Chapter 4

Question 1

Piaget’s Constructivist Approach

Answer 1

• noticed that children of the same age made same mistakes
• studied how children think
• initial studies were his naturalistic observations of his own kids
• children construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore their words
• universal stages
• discontinuous development
• humans are active constructor of their own knowledge

Question 2

how children build schemas

Answer 2

by the process of assimilation and accommodation

Question 3

cognitive structures

Answer 3

organized patterns of action of thought that people construct to interpret their experiences

Question 4

organization

Answer 4

existing schemes are systematically combined into new and complex schemes

Question 5

adaptation

Answer 5

process of adjusting to the demands of the environment that occurs through assimilation and accommodation

Question 6

organized and rearranged through

Answer 6

assimilation and accommodation

Question 7

assimilation

Answer 7

• using current schemes to interpret external world

- we have a schema for dogs and fit our experience with a new animal (cat) into other existing schema for dogs

Question 8

accommodation

Answer 8

• adjusting old schemes and creating new ones to better fit environment
• we have a schema for dogs, but the animal we see is small and meows so we must change our scheme in order to accommodate the new animal

Question 9

cognitive conflict

Answer 9

• occurs when new events seriously challenge old schemes or love our existing schemes to be inadequate
• stimulates cognitive growth
• motivated to reduce cognitive growth through equilibration

Question 10

equilibration

Answer 10

process of achieving mental stability so that our internal thoughts are consistent with the evidence in the external world

Question 11

equilibrium and disequilibrium

Answer 11

• use assimilation during equilibrium

- disequilibrium prompts accommodation

Question 12

organization

Answer 12

• internal rearranging and linking schemes

Question 13

sensorimotor stage

Answer 13

• birth to 2 years
• world understood through senses and action
• dominant cognitive structures are the behavioral schemes that develop through coordination of sensory information and motor responses.

Question 14

preoperational stage

Answer 14

• age 2-7

- reliance on perceptions and lack of logical thought means that children have difficulty with conservation

Question 15

object permanence

Answer 15

understanding that objects continue to exist when out of sight
- 8-12 months

Question 16

conservation

Answer 16

the idea that certain properties of an object or substance do not change when its appearance is altered in a superficial way

Question 17

egocentrism

Answer 17

a tendency to view the world solely from one’s own perspective and to have difficulty reorganizing other points of view.

Question 18

classification

Answer 18

• using criteria to sort objects on the basis of characteristics such as shape, color, function.

Question 19

Criticism of Piaget’s theory

Answer 19

• underestimates cognitive competence in infants and overestimates competence in adolescents.
• undervalues influence of sociocultural environment

Question 20

learning takes several forms

Answer 20

• habituation
• classical conditioning
• operant conditioning

Question 21

classical conditioning

Answer 21

neutral stimulus elicits a response originally produced by another stimulus

Question 22

operant conditioning

Answer 22

reward and punishment determine the likelihood that behavior will reoccur.

Question 23

imitating

Answer 23

infants are able to imitate adult facial expressions; young children imitate behavior of others.

Question 24

information processing

Answer 24

• human thinking based on mental hardware and mental software

Question 25

mental hardware

Answer 25

mental and neural structures that are built in and that allow the mind to operate

Question 26

mental software

Answer 26

mental programs that are the basis for performing particular tasks.

Question 27

attention

Answer 27

processes that determine whether information is processed further by an individual

Question 28

orienting response

Answer 28

an unfamiliar stimulus produces a change in heart rate and brain waves..

Question 29

habituation

Answer 29

the diminished response to a stimulus once it becomes familiar.

Question 30

important features of memory in young babies

Answer 30

• events from past are remembered
• over time, events no longer recalled
• cues prompt memories that seem to have been forgotten

Question 31

involved in memory storage

Answer 31

• hippocampus

- amygdala

Question 32

involved in memory retrieval

Answer 32

• frontal cortex

Question 33

autobiographical memory

Answer 33

people’s memory of the experience/events of their own lives.

Question 34

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective

Answer 34

• culture and society are pivotal in his theory
• knowledge depends on social experience
• cognitive development varies from society to society depending upon the mental tools such as language that the culture values and makes available
• children acquire mental tools through interaction with parents and other more experienced members of society and by adopting their language and knowledge.
• of all theories, only one that almost exclusively focuses on social and cultural interactions

Question 35

zone of proximal development

Answer 35

the gap between what a learner can accomplish independently and what she can accomplish with the guidance and encouragement of a more skilled partner.

Question 36

guided participation

Answer 36

children’s active participation in culturally relevant activities with the aid and support of parents and other knowledgable guides.

Question 37

private speech

Answer 37

speech to oneself that guides one’s thoughts and behavior. children do quite a bit.