chapter 9 Flashcards
the ability to pass conservation tasks provide clear evidence of ______, mental actions that obey logical rules
operations
the ability to focus on several aspects of a problem at once and relate them to one another
Ex. Recognizing that when 1 of 2 identical glasses of water is poured into a shorter wider container, that the amounts are still the same because even though it is now shorter, the width of the container makes up for the loss in height
decentration
the ability to go through a series of steps in a problem and then mentally reverse them and return to the starting point
reversibility
the ability to order items along quantitative dimension such as length, weight or height
seriation
the ability to seriate mentally
requires children to integrate multiple relationships at once
transitive inference
mental representations of familiar large scale spaces such as their neighborhood
cognitive maps
children at the concrete operational stage think in an organized, logical fashion only when dealing with concrete ______ that they can perceive ________
Ex. When shown the pairs of different size sticks, children are able to infer that stick A was longer than stick C, but they have considerable difficulty with a hypothetical version of the problem: “Susan is taller than Sally, and Sally is taller than Mary. Who is the tallest?”
Children are not able to solve this problem until ages 11-12
information
directly
time needed to process information on a wide variety of cognitive tasks declines rapidly between ages 6-12
increases in information processing speed and capacity
the ability to control internal and external distracting stiumuli improves
gains in inhibition
between ages 6-10, children become better at deliberately attending to just those aspects of a situation that are relevant to their goals
selective
older children can flexibly adapt their attention to task requirements
When asked to sort cards with pictures that vary in both color and shape, children age 5 and older can switch their basis of sorting from color to shape when asked to do so
adaptable
involves repeating information to oneself
first memory stategy, appears in the early grade school years
rehearsal
grouping together related items
second strategy to appear, increases recall dramatically
organization
creatinga relation between two or more items that are not members of the same category
appears by the end of middle school
Ex. If two words on a list to be remembered are “fish” and “pipe,” a child might generate the verbal statement or mental image “the fish is smoking a pipe.”
elaboration
set of ideas about mental activities becomes more elaborate and refined during middle childhoold
theory of mind