Chapter 12 Flashcards
Piaget formal operation phase
- Spans 7-11 years old
* Children start using mental operations to solve problems
What are the characteristics of mental operations in the formal operational phase?
- These mental operations are strategies and rules that make thinking more systematic and powerful
- Some apply to numbers (addition, multiplication, division, subtraction)
- Some apply to the categorisation of objects (mother + father = parents)
- Some are special – if A is near point B and C then B and C must be near to one another
- They give concrete operational thinking a rule-based logic that is missing in preoperational thought
- If applies correctly, they give consistent results (2+2=4 anytime)
- They can be reversed, for Piaget, the ability to reverse the operations was an important part of cognitive maturity
What happens to egocentricism in the formal operational phase?
- They are no longer egocentric; they do not do centration and they do not confuse appearances with reality
- Egocentricism wanes with exposure to friends and their other perspectives (LeMare,& Ribin, 1987)
- Learning that events can be interpreted in other ways shows children that problems have other aspects that must be considered and that appearances can be deceiving
Is there a type of child who is likely to stay egocentric?
• Aggressive kids remain more egocentric, intellectually gifted kids are less
Is there a limit to concrete operational thought?
• Concrete Operational is limited in that it is only concerned with the here and now in practical ways – no abstract thought and no hypothetical thought
What is the information processing account of middle childhood?
Information Processing account of Middle Childhood
• Children’s memory increases rapidly in middle childhood because of two factors; strategies for remembering and children’s growing factual knowledge of the world – can organise info better and hence, remember more
What is a memory strategy
• Memory strategies are activities that improve remembering
How do memory strategies develop in children?
- Children use memory strategies early; preschool children look or touch objects they have been told to remember – not effective but show that they understand they should be trying to do something to enhance memory, it is not automatic
- 7-8 year olds use rehearsal – repeatedly naming information that must be learned
- As they go through middle childhood, they get better at picking strategies
- Kids also learn to organize information better: e.g. when learning main points, not details, rehearsal sucks but making a summary and notes works
Can you improve children’s memories?
experiment
It is possible to teach them these earlier. Ackerman (1996) tested recall in 7 & 11 years old, tested recall with three-word triplets that were relates (e.g. pig-horse-cow) and taught them to retrieve the 3 word in the triplet. 11 year olds out performed 7 year olds but both improved – kids can improve memory with strategies young
Do children always pick the best memory strategy and how does this change with age?
• Children (younger ones) sometimes pick the wrong strategy i.e. they try to use rehearsal to remember a gist when summary notes would be better (Lovette & Pillow, 1996)
What is monitoring?
- After children choose a memory strategy, they need to monitor it to check it Is working
- Through monitoring, they learn to accurately ID what info they have not learned and can focus on that material (Kail, 1990)
What is the sequence for all monitoring?
• There is a sequence for all monitoring
- Determine the goal
- Select a strategy
- Use the strategy
- Monitor the strategy
How does growing (or specialist knowledge) impact memory?
Experiment
- Michelene Chi (1978) asked 10-year olds and adults to remember a sequence of numbers and a sequence of positions/locations
- Adults were better at numbers, kids at positions
- Why? Kids were chess players and the positions were recognizable configurations on a chessboard
- Kids had specialised knowledge that allowed them to organise and remember better
- When people have expert knowledge of a topic, they are better at recalling it in an organised manner
How does growing (or specialist knowledge) impact memory?
- Learning new material is harder than learning material that fits into an already organized system
- The knowledge that allows a child to organize things increases with age (Schneider & Bjorklund, 1998)
What are the two ways of depicting knowledge?
- Can be depicted as a network (like a mind map) or as a script a memory structure used to describe the sequence in which events occur
- Younger children would have a network with fewer entries and links and hence organising cannot be done as extensively
- This makes learning new things harder as they cannot be integrated into a network
The 3 features of a memory network (using the example of a 10 year old’s knowledge of animals)
1 - membership to categories (a dog is a type of an animal)
2 - Properties (a dog CAN bark, HAS 4 legs, CAN be walked etc)
3 - Scripts (when walking a dog you must A use a lead B carry a poop bag etc)
Information processing elements that aid memory
four things
Strategies - eg rehearsal
Monitoring - is it working, what do I not know?
Knowledge - Understanding the relations between things promotes memory by organizing things to be remembered
Scripts - Memory structures that allow people to remember events that occur in a specified order
Does knowledge always help memory?
• BUT knowledge can also distort memory; if something does not conform to kids’ knowledge it is more likely to be forgotten
• Stories including a helicopter pilot are likely to be remembered as men pilots because the child’s network says helicopter pilots are men (Levy & Boston, 1994)
• Same with scripts
If you cannot remember a day you might think you typically do X so I did X
But this can be a false memory
Eg, if tom typically cleans his room and his mum says did he (and he does not fully remember) he may use his knowledge of scripts to say yes , even if he did not
What is the psychometric theory of intelligence?
Who came up with g
- A psychometric theory is based on the measurement of a psychological characteristic via a screable questionnaire or something else
- Charles Spearman reported finding evidence that general intelligence factor (g)is responsible for performance on all mental tasks (1904)
Mechanical, logical, arithmetical and spatial - if you are good at one, you will be good at the others as g is behind all of this
Thurstone & Thurstone’s 7 types
Other researchers disagree and say it is all about distinct abilities
• Thurstone & Thurstone found evidence for g underlying but also for seven distinct patterns; perceptual speed, word comprehension, word fluency, space, number, memory and induction