Information processing

Information processing refers to the cognitive and organizational activities involved in acquiring, transforming, storing, retrieving, and using information to make decisions and take actions (Simon H.A. 1978, p.272)^[1]. The human mind doesn't simply absorb data—it filters, categorizes, interprets, and reconstructs. A single news report passes through attention filters, connects to existing knowledge, gets encoded in memory, and may later influence a decision the person barely remembers forming. Organizations do something similar at larger scale, with departments acting as sensory organs and management as the processing core.

The information processing perspective revolutionized how psychologists understand cognition and how management theorists understand organizations. Rather than treating the mind as a black box or organizations as simple input-output machines, information processing theory examines the mechanisms in between. What happens when information enters a system? How is it transformed? What determines what gets stored and what gets lost?

Theoretical foundations

The information processing approach emerged from several intellectual streams:

Computer metaphor. After World War II, digital computers provided a compelling model for mental operations. The mind, like a computer, receives input, processes it according to rules, stores results, and produces output. Newell and Simon's 1972 work on human problem solving formalized this analogy^[2].

Cybernetics. Norbert Wiener's work on feedback systems influenced information processing concepts. Systems that sense their environment, compare current states to goals, and adjust behavior based on discrepancies provided a template for understanding adaptive behavior.

Communication theory. Shannon and Weaver's mathematical theory of communication (1949) introduced concepts like channel capacity, noise, and encoding that transferred readily to cognitive contexts.

Bounded rationality. Herbert Simon argued that human decision-makers lack the computational capacity for optimal choices. Instead, they satisfice—finding solutions that are good enough given processing limitations. This insight made information processing constraints central to understanding behavior.

Cognitive information processing

At the individual level, information processing follows recognizable stages:

Sensory input

The senses continuously receive environmental information. Vision processes millions of bits per second; hearing handles tens of thousands. But attention bottlenecks drastically limit what proceeds further. Most sensory information decays within milliseconds without reaching awareness^[3].

Selective attention. The cocktail party effect demonstrates how we filter: a person engaged in conversation can suddenly detect their name spoken across a crowded room. Attention operates like a spotlight, illuminating some inputs while leaving others in darkness.

Sensory memory. Brief storage holds sensory information for fractions of a second (iconic memory for vision, echoic for hearing). This provides a buffer allowing further processing to begin before raw input fades.

Working memory

Information that captures attention enters working memory—a limited-capacity system for active manipulation:

Capacity limits. Miller's famous 1956 paper established "the magical number seven, plus or minus two" as working memory's span for unstructured items. Subsequent research suggests even lower limits—perhaps three or four chunks.

Chunking. Experts overcome capacity limits through chunking—organizing information into meaningful units. A chess master sees board positions as familiar patterns rather than 32 individual pieces.

Maintenance and manipulation. Working memory doesn't just hold information; it transforms it. Mental arithmetic, language comprehension, and reasoning all require active working memory operations.

Long-term memory

Information surviving working memory processing may be encoded for long-term storage:

Encoding. Deeper processing produces stronger memories. Elaborative encoding—connecting new information to existing knowledge—outperforms simple repetition^[4].

Storage organization. Long-term memory appears organized into networks of associated concepts. Semantic memory stores factual knowledge; episodic memory preserves personal experiences; procedural memory retains skills and habits.

Retrieval. Accessing stored information requires appropriate cues. Context-dependent memory demonstrates that retrieval improves when environmental cues match those present during encoding.

Decision and output

Processed information ultimately guides action:

Response selection. Multiple possible responses compete based on information processed and goals activated.

Executive functions. Higher-order processes coordinate lower-level operations—planning sequences, inhibiting inappropriate responses, monitoring performance.

Organizational information processing

Organizations face analogous challenges at collective scale:

Organizational attention

Organizations, like individuals, cannot process all available information:

Environmental scanning. Boundary-spanning units—sales forces, market research departments, strategic planning groups—sense external conditions. What they attend to determines what the organization "sees"^[5].

Attention allocation. Organizational agenda-setting determines which issues receive processing resources. Problems compete for managerial attention, and attention scarcity means many issues go unaddressed.

Filtering and gatekeeping. Information flows through hierarchies, with each level filtering what passes upward. Middle managers decide what executives need to know—sometimes accurately, sometimes self-servingly.

Organizational memory

Organizations store and retrieve knowledge through various mechanisms:

Formal records. Documents, databases, and filing systems preserve explicit knowledge. These provide organizational memory independent of personnel turnover.

Routines. Standard operating procedures encode procedural knowledge. Organizations "remember" how to do things through established routines even when no individual remembers why procedures developed.

Culture. Shared beliefs and values function as organizational schema—frameworks for interpreting new information. Culture shapes what information means and how it connects to action^[6].

Personnel. Individual employees carry knowledge in their heads. When experts leave, organizations lose information even if documents remain.

Organizational decision-making

Organizations process information to reach decisions:

Information aggregation. Combining information from multiple sources requires mechanisms—meetings, reports, committees, information systems. Each mechanism has characteristic biases and limitations.

Interpretation. Raw data requires interpretation before becoming actionable. Different functions interpret the same information differently based on their perspectives and interests.

Politics and conflict. Unlike the computer metaphor suggests, organizational information processing involves competing interests. Information becomes ammunition in political battles over resources and strategies.

Information processing capacity

Systems face inherent processing limits:

Channel capacity. Communication channels have maximum throughput rates. Exceeding capacity causes information loss or delays.

Processing bottlenecks. Sequential processing stages create bottlenecks. A slow stage constrains overall system throughput regardless of other stages' capacity^[7].

Overload responses. Systems overloaded with information respond predictably: filtering becomes more aggressive, processing becomes shallower, and errors increase. Organizations facing information overload often miss critical signals.

Capacity expansion strategies. Organizations can increase capacity through technology (information systems), structure (specialized units), or process (routines that simplify decisions).

Applications

Information processing perspectives inform multiple domains:

Education

Learning involves encoding information for later retrieval. Instructional design based on information processing principles emphasizes managing cognitive load, activating prior knowledge, and promoting elaborative processing.

Human-computer interaction

Interface design must accommodate human information processing limitations. Menu structures, display layouts, and interaction sequences reflect human attention, working memory, and learning constraints.

Organizational design

Galbraith's (1973) information processing view of organizations suggests structure should match information processing requirements. Uncertain environments demand greater processing capacity; complex tasks require more information integration^[8].

Artificial intelligence

Computational models of cognition attempt to replicate human information processing. Expert systems, machine learning, and neural networks all draw on information processing concepts.

Limitations and critiques

The information processing approach faces criticism:

Emotion neglect. Early information processing models largely ignored affect. Subsequent research demonstrates that emotion pervades cognition—influencing attention, memory, and decision-making in ways pure computational models miss.

Embodiment. The computer metaphor abstracts cognition from its biological substrate. Embodied cognition perspectives argue that thinking is inseparable from bodily experience and environmental interaction.

Social context. Individual information processing models may miss how social context shapes cognition. Distributed cognition perspectives examine how groups process information collectively.

Cultural variation. Information processing assumptions may reflect Western cultural biases. Cross-cultural research suggests some cognitive processes vary across populations.

Information processing — recommended articles

Decision making — Organizational learning — Knowledge management — Cognitive psychology

References

• Simon H.A. (1978), Rationality as Process and as Product of Thought, American Economic Review, Vol. 68, No. 2.
• Newell A., Simon H.A. (1972), Human Problem Solving, Prentice-Hall.
• Galbraith J.R. (1973), Designing Complex Organizations, Addison-Wesley.
• Miller G.A. (1956), The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two, Psychological Review, Vol. 63.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Simon H.A. (1978), Rationality as Process, p.272
2. ↑ Newell A., Simon H.A. (1972), Human Problem Solving, pp.1-35
3. ↑ Miller G.A. (1956), The Magical Number Seven, pp.81-97
4. ↑ Simon H.A. (1978), Rationality as Process, pp.278-285
5. ↑ Galbraith J.R. (1973), Designing Complex Organizations, pp.34-56
6. ↑ Newell A., Simon H.A. (1972), Human Problem Solving, pp.456-478
7. ↑ Simon H.A. (1978), Rationality as Process, pp.286-292
8. ↑ Galbraith J.R. (1973), Designing Complex Organizations, pp.78-112

Author: Sławomir Wawak