Chapter 9 Flashcards
synaptic overproduction/synaptic pruning
in the first few months of life, we make tons of neural connections. This is followed by synaptic pruning; the ones we don’t often use are pruned away. “use it or lose it”
Developmental Plasticity
Changes in neural connections as a result of environmental interactions and neural changes from learning
Sensorimotor Stage
- 0-2
- influenced by sensory information and motor movement
- understand association between actions and consequences
- 3-6 months- no object permanence, out of sight of out mind mindset. Usually thought to be 9 months
- 12 months- little scientist stage. Learns that world is orderly. Expresses agency, experiments with cause and effect
- 12-24 months- express symbolic representation. Can think of objects that aren’t there in front of them, and can use objects to symbolize other objects
Preoperational
- 2-7
- child understands symbolic representation, but still swayed by sensory information
- expresses centration- focusing more on sensory information.
- example of centration: doesn’t understand conservation of volume. If water is moved to a taller container, thinks there’s more water in it. Still heavily swayed by sensory information
- extremely egocentric processing- can’t take another person’s visual perspective until 4-5 years old
Concrete Operational
- 7-12
- a child understands symbolic representation and conservation: understands that a change in sensory information isn’t a change in the substance
- good at reasoning with concrete objects or knowledge in the world. Not good at reasoning with hypothetical knowledge or knowledge that goes against concrete knowledge
Formal Operational
- 12+
- end of qualitative change in cognition- no more distinct stages of growth
- can understand hypothetical reasoning, analogies, abstract concepts
- are able to use systematic reasoning and knowledge. This is why math and science are taught after age 12
What do current psychologists think of Piaget’s theory?
- the growth is continuous/gradual and does not have distinct steps (qualitative)
- this current theory is backed up by new technology that tests infant cognition
Do babies understand math?
- 8-10 month olds have mathematical intuition and understand simple addition and subtraction
- primates also have this
- improved with experience
Do babies understand physics?
- kind of
- 2-4 month olds
- have “intuitive physics” and are surprised at impossible events
- understanding of gravity and causality (if ball is going to hit ball 2 but doesn’t, and ball 2 still rolls away, they’re surprised)
- improved with experience
What are babies born with?
ability to learn environmental contingencies
born with reflexes
What are Piaget’s four stages of development and the ages?
Sensorimotor (0-2)
Preoperational (2-7)
Concrete Operational (7-12)
Formal Operational (12+)
How do babies learn words?
- we use nouns rather than adjectives because babies learn nouns easier
- When we say “look at the puppy”, this is an inferential problem. What are they talking about?
- verb- sitting
- adjective- fuzzy
- Babies use scaffolding to identify what we’re talking about
- syntactic clues- our sentence structure
- social cues- what we’re looking or pointing at
Forming categories with nouns
- babies hardwired to form categories with nouns. Easiest like this
- by 13 months- can find categories with nouns and can extend to other same nouns
- learn “blicket” to mean dinosaur and identify other dinosaurs as blicket
Forming categories with adjectives
- takes babies longer to form categories with adjectives
- 21 months- can identify what adjective means what feature and apply this to others
- can’t learn blikish to mean purple and extend this to other purple objects
Theory of Mind
- one of Piaget’s theories
- knowing that others have knowledge and intentions
- common in humans and other social animals: elephants, porpoises, pigs, dogs, birds
