Chapter 16: cognitive development in adolescents Flashcards
Why is adolescence so important?
Many mental disorders arise in this period of life. Prevention should start at an early age
What is adolescent thinking? Name 3 aspects
- Process by which adolescents perform intellectual functions
- The structure in which adolescents’ thoughts are organized
- Content of the thinking
What 2 things are developing in adolescents concerning perception? And how does it develop (name 3 things)?
- Seeing ambiguous figures in multiple ways
- See composite objects as a whole or seperate objects and switching attention to both parts
How: increased flexibility, increased knowledge and selective attention
What is selective attention? With what type of task is this measured?
Focus attention in a goal directed manner
Central-incidental learning task = Adolescents selectively maintain attention to the central objects as required by the command of the task
How is selective attention represented in the brain?
Different activity in V1 between percepts
How do people with ASD perceive ambiguous figures?
They less often see two percepts, but if they are instructed to see them both, they can see it
What is the Flanker task and which people find this task very hard? What can help these people?
Attending to the direction of a central arrow to measure selective attention
Mild to borderline intellectual disability –> easier with structured and quiet environment
What is meant with the speed of processing and how does it develop in adolescence?
The time it takes for the brain to receive or output information and the time it takes for a mental calculation to be carried out
Improvement over adolescence because of maturation white matter/myelination
What 4 types of memory were discussed in the lecture?
- Face recognition
- Short-term memory
- Working memory
- Long-term memory
What is the encoding switch hypothesis? What type of face processing occurs in children and which type in older children/adolescents?
Claim that young children rely more on information of faces that isn’t as good for remembering them compared to older children
- Young children: featural processing (separate face features)
- Older children: configuration processing (relations face features)
What is short term memory and what is a span task? How does short-term memory develop in adolescents?
Short-term storage of information
Span task = Series of items is presented at a rate of 1 per second and the participant has to repeat the items
- Increase in short-term memory capacity
- Increase in general knowledge about what has to be remembered
What is working memory and with what type of task is it measured?
Processing and structuring of information
Complex span task: e.g. set of numbers is named and you have to answer by saying the numbers in reverse
How does working memory develop in adolescents in the brain?
Increase in activity in the dorsolateral PFC
What disability impairs working memory?
ADHD
What is a good working memory a good predictor of? Name 2 things
- Study success
- Self control (substance use)
Is working memory training effective?
It’s only effective to the category you practice in, but it’s not generalizable to other capacities
What is long-term memory and with what type of task is it measured?
The long-term storage of information
Speed of card sorting task: sorting cards on physical similarity (AB or ab or aa etc.) or on name similarity (Aa or Bb or bb etc.)
Reaction time decreases with age
How does long-term memory develop over age?
Time to retrieve things from memroy decreases with age and there is a decrease in interference due to increased selective attention
What are the 3 memory strategies that are most prevalent in adolescents?
- Rehearsal strategy
- Elaboration strategy
- Cluster effect/organization strategy
What’s the difference between fluid and crystallized intelligence? How does this develop over age?
Fluid = free reasoning
–> declines after 30
Crystallized = experience, facts, education
–> increases over age and reaches a plateau in late adulthood
How does fluid intelligence increase over age and why is there a sharp decline?
Increased mental speed + working memory
Decline: deterioration of the part of the brain for attention and alertness
What age group has a relatively stable IQ?
Adolescents
What are the 4 types of reasoning?
- Deductive: deriving something specific from a theory
- Inductive: creating general principle from specific examples
- Analogical: resolving a problem by comparing it to a similar problem that has been solved
- Second-order analogical: analogy that requires crystallized intelligence to understand it
What is the WISC test?
Wechsler intelligence scale for children –> IQ test for kids
Which 2 scales are there in the WISC test?
- Verbal
- Performance
What is a percentile and what does it mean if soemones IQ is in the 90th percentile? How does this predict the individual’s IQ in later life?
Location of an individual’s development along a percentage scale
IQ is higher than 90% of the age group of the individual
–> When older, this person will probably be in the same rank
What is a syllogism? What type of reasoning uses this?
Two statements (premises) and a conclusion that is derived from the statements
–> Deductive reasoning
What is the difference between a universal and particular quantifier in syllogisms?
Universal: all birds can fly
–> Easy to reason about
Particular: some birds can fly
What are the 3 main differences in reasoning between concrete operational vs. formal operational stages?
Formal operational:
1. Abstract reasoning without content
2. Reasoning outside reality
3. Scientific reasoning: hypothesis, theory, experimetn
What is abstract thought according to Piaget?
The use of operations that are extracted from a number of concrete operations
What is interpropositional thinking? In what stage does intrapropositional thinking belong?
Inter = individual can relate one/more parts of a proposition to another to arrive at a solution (arithmetic calculations e.g.)
Intra = reasoning about concrete things, rather than abstract symbols
What is hypothetico-decuctive reasoning?
Develop theories to explain phenomena - create hypotheses based on these theories - devise tests to confirm/refute these hypotheses
What is the balance scale problem and how do adolescents respond to this?
Placing weights on different parts of the scale and then predicting if the scale will be in balance
Adolescents succeed in predicting behavior of balance scale
What is the pendulum problem?
Predicting speed of a pendulum with certain weights and lengths
Adolescents proceed in predicting behavior pendulum
What are 4 criticisms on Piaget’s theory concerning adolescents?
- Overestimating adults, underestimating kids
- Gradual development in formal operational stage instead of stagewise
- Formal operational thought isn’t constructed by adolescents only. Great role for training and cultural experience
- Environment is important for development formal thought (flynn effect)
What is combinatory thought?
Taking more than one factor into consideration
Which people find it difficult to process complex rules for e.g. a game? Name 2 disorders
People with mild to borderline intellectual disorder + people with ADHD
What are 5 general characteristics of adolescent thinking?
- Emphasis on world of possibilities
- Hypothesis-testing/scientific reasoning
- Planning ahead
- Introspection/meta-cognition
- Thinking about moral, social, personal and political matters
What does the tower of hanoi task measure?
Measures goal-directed behavior + strategic planning
What are 3 flaws in adolescent thinking?
- Separating theory and evidence
- Select evidence consistent with their theory, instead of modifying/abandoning the theory
- Theory seems to be more important than evidence
What are the 2 different Post-Piagetian approaches?
- Information processing approach
- Intuitive scientists
What is the information-processing approach and what does it mean when it’s domain specific?
Adolescents are rule-based problem solvers, just like a computer. Information is gathered from environment and various rules/strategies are applied to manipulate information
Domain specific = knowledge that can only be applied to specific situations that fall within the same domain. The rules adolescents obey when reasoning are domain specific and they may have different expertises across individuals
What does it mean that adolescents can be seen as intuitive scientists?
We are all capable of constructing common sense theories to explain how the world works. This is domain-specific
