Chapter 5 Flashcards
explains how biology and experience shape cognitive development, emphasizing that children actively construct their understanding of the world rather than passively receiving information.
Piaget’s theory
Children construct their knowledge of the world through key processes identified by Piaget:
schemes, assimilation, accommodation, organization, equilibrium, and equilibration
as infants and children try to understand the world, their developing brains form schemes. ➢ a baby’s schemes are based on basic actions they can perform on objects, like: sucking, looking, and grasping.
xample: A baby’s scheme for food may initially involve sucking (for breastfeeding or bottle-feeding), but as they grow, their schemes expand to include chewing and using utensils.
schemes
USING existing schemes for new information
It allows children to make sense of the world using what they already know.
Example: A child who knows about dogs may see a small, furry animal (like a cat) and call it a “dog” because it fits their existing scheme of four-legged furry animals.
Assimilation
ADJUSTING schemes for new information ● Example: A child calling all four-legged animals “dogs.”
happens when a child modifies or creates new schemes to adapt to new information that doesn’t fit existing knowledge.
This process helps children refine their understanding of the world.
Example: After being corrected, the child learns that not all four-legged furry animals are dogs. They adjust their scheme and develop a separate category for cats.
accommodation
➢ Children cognitively organize their experiences by grouping isolated behaviors and thoughts into a more complex system. ● Example: A child categorizes
animals first by basic types ( “dogs,” “cats”), then changes them into more specific groups ( “mammals,” “reptiles”).
Organization
The process by which children shift from one stage of thought to the next, driven by the balance between assimilation and accommodation. . It helps children move from one stage of thinking to another as they refine their understanding of the world.
A child believes that all flying creatures are “birds.” When they learn about bats, they experience disequilibrium because bats don’t fit their existing scheme. Through this, they accommodate by creating a new category for bats as mammals, restoring cognitive balance.
❖ Equilibration
Occurs when children face inconsistencies or counterexamples to their existing schemes, creating cognitive conflict.
A child who believes all liquids are drinkable experiences this when they see oil or soap water. They initially assume it must be something they can drink (assimilation), but after being told it’s not safe, they feel confused. This contradiction between their existing knowledge and new information creates cognitive conflict
disequilibrium
❖ Lasts from birth to 2 years of age. ❖ Infants construct an understanding of the world through sensory experiences.
the sensorimotor stage
➢ corresponds to the first month after birth ➢ sensation and action are coordinated primarily through reflexive behaviors
Simple reflexes
develops between 1 and 4 months of age
➢ infant coordinates sensation and two types of schemes: habits and primary circular reactions
First habits and primary circular reactions
A scheme based on the attempt to reproduce an event that initially occurred by chance.
Primary Circular Reactions
➢ develops between 4 and 8 months of age ➢ infant becomes more object-oriented, moving beyond preoccupation with the self
Secondary circular reactions
➢ develops between 8 and 12 months of age ➢ actions become more outwardly directed, and infants coordinate schemes and act with intentionality
Coordination of Secondary circular reactions
➢ one of infancy’s landmark cognitive accomplishments ➢ means understanding that objects and events continue to exist even when they cannot directly be seen, heard, or touched
Object Permanence
➢ develops between 12 and 18 months of age ➢ infants become intrigued by the many properties of objects and by the many things that they can make happen to objects
Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity
➢ develops between 18 and 24 months of age ➢ infants develop the ability to use primitive symbols
Internalization of schemes
➢ an internalized sensory image or word that represents an event
symbol
➢ As opposed to intentionality (4th substage)– coordination of vision and touch
➢ Error occurs when infants make the mistake of selecting the familiar hiding place (A) rather than the new hiding place (B) of an object. ○ Due to failure in memory ○ Attention ○ Repetition of previous motor behavior
The A-not-B Error
Development of an infant’s perceptual abilities begins at a very early stage (Gibson & Spelke)
➢ Expectations develop as early as 3 months old
■ expectations about objects to be solid and continuous, despite not knowing the laws of gravity.
Perceptual Development and Expectations
Baillargeon and colleagues - 3 to 4-month-old infants expect that other objects cannot be moved through an object (substantial) and the existence of objects even when it is hidden (permanent).
➢ Objects are bounded, unitary, solid, and separate from their background
➢ Gravity and support
Learned at 6 to 8 months old
Substantial and Permanent Objects
➢ Nativists - leaning toward Nature like Elizabeth Spelke ■ Core knowledge approach - Theory that infants are born with domain-specific innate knowledge systems. (e.g. Space, Number sense, Object permanence, & Language)
■ Critics against Spelke ● Spelke’s experiments are only focused on perceptual competencies or the detection of regularities in the environment
The Nature-Nurture Issue
Problematic for some only emerges through early interactions with others
sense of morality
➢ Neglect of Social Immersion
➢ Underestimation of Young Infants’ Abilities
➢ Nature and nature coexistence
- sense of morality
nativist
The Nature-Nurture Issue
Behavior shaped by consequences
Operant Conditioning (Skinner)
The ability to focus on select information, improving cognitive processing. Infants develop attention skills over time, starting with simple focus and later refining selective attention
Orienting/ Investigative Process
A 2 ½-month-old baby learns that kicking moves a mobile when tied to it. Weeks later, the baby kicks again without being tied, showing memory of the connection.
- This experiment demonstrates that infants can retain information from conditioned experiences.
Rovee-Collier’s Experiment
The ability to focus on select information, improving cognitive processing. Infants develop attention skills over time, starting with simple focus and later refining selective attention
orientation
➢Focused attention that helps infants learn and remember. Improves from 3 months onward.
sustained attention
Decreased responsiveness to repeated stimuli (ex: a baby loses interest in the same toy)
habituation
➢ Increased responsiveness to a new stimulus (ex: a baby notices a different toy)
❖ Dishabituation
central feature of cognitive development
memory
➢ Occurs when two or more people focus on the same object/event.
Joint Attention
➢ process in which information is transferred to memory.
encoding
➢ remembering it later
retrieval
➢ conscious remembering of facts and experiences
explicit memory
➢ memory without conscious recollection
➢ performed automatically
Implicit Memory
➢ remember a little from the first three years of human life
Infantile or Childhood Amnesia
babies can imitate facial expressions within days of birth
Meltzoff’s Research Findings ❖ The Early Imitation
over the first 72 hours of life, babies get better at imitating.
Meltzoff’s Research Findings
❖ The Gradual Improvement
➢ babies don’t perfectly copy everything ➢ actively processing and interpreting what they see in their own
Meltzoff’s Research Findings
❖ The Creative Errors
➢ imitation that occurs after a delay of hours or days
Meltzoff’s Research Findings
❖ Deferred Imitation
Cognitive groupings of similar objects, events, people, or ideas. ➢ 3 to 4 months: grouping of similar appearances
concepts
categorizations are based on similar perceptual features of objects, such as size, color, and movement, as well as parts of objects, such as legs for animals.
➢ 7 to 9 months: formation of conceptual categories
2 years old: broad concepts become differentiated and categorized based on shape. ➢ Animals > aquatic animals > fish
❖ Infants’ Abilities to Process Information Occurs at an Earlier Age than what other theorists suggested.
❖ Categorization based on prototypes or averages
➢ A form of communication—whether spoken, written, or signed—that is based on a system of symbols.
❖ Language
➢ create an unlimited number of meaningful sentences from a limited set of words and rules.
❖ Infinite Generativity
➢ Every language has rules, like grammar and structure, that help us make sense of what’s being said.
❖ Organizational Rules
➢ phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
❖ 5 main rule systems
➢ The sound system of the language, including the sounds that are used and how they may be combined. ■ Phoneme- basic unit of sound in a language
phonology
➢ focuses on the units of meaning in words (morphemes). ■ morpheme- smallest meaningful part of a word.
morphology
➢ The ways words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences. ➢ Word order rules differ across languages. ● English: “The big dog barked.” ● In Spanish: “El perro grande ladró” (Literally: “The dog big barked”).
syntax
➢ Semantics deals with word meanings and their combinations.
Words have specific meanings and restrictions.
semantics
Infants all over the world follow a similar path in language development regardless of the language they learn.
how language develop
➢ Crying ➢ Cooing - Babies first coo at about 2 to 4 months ➢ Babbling
❖ Babbling and Other Vocalizations
Pointing - regarded as an important index of the social aspects of language
gestures
➢ receptive vocabulary (words the child understands) ➢ expressive vocabulary (words the child uses)
● vocabulary spurt - rapid increase in vocabulary that begins at approximately 18 months
first words
tendency to apply a word to objects that are inappropriate for the word’s meaning by going beyond the set of referents an adult would use. ➢
overextension
tendency to apply a word too narrowly; it occurs when children fail to use a word to name a relevant event or object
Underextension
Usually by the time children are 18 to 24 months
- Omit many parts of speech and are remarkably succinct
❖ Two-Word Utterances
use of short and precise words but not limited to two words without grammatical markers
telegraphic speech
Biology aids in language formation by the vocal apparatus and the nervous system.
Biological Influences
an area in the left frontal lobe of the brain involved in producing words
Broca’s Area
Homo Sapiens– grunting and shrieking ❖ Humans’s language acquisition about 100,000 years ago.
❖ There is a universal similarity in language development brought by biological influences.
Biological Evolution:
a region of the brain’s left hemisphere involved in language comprehension
Wernicke’s area
2 regions of the brain involved in language:
broca and wernicke’s area
loss or impairment of language processing.
aphasia
difficulty producing words correctly
Damage to Broca’s area
poor comprehension and often producing fluent but incomprehensible speech.
Damage to Wernicke’s area -
Noam Chomsky’s term describes a biological endowment enabling the child to detect the features and rules of language, including phonology, syntax, and semantics. ❖ Children are naturally capable of detecting the sounds of language
❖ LAD is only a theoretical construct not a physical part of the brain.
Language acquisition device (LAD)
mphasizing the importance of social interaction, child-directed speech, and caregiver strategies.
Environmental Influences -
play an important role in infant language learning. ➢ Wild Boy of Aveyron was exposed in solitary isolation and has never learned to communicate.
Social cues
children learn language in specific contexts.
interaction view
integration of gestures
joint attention
Socioeconomic Status’ Influence on Infants’ Vocabulary
❖ Professional parents vs welfare parents
❖ Mother’s language as an infant’s language information from the media to their children.
Social factors affecting language development:
Language spoken in a higher pitch and slower speed than normal, with simple words and sentences. ❖ Natural conversations and not drill and practice.
❖ Bedtime Stories
Child-Directed Speech
rephrasing something the child has said that might lack the appropriate morphology or contain some other error.
Caregiver Strategies
Recasting
- naming objects that children seem interested in.
Caregiver Strategies
labeling
adding information to a child’s incomplete utterance.
Caregiver Strategies
expanding
