chapter 3 Flashcards
Cognitive development
The ways in which the thinking process changes with age and experience.
Cognitive stage
For Piaget, different ways of thinking about and building an understanding of the world.
Assimilation
Piaget’s term for the process by which one tries to understand a new experience by making it fit with existing knowledge or understandings.
Accommodation
For Piaget, the process of changing one’s cognitive structures in response to new information or experiences.
Sensorimotor stage
The stage Piaget says is characteristic of infancy, in which experience of the world is based on perceptions and motor activity.
Preoperational stage
The second of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, marked by the emergence of an ability to represent objects and events symbolically.
Concrete operations
Piaget’s third stage, in which those in middle childhood become able to think about more than one aspect of a problem at a time and solve it through mental operations
Formal operations
The stage at which adolescents gain new resources for logical and abstract thought.
Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
A way of reasoning in which a person makes a logical prediction based on some supposition, and then checks the prediction against reality.
Competence–performance gap
The fact that people do not consistently do as well at some tasks as they are capable of doing.
Inductive reasoning
The process of drawing a general conclusion from particular facts or instances.
Egocentrism
For Piaget, the process of assuming that other people’s points of view are the same as one’s own.
Imaginary audience
For Elkind, an aspect of adolescent egocentrism that involves believing that one is the focus of others’ attention and involvement.
Personal fable
In Elkind’s view, believing that one’s experiences are unique and that one is exempt from the usual consequences of one’s actions.
Scaffolding
For Vygotsky, adapting one’s guidance and support to the current level of knowledge and understanding of the learner.
It refers to the support provided by a more knowledgeable other, typically an adult or a more advanced peer, that helps a learner accomplish a task or achieve a goal that would be beyond their unassisted efforts.
Zone of proximal development
Vygotsky’s term for tasks that children cannot yet accomplish on their own but could succeed at with help from someone more skilled.
Executive control structures
Mental representations of goals, outcomes, and strategies
Selective attention
Concentrating on one task or experience while blocking out awareness of others.
Divided attention
The ability to do more than one thing at once improves from childhood to adolescence.
Fuzzy-trace theory
The theory that we often store information in memory in inexact traces that preserve only the gist of the information.
Intelligence quotient (IQ)
A score that represents how a person’s performance on measures of school-related skills (or IQ tests) compares with the performance of others who are similar in age.
Fluid intelligence
The ability to reason quickly and effectively about novel problems.
Crystallized intelligence
The ability to draw on accumulated knowledge and judgment.
Triarchic theory of intelligence
Sternberg’s notion that practical, creative, and analytic intelligences represent different, independent abilities.
Multiple intelligences
In Gardner’s view, different abilities that are specific to particular domains and that are not necessarily closely related to one another.
Metacognition
The ability to be aware of one’s own thinking processes and to develop more effective ways of using them.
Self-regulated learning
Exercising personal control over the steps that lead to developing skills and improving understanding.
Personal epistemology
The different ways children, adolescents, and adults think about what knowledge is and what it is based on.
Critical thinking
Connecting new information with existing understanding, analyzing points of agreement, and using the result to make effective decisions.
“What is Piaget’s theory of cognitive stages?”
Piaget’s theory posits that children progress through a series of cognitive stages, each characterized by a qualitative difference in thinking. This includes the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages.”
What is the hallmark of Piaget’s formal operational stage?”
“The formal operational stage, beginning in adolescence, is marked by the ability to think abstractly, conduct hypothetico-deductive reasoning, and understand complex concepts such as transitivity.
“What cognitive developments occur in adolescence according to Piaget?”
Adolescents develop the ability to think about abstract concepts, engage in systematic planning, and consider hypothetical scenarios. They can contemplate moral, philosophical, and futuristic issues.”
How does cognitive development affect an adolescent’s understanding of metaphors and figurative language?”
“With cognitive maturation, adolescents can appreciate and interpret metaphors and figurative language, understanding underlying meanings beyond the literal interpretation.”
What is adolescent egocentrism and how does it manifest?”
“Adolescent egocentrism is a heightened self-focus and difficulty differentiating one’s own perspective from others’. It can lead to phenomena like the ‘imaginary audience’ and the ‘personal fable.’”
How does the sociocultural approach differ from Piaget’s theory?”
“The sociocultural approach emphasizes the role of social interaction and culture in cognitive development, suggesting that learning is a collaborative process influenced by more knowledgeable others.”
What is Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development?”
The zone of proximal development is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what they can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.”
What is the role of information processing in adolescent cognitive development?”
“Information processing in adolescence involves improvements in attention, processing speed, working memory, and executive functions, enabling more complex thought and problem-solving.”
How do selective and divided attention change in adolescence?”
“Selective attention improves, allowing adolescents to focus more effectively on relevant stimuli. Divided attention also gets better, permitting multitasking, although it may still impact performance.”
“In what ways does working memory improve during adolescence?”
Working memory capacity increases, allowing adolescents to hold and manipulate more information simultaneously, and processing speed enhances, facilitating quicker and more efficient problem-solving.”
