Chapter 7: Conceptual Development Flashcards
Paiget and Inhelder Volcano experiment
Asked children what they could see from one side of a volcano model. Then switched sides and asked them what they other person could see on the opposite side. Children 4-6 years will give their own perspective, 7+ will describe other’s perspective.
Issue: too linguistically challenging
Deloache Scale model experiments
See if kids can use a scale model to represent a room they are in. Hid an object in the model and then asked them to find the object in the big room. Passed at 3 years, but failed earlier than that. Lack symbolic thought. Adding the ‘shrinking machine’ can facilitate understanding in younger ages.
Paiget conservation of mass problems
Pour liquid from short fat glass into tall skinny glass. Ask if the amount is the same. Younger than seven fail because they do not have the logic skills yet and cannot track more than one salient feature in change tasks
Play as learning
Very effective. Pretend play begins around 18 months. Activities being pursued just for the sake of pursing them encourages self-motivated learning. Sociodramatic play (30 months) teaches negotiation, cooperation, rules, and perspectival shifts.
Object substitution
Using toys as things other than what they are (ex: banana toy as a phone). Spontaneous and child led.
Imaginary friends
Children with them tend to have better theory of mind and verbal skills than those without
Categories in infants
Use categorization like adults; can habituate to category members as a broad topic. Categories can broaden around 6 months.
Sloutsky and Fisher 2004
Exposed adults and 4-5 year olds to categories and asked if animals of certain categories would have beta cells like their category members. Found adults performed worse in the induction condition, showing that children can think of members within a category more than adults can.
Plebanek and Sloutsky 2017
Visual search task to look for a cue on a character. Showed relevant and irrelevant features in test task. Showed that adults don’t pay attention to irrelevant features, but children do.
Blicket tests for causal reasoning
Tested 19-24 months old. Ask children to determine which object is a blicket based on observations. Show that kids are better at conjunctive causal reasoning than adults are.
Children’s perceptions of time
Hold temporal expectations of repetitive event order at 3 months. Can expect intervals or patterns of duration. Preschoolers can understand recent time vs. far away time.
