09.25.06
TIP.org: Information Processing Theory, George Miller.
TIP.org: Information Processing Theory, George Miller.
This article gave a brief overview of George Miller’s most well known contributions to psychological theory. These are “chunking” and TOTE (Test-Operate-Test-Exit). The first relates mainly to working/short-term memory while the later has many applications.
Again, I’m teaching TE 150 this semester, we just covered chunking, and in undergrad I taught an intro psych lecture on memory so “chunking” is one of those concepts close to my heart. It is one of those things that are so simple that you don’t think about it until directed to.
Though I had not previously been formally introduced to TOTE it is a simple explanation of natural processes (behavioral or mental) so it is also intriguing in that kind of “huh, I never thought about that in that way before” kind of way. It reminded me of those step-by-step decision making models in elementary and middle school textbooks. The language of TOTE is different however. The decision making model was to be used to frame decision making in and was made from the inside looking out, while TOTE has the feeling in the language of someone from another field looking in.
