Human Cognitive Architecture as an Intelligent Natural Information Processing System

Human cognitive architecture represents an intelligent natural information processing system that is described by six operational principles: <i>information store, randomness as genesis, borrowing and reorganizing, narrow limits of change, environmental organizing and linking, and explicit intention to learn principles</i>. The last principle, added recently, is critical, as it distinguishes this system from other, lower-level natural information-processing systems and is responsible for controlled information processing and explicit learning as opposed to implicit cognitive mechanisms of lower-level systems. The paper provides a theoretical overview of the updated model of intelligent natural information processing systems. In this model, the explicit intention to learn principle affects the operation of other principles and is directly related to intelligence as an emergent characteristic of such systems. Human intelligence and explicit, intentional learning (and motivation that is required for such learning to happen) caused the emergence of human culture on a distinct, grand scale in the process of transition from biological to cultural evolution. The paper concludes with some important educational implications emanating from the new model focusing on strengthening human intelligence.