Chapter 6 Flashcards
Theories of Cognitive Development
PIAGET’S THEORY (6.1)
children’s theory
little experiments
- create theories about world and test it out
PIAGET’S THEORY (6.1)
Cognitive Stages
when children hit a particular stage that is different from the old stage
adaptation (6.1)
occurs when schemes are changed to better fit iinformation from the environment
ADAPTATION (6.1)
assimilation
occurs when new experiences are readily incorporated into a child’s existing theories (schemes)
ADAPTATION (6.1)
accommodation
changing a scheme due to new information
ADAPTATION (6.1)
equilibrium
process of bringing assimilation and accommodation into balance and developing a new way to conceptualize the world
ADAPTATION (6.1)
schemas
Piaget’s theory, cognitive development driven by equilibration results in the formation of mental structures
SCHEMES (6.1)
figurative
mental representations of the basic properties of objects in the world
SCHEMES (6.1)
operative
mental representations of the logical connections among objects in the world and to reason about them
stages of development (6.1)
progress through the stages depends on brain maturation, social transmission, and experience
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT (6.1)
- brain maturation
- social transmission
- experience
- information from others which provide new models
3. acting upon the world and observing the results
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT (6.1)
1. sensorimotor stage
spans birth to 2 years old
- period during which the infant progresses from simple reflex actions to symbolic processing
- reflexive substage
- primary circular reaction substage
- secondary
- intentional behavior substage
- tertiary circular reactions sub.
- representational thought sub.
SENSORIMOTOR STAGE (6.1) primary circular reaction substage
own body
SENSORIMOTOR STAGE (6.1) secondary circular reaction sub.
outside of their body
SENSORIMOTOR STAGE (6.1) intentional behavior sub.
8-12 months
- cause of connections
SENSORIMOTOR STAGE (6.1) tertiary circular reactions sub.
vary behavior to look for subtle different response
SENSORIMOTOR STAGE (6.1) representational thought sub.
start to understand symbols
SENSORIMOTOR STAGE (6.1) object perminance
understanding that objects exist independently
challenges to P. view of sensorimotor stage (6.1)
- habituation and dishabituation are present at birth
- Memory: 9 months -very specific
- imitation: simple imitations
- understanding of goals and intentions (18.5 months)
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT (6.1)
2. Preoperational stage
- 2 to 7 years old
- marked by the child’s use of symbols to represent objects and events
- use symbols
- thinking of rigid and focused on appearance
- cannot grasp conservation (change in appearance but not the amount
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (6.1) Centration
one variable at a time
- limited to one thing
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (6.1) egocentrism
refers to young children’s difficulty in seeing the world from another’s viewpoint
- assume that other people see the world the same way
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (6.1) animism
inanimate object have human characteristics
- project feelings onto inanimate objects
challenges to P. view of preoperational stage (6.1)
egocentrism and perspective taking - made it complicated
- motivation of others // understand success and failing
- false-belief principle
- behavior is linked to brain and beliefs
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT (6.1)
3. concrete operational stage
- 7 to 11 years old
- children begin to use mental operations to solve problems and to reason
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE (6.1)
mental operation
- strategies and rules that make thinking more systematic and powerful
- reversibility and conservation
- class inclusion
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE (6.1)
inductive logic
- reasoning from their own experience to a general principle
- tried to concrete objects and operations
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE (6.1)
horizontal decalage
- being able to solve some concrete problems earlier than others
DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO CONCRETE OPERATIONS (6.1)
Seigler’s wave theory
- use different strategies
- strategies become more sophisticated over time
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT (6.1)
4. formal operations
- 11 to adulthood
- children and adolescents apply mental operations to abstract entities; they think hypothetically and reason deductively
- problem solving is systematic and methodical (look for ways to make problem solving more efficiently)
- organized thinking: identifying what variables are important
FORMAL OPERATIONS (6.1) Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
- capacity to take a premise that does not exist and create an event that does not exist
FORMAL OPERATIONS (6.1) naive idealism
social changes happen in adolescence
- optimistic and positive but not realistic and well thought out
FORMAL OPERATIONS (6.1) pendulum task
- changing only one variable
FORMAL OPERATIONS (6.1) deductive reasoning
- ability to draw appropriate conclusions from facts
ALTERNATIVE VIEWS OF FORMAL OPERATIONS (6.1)
Catherine Lewis
- focused on decision making
- older youths are more focused in their decision making than younger children
- comparing what is in the future and what isn’t
NEOPIAGETIAN THEORIES (6.1)
- Robbie’s case theory
- expands on piaget’s theory
explains cognitive development in terms of short term storage space of working memory capacity
NEOPIAGETIAN THEORIES (6.1) operational efficiency
max number of schemes that can be put into short term memory storage space
- faster short term memory = faster problem solving
contributions of P. theory (6.1)
- opened up the study of cognitive development
- offered a new view of children
- provided interesting discoveries about child development
- promoted facilitating rather than directing children’s learning
- emphasize exploration and interactions
- importance of individual differences
- importance of sensitivity to children’s readiness to learn: responding to the child’s cognitive skills
CONTRIBUTION OF P. THEORY (6.1)
constructivism
- the view that children are active participants in their own development who systematically construct ever more sophisticated understandings of their words
WEAKNESS OF P. THEORY (6.1)
- underestimates the achievements in sensorimotor and preoperational stages
- overestimates them in formal operations
- the processes and mechanisms of change from one stage to another are not clearly identified
- model does not account for variability in performance
- there is insufficient attention to the impact of the socioculture environment
VYGOTSKY’S THEORY (6.2)
sociocultural perspective
children are products of their culture
VTGOTSKY’S THEORY (6.2)
intersubjectivity
mutual shared understanding among participants in an activity - focused on the same thing
VYGOTSKY’S THEORY (6.2)
guided participation
cognitive growth results from children’s involvement in structured activities with others who are more skilled than they
VYGOTSKY’S THEORY (6.2)
zone of proximal development
present information just above their level of understanding - causes them to mentally leap
VYGOTSKY’S THEORY (6.2)
scaffolding
assistance parents provide their children to reach the next level of understanding
VYGOTSKY’S LANGUAGE (6.2)
stage 1: the primitive stage
experimenting with sound production
VYGOTSKY’S LANGUAGE (6.2)
stage 2: naive psychology stage
speaks words without grasping their purpose or meaning
- exclusively to communicate
VYGOTSKY’S LANGUAGE (6.2)
stage 3: egocentric speech stage
a. private speech
a. use language out loud to internally solve problems/guide themselves
VYGOTSKY’S LANGUAGE (6.2)
stage 4: ingrowth stage
a. inner speech
a. talk to themselves in their head to guide their behavior
VYGOTSKY’S (6.2)
information processing theory
- proposes that human cognition consists of mental hardware and mental software
- mechanisms that drive cognitive development includes:
~ better strategies
~ increased capacity of working memory (better planning, better strategies, more flexible)
~ more effective inhibitory processes and executive functioning
~ increased automatic processing
~ increased speed of processing
INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY (6.2)
sensory memory
- where information is held very briefly in raw, unanalyzed form (no longer than a few seconds)
INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY (6.2)
working memory
- the site of ongoing cognitive activity
INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY (6.2)
long-term memory
- limitless, permanent storehouse of knowledge of the world
INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY (6.2)
central executive
- coordinating all these activities (sensory memory, working memory, long-term memory), which is like the computer’s operating system
INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY (6.2)
inhibitory processes
- prevent task-irrelevant information from entering working memory
INHIBITORY PROCESSING THEORY (6.2)
executive functioning
- inhibitory processes, along with planning and cognitive flexibility
INHIBITORY PROCESSING THEORY (6.2)
automatic process
- cognitive activities that require virtually no effort
CORE KNOWLEDGE (6.2) core-knowledge theories
- propose distinctive domains of knowledge, some which are acquired very early in life
categories and domains (6.2)
- physical properties
- more general categories
- subdivision of categories
- assistance from adults
- categorization skills help children divide the world into domains and create theories within those domains
Object permanence (6.3)
objects exist even if you can’t see them
UNDERSTANDING LIVING THINGS (6.3)
a. motion
b. growth
c. structure and appearance
d. illness and healing
e. purpose
f. essentialism
a. animals can move by themselves
b. animals get bigger and physically more complex
c. inside look different than the outside
d. inherity or environment
e. things exist for purpose
f. basic understanding that there is something inside that makes us different from other people
UNDERSTANDING LIVING THINGS (6.3)
teleological explanations
- children believe that living things and parts of living things exist for a purpose
UNDERSTANDING LIVING THINGS (6.3)
essentialism
- children believe that all living things have an essence that can’t be seen but gives living thing its identity
UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE (6.3) naive psychology
refers to our informal beliefs about other people and their behvior
UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE (6.3) theory of mind
- 2 to 5 years old
- a naive understanding of the relations between mind and behavior
Phase 1: awareness of desires (1 or 2 y.o)
Phase 2: distinguish mental and physical (3 y.o)
Phase 3: actions based on belief rather than wants (4 y.o)
development of theory of mind (6.3)
brain development
- development of language and executive functioning
- interactions with others
