Chapter 16 (Cognitive Development in Adults)

Question 1

what is adolescence

Answer 1

the period from the start of puberty until adulthood

Question 2

What improves but what can go worse

Answer 2

The brain develops good and also you train overall more

But it can also go wrong because there is more risk behaviour and also substance abuse

Question 3

why is studying substance abuse hard and how can it be solved

Answer 3

its unethical to make people use drugs for an experiment
solutions here are studying groups who are already using drugs
Also animal research

Question 4

what are ambiguous and composite figures

Answer 4

things that can mean multiple things at once

ambuguity: image with two possible perceptions
composite: objects make up bigger image

Question 5

how does perception develop in adolescence

Answer 5

people are more able to see two things at once in eg ambiguous figures
They become more flexible

Question 6

what may be alternate explanation for adolescence to percieve ambiguity better

Answer 6

1. better when you know about ambiguity

2. better selective attention

Question 7

what is special about ambuguity and composite in autism

Answer 7

ambuguity is harder

composite is that they have more attention to detail

Question 8

how does attention develop in adolescence

Answer 8

there is an increase in selective attention

Question 9

what is special about people with intellectual disability

Answer 9

these people have an IQ below 80
they perform worse at a flanker task (arrows with one in different direction)
–> for them structured and quiet enviroment is important cause their selective attention is bad

Question 10

how does face recognition develop in adolescence

Answer 10

it becomes better in adolescence
young children rely on indiviual features (hats, earrings) while older children use configuration
there is also a drop at age 11 in face recognition (hormones)

Question 11

how does short term memory develop in adolescence and also how and why

Answer 11

it becomes better, 
this may be be cause of increased 
- brain capacity
- more practice
- other strategies 
it is not only continous (better) but also categorical (different)

Question 12

how does working memory develop in adolescence

Answer 12

It becomes better with age
this is because of a more developed prefrontal cortex
also training in strategies and self control

Question 13

how does long term memory develop in adolescence

Answer 13

its absolut capacity does not change much

Question 14

how does intelligence develop in adolescence

Answer 14

fluid intelligence (preexisting) is getting better until 30
crystallized (learned) one is getting better longer
Overall, strategies get a lot better
It has poor correlation with IQ obtained in childhood (instable)

Question 15

how does reasoning develop in adolescence

Answer 15

deduction (from fact to specific) gets better in adolescence. It is also more usable in real life
induction (from specifics to facts) gets also better but also more selective with exceptions

Question 16

what stages in piagets theory are important in adolescence and what else changes according to him

Answer 16

Concrete (7-11) and formal operational (11-…)
speical in formal operational is abstract reasoning without content which can then be used in reallife
adolescence are more able to use more complex rules to solve tasks
They Develop reversability, Abstract thinking and hypothesis thinking

Question 17

What is the balance scale problem

Answer 17

A balance scale with weights and distances to the middle

Piaget found that only people in formal operational stage are able to combine weight x distance to solve it

Question 18

What is critic about Piaget’s way of thinking about adolescent

Answer 18

1. About 1/3 of adults and adolescence reach the formal operational stage (It also develops more gradual)
2. Experience place bigger role than suspected
3. level of success is higher today than some decades ago (Flynn effect)

Question 19

What’s re 3 flaws in adolescent theory thinking

Answer 19

1. They cannot separate theory and evidence (it had to be confirmed by evidence)
2. They ignore counter evidence more
3. They need a plausible alternate theory if evidence is wrong

Question 20

What 5 things evolve when becoming adolescent

Answer 20

1. More thinking in terms of possibility instead of real situation
2. More hypothesis thinking
3. Planning ahead
4. Self Intospection
5. Include issues about themselves

Question 21

What is different from adolescences in comparison to adults

Answer 21

1. More risky and exploratory behaviour

2. Less planned behaviour