Chapter 4 Flashcards
cognitive development
development of perception, attention, language, problem-solving, reasoning, memory, and conceptual understanding
social development
development of emotions, personality, family and peer relationships, self-understanding, and moral understanding
theories/approaches/frameworks to cognitive development
- Piagetian theory
- information processing theory
- sociocultural theory
- dynamic systems theory
- core-knowledge theory
Piagetian theory
- Constructivist theory (Emphasizes “active child” theme) - child is motivated to learn and doesn’t need rewards to do so
- Saw children as generating hypotheses, performing experiments, and drawing conclusions
- His Stage theory represents a discontinuous model
4 stages in Piagetian theory
- sensorimotor stage
- preoperational stage
- concrete operational stage
- formal operational stage
Sensorimotor stage
- Birth to Age 2 Years
- Accomplishment: increases in their ability to hold mental representations (Ex. Objects permanence and deferred imitation)
deferred imitation
the repetition of other’s peoples’ behaviour after a delay (ex. Putting on makeup when mom isn’t around); occurs around 18-24 months, evidence of persistent mental representation)
preoperational stage
- ages 2 to 7
- Accomplishment: symbolic representation – the ability to see one thing to stand for another (Ex. Pretend play (ex. using a banana as a phone), language acquisition, scale models used to test symbolic representation
- Limitations: Centration – centering attention on only one aspect of an event or problem, even when multiple aspects are important (Ex. Balance scale problem, conservation errors (ex. Which cup has more/less juice); Egocentrism – limited in their ability to take someone else’s perspective (Ex. The 3 mountain task (can your doll see the owl?), one-sided conversations)
concrete operational stage
- Ages 7 to 12
- Accomplishment: can reason logically about concrete objects and events -> understand conservation
- Limitation: have difficulty with some abstract concepts and hypotheticals; difficulty reasoning systematically (ex. Pendulum problem)
formal operations stage
- Accomplishments: begin to think abstractly and hypothetically, now capable of systematic and scientific reasoning
- Unlike the other stages, Piaget believed that
some adults never reach this stage.
3 processes (Piaget)
- Assimilation: translate new info into a form you
already have/understand (ex. seeing a dalmation and knowing it’s a dog) - Accommodation: When this new info doesn’t fit
you need to restructure your “conceptions” (ex. Seeing a wolf and being able to use accommodation to understand that it doesn’t fit into the concept of dog) - Equilibration: balancing assimilation and
accommodation to create stable understanding (When satisfied with understanding -> equilibrium. When you encounter new information that makes you realize your understanding is inadequate -> disequilibrium. This forces you to develop a more sophisticated understanding in order to return to equilibrium)
strengths and weaknesses of Piagetian theory
- Strengths: good overview of children’s thinking as different points; appealing due to its breadth and fascinating observations
- Weaknesses/criticisms: stage model depicts children’s thinking as being more consistent than it is; children are more cognitively competent than Piaget recognized; understands contribution of the social world; vague about cognitive processes/mechanisms that produce
cognitive growth
information processing theory
- View children as undergoing continuous cognitive change
- Describe how cognitive change occurs
- Mostly concerned with development of learning, memory, and problem-solving
- View children as little problem solvers
- speed of processing increases with age (both experience AND brain maturation [ex. myelination] play a role in changes in information processing)
Why don’t children plan?
- Inhibition is difficult (eg. Frontal lobe development)
- Young children are overoptimistic
- Sometimes plans fail; high failure rate leads to belief planning is “not worth the effort”
3 kinds of processes (Information processing)
- basic processes
- use of strategies
- content knowledge
basic processes
fundamental, unlearned aspects of human cognition (ex. Associating, encoding, recognizing, recalling, generalizing)
use of strategies
strategies that need to be learned (ex. Rehearsal, selective attention, mnemonic techniques)
more content knowledge
- gradual accumulation of new information (ex. Scripts, analogical reasoning, autobiographical memory)
- Greater knowledge of the world increases ability to encode and recall info because it makes it easier to relate new material to old (ie. Playing card games, going to restaurants, etc.)
neurogenesis
- proliferation of neurons through cell division
- Occurs from 3rd/4th week-18th week after conception
myelination
- insulation around axon
- Occurs prenatally-late adolescence
axons
carry message away (A for Away, A for Axon)
synaptogenesis
- each neuron forms 1000s of connections
- Occurs pre- and post-natally, with rapid development right before and after birth
synapse elimination
- “pruning” of excess synapses
- Occurs pre-natally through adolescence
plasticity
- the capacity of the brain to be changed/affected by experience
- Ex. Near vs. Far-sightedness (if you focus on things that are close very often, you’ll lose the ability to focus on things that are farther away), cellists/violinists (extra cortical representation of fingers)
critical/sensitive period
- time window where input can organize the brain, when the sensitive period ends neural organization is typically irreversible
- Ex. Strabismus/”lazy eye”, signers (auditory cortex is put to a better purpose), ability to hear all phonemes of the world’s languages
sociocultural theory
- Cognitive development occurs in interpersonal contact
- Children are products of their cultures
- Emphasize aspects of cognitive development that involves use of cultural tools, like symbol systems, artifacts, skills, and values
How did Vygotsky view children?
- as social beings intertwined with other people eager to help them learn and gain skills -> aligns with sociocultural theory (unlike Piaget, who depicted kids as trying to understand the world on their own)
how does cognitive change occur? (sociocultural)
- Zone of proximal development
- Social scaffolding
- Joint attention
- Intersubjectivity
- Social referencing
zone of proximal development
the range between what children can do unsupported and what they can do with optimal social support
social scaffolding
more competent people provide temporary frameworks that lead children to higher-order thinking (sometimes used interchangeably with “guided participation”)
joint attention
- infants and social partners intentionally focus on the same thing (ie. When teaching kids names of things, kids automatically look at the object you’re looking at. Kids with autism struggle with this and end up struggling with language because they’re mislabelling objects due to lack of joint attention)
intersubjectivity
mutual understanding established during communication – a “meeting of the minds” - being engaged and thinking about what the other person is talking about
social referencing
children look to social partners for guidance about how to respond to unfamiliar events
core knowledge theories
- Some core knowledge is so important it has its own dedicated system or module in the brain
- Endorses a modularity approach
- Focus on areas that have been important throughout our evolutionary history (Ex. Naïve psychology, numbers, physicals, face processing)
- Emphasizes innate cognitive capabilities
- Universal, present across all cultures
4 modules (core knowledge theories)
- Naïve psychology: natural instincts/thoughts about people (and animals) and their thoughts and behaviour). - Numbers
- Physics (understanding relationship btwn non-living, physical objects)
- Face Processing
4 principles of modularity (core knowledge)
- Domain specificity: a special system dedicated to a particular domain (eg. Naïve psych)
- Fast and mandatory (quick and automatic)
- Restriction on information flow (module that’s processing that info may not be communicating with other parts of the brain - eg. Hollow Mask/Face Illusion, part of me knows it’s a hollow mask, but another part forces me to see it as a face facing forward)
- Characteristic Breakdown: damage or deficits in a system will only affect that specific domain (eg. Autism could result in a deficit in naïve psych module)
dynamic systems theory
- focuses on how change occurs over time; views change as the one constant in development (no period where change isn’t occuring)
- Borrows elements from all theories
- Emphasized children’s innate motivation to explore the environment (Piaget)
- Emphasize precise analysis of problem-solving activity (information-processing)
- Emphasize early emerging core competencies (core knowledge)
- Emphasize the formative influence of other people (sociocultural)
- But also highlight the central role of action and the feedback loop between action/experience and thought
- Centrality of action: action contributes to development throughout life (ie. Sticky mittens)
why so many theories?
- Each theory emphasizes different aspects of development
- Each has its strengths and weaknesses
- Ideally, we incorporate insights from them all
TED talk video: “Hole in the Wall”
- emphasized active child theme
- Children are highly motivated to learn
- Because they learned in groups and discussed with other kids, it helped them remember things more
- “Grandmother effect”: simply praising and asking questions can motivate kids to learn -> this is a form of social scaffolding
object permanence
knowledge that objects continue to exist even when they are out of view
