ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the limitations of Shannon and Weaver information theory (SWIT) for characterizing mental information and subjective notions of information. It proposes a new theory and measure of information based on the laws and principles of conceptual behavior. The greater the knowledge increase, the more informative is the entity that stimulates the increase. This common view of information, referred as naive informationalism, suggests that information is partly subjective in nature. Naive informationalism offers a tenable explanation as to why scientists from a wide range of disciplines, from physics to psychology and from biology to computer science, use the term information to refer to specific types of knowledge that characterize their particular domain of research. The chapter characterizes Representational information theory (RIT) and generalized representational information theory (GRIT) as theories whose aim is to account for people's judgments and perceptions as to the amount and quality of information conveyed by objects, events, situations, and phenomena in the environment.
