Chapter 4 - Theories of Cognitive Dev't Flashcards

1
Q

What are the main questions addressed by the Piagetian theories?

A
  • nature-nurture
  • continuity/discontinuity
  • the active child
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2
Q

What are the main questions addressed by the Information-processing theory?

A
  • nature-nurture
  • how change occurs
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3
Q

What are the main questions addressed by the Sociocultural theory?

A
  • nature-nurture
  • influence of the sociocultural content
  • how change occurs
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4
Q

What are the main questions addressed by the dynamic-systems theory?

A
  • nature-nurture
  • the active child
  • how change occurs
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5
Q

How are children seen in Piaget’s theory?

A

seen as…
- active learners
- learning many important lessons on their own
- intrinsically motivated to learn

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6
Q

According to Piaget’s theory, what are children’s most important constructive processes?

A
  • generating hypotheses
  • performing experiments
  • drawing conclusions
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7
Q

What is the difference between assimilation and accommodation?

A
  • Assimilation: incorporation into an existing schema
  • Accommodation: modification of a prior schema
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8
Q

What is equilibrium within Piaget’s theory?

A
  • the constant shift between assimilation and accommodation
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9
Q

How do accommodation, assimilation, and equilibrium work together to propel development forward?

A
  • assimilation: people translate incoming info into terms they can understand
  • accommodation: process of people adapting their current knowledge in response to new experiences
  • equilibrium: process of people balancing accommodation and assimilation to create stable understanding
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10
Q

What are the 4 stages of Piaget’s theory?

A

1) sensorimotor
2) preoperational
3) concrete operational
4) formal operational

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11
Q

What are the central properties of Piaget’s stage theory?

A
  • qualitative changes between stages
  • invariant sequence (for order of stage occurrence)
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12
Q

Describe the Piaget’s sensorimotor stage.
(Age range and key characteristics)

A
  • birth to 2 years old
  • initially, activities center on their own bodies
  • later, their activities include the world around them
  • later, infants are able to form mental representations
  • object permanence(around 8 months)
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13
Q

What is object prominence?

A

a child’s ability to know that objects continue to exist even though they can no longer be seen or heard

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14
Q

Explain the A not B Task

A
  • a toy is hidden under the same cloth several times and retrieved by a baby.
  • toy is then relocated to a different location
  • Babies under 8 months usually look in the original hiding spot while older infants find the toy in the new spot
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15
Q

Describe Piaget’s Preoperational stage.
(age and key characteristics)

A
  • 2 to 7 years old
  • toddlers and preschoolers begin to represent experiences in language and mental imagery
  • symbolic representation
  • egocentrism
  • centration
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16
Q

Describe the 3 mountains task

A
  • child asked to look at 3D modeled landscape
  • child asked to describe what they see
  • child then asked to describe model from researcher’s pov
  • child often only describe what they see and not the other pov (egocentrism)
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17
Q

Describe the conservation tasks. (Preoperational stage)

A
  • experiments on children’s understanding of conservation, which is the concept that certain properties of objects remain the same despite changes in appearance.
  • conservation of liquid quantity, solid quantity, and of number
  • younger children often think volume/ quantity changes when there’s an elongation to change in shape
18
Q

Describe the Piaget’s concrete operational stage.
(age range and key characteristics)

A
  • 7-12 years old
  • begin to reason logically about concrete objects and events in their world
  • can solve conservation problems
  • cannot think in purely abstract terms or generate systematic scientific hypothesis - testing experiments
19
Q

Describe Piaget’s formal operational stage (age range and key characteristics)

A
  • 12 years old and beyond
  • abstract thinking and hypothetical reasoning
  • attainment of this stage is not universal `
20
Q

What are some weaknesses in Piaget’s theories?

A
  • Vague: how does change occur?
  • infants and children are more competent than Piaget recognized
  • understates the influence of the social world on cognitive development
  • rigid (very discontinuous)
21
Q

Does information processing theories view children as undergoing continuous or discontinuous cognitive change?

A

continuous

22
Q

What are the key ideas of the information-processing theories?

A
  • children are like computers who improve over time
  • expanding information processing speeds
  • expanding memory capacity
  • acquisition of new strategies and knowledge
23
Q

Describe the Atkinson and Shiffrin memory model.

A

Sensory storage to short term storage to long term storage

  • sentory storage is the first stop for memory (last for seconds)
  • then to short term memory (lasts 12-18 seconds)
  • then transferred to longer memory and can be retrieved through rehearsal
24
Q

Name the 3 components of the memory system.

A
  • sensory memory
  • working memory
  • long-term memory
25
Q

Describe sensory memory

A
  • can hold a moderate amount of information for a fraction of a second
  • its capacity is relatively constant over much of development
26
Q

Describe the working memory

A
  • its limited in both capacity and duration
  • its capacity and speed of operation increases greatly over childhood
27
Q

Describe the longterm memory

A
  • can retain an unlimited amount of information indefinitely
  • its contents increase enormously over development
28
Q

What are the 3 areas of executive function according to the information-processing theories?

A
  • inhibitory control (impulse control)
  • working memory (holding memories)
  • cognitive flexibility (ability to take another POV)
29
Q

What is predictive validity?

A

something that has good predictive power about predicting future behavior

30
Q

What does executive function have good predictive validity over?

A
  • academic achievements in HS
  • enrollment in college
  • income
  • occupational status
31
Q

What are the primary mental strategies used according to the information- processing theories? Define these strategies.

A
  • rehearsal: process of repeating information over and over to aid memory
  • selective attention: process of intentionally focusing on information that is most relevant to the current goal
32
Q

According to information-processing theories, how do children’s planning abilities vary when they younger vs as they continue to develop?

A
  • when younger they have poor planning abilities b/c they aren’t patient with problem solving strategies
  • also they simply have limited knowledge and strategy when younger which makes planning harder
33
Q

Describe the overlapping waves model

A
  • there is competition over which strategy a child may use at a given time
  • as they get older, they may find a less used strategy to be more efficient and use it more, and find a previously used strategy to be inefficient and use it less
  • children think about the same phenomena in different ways at a given time
34
Q

What are the primary differences between the sociocultural theory and Piaget’s theory?

A
  • Piaget’s doesn’t acknowledge social aspects of cognitive development
  • Piaget theorizes discrete change, sociocultural suggests continual change
  • Piaget suggests thought and language and dependent, sociocultural suggests they’re independent
  • Piaget states children master scientific and mathematical concepts at same time, sociocultural suggests children participate in activities common in the place/ time in which they live
35
Q

What are primary concepts in the Sociocultural theory?

A
  • children are viewed as social being and social learners
  • development is continuous, with quantitative changes
  • we’re social creates **
  • dev’t through private speech
36
Q

What’s another name for the sociocultural theory?

A

Vygotsky’s theory

37
Q

According to the sociocultural theory, How does cognitive change occur?

A
  • intersubjectivity (by 6 months)
  • joint attention (by 12 months)
  • social scaffolding
38
Q

What is social scaffolding?

A
  • When someone guides someone else ot reaching their cognitive potential
  • pushing/ challenging someone to think more broadly
  • Ex: teaching to the smartest kid in the class
39
Q

What is intersubjectivity?

A

the mutual understanding hat people share during communication

40
Q

Describe the primary focuses of the dynamic-systems theory

A
  • view how change occurs over time in complex systems
  • focus on relations among motor activities, attention, and other children’s behavior
    (combines aspects of all other theories)
41
Q

What does the dynamic systems theory emphasize from each other theory?

A

Piaget: child’s innate motivation to explore environment

Information - Processing: precise analysis of problem-solving activity

Sociocultural - the formative influence of other people

42
Q

Describe the centrality of action within the dynamic-systems theory.

A

An emphasis on how children’s specific actions shape their development

  • reaching and grasping
  • categorizing
  • aiding vocabulary acquisition and generalization
  • shaping memory