task or learning with the explanation of, "I'm just not good at this." This is why building and supporting positive self-concept through students' formative years is so critical.

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