Class 7,8,9 - Cognitive Transitions Flashcards
Genetic Epistemology questions
How does new knowledge emerge?
How to appraise growth, progress?
Piaget’s “Genetic Epistemology”
genetic means devolopmental - deals whith problems of knowlage
later forms of knolage are better than eariler forms of knowlage if it is a product of devolopment (more powerfull, articulated, compsate for bias)
Piaget’s Novel
Recherche - sabastian in novel carves out an intellectual problem - how do we know we’re making progress in pholosipy and math?
New powerful forms of knowledge can arise out of less powerful forms
“Science of organization” - Can figure out why older is better than younger thinking - can be formally the same for why one philosophy is better than the other
Piaget’s Core Epistemological Concepts
Space, Memory, Time, Perception, Number, Reality, Causality, Logic, Morality, Geometry
Structure
form, organization, pattern
intelligence is structure - is organization to intelligence
Function
to Organize and to Adapt
biological function
Adaptation
assimilation-accommodation
assimalte - info when absorb into current way of thinking
accomodation - some point assimlate leads to controdictions, cognativve thinking is in disequlibum, forces us to change way of thinking (part of operations list)
Change
accommodations drive change
Piaget’s Core Biological Concepts
Structure
Function
Adaptation
Equilibrium
Change
Piaget’s Core Biological Concepts
Structure
Function
Adaptation
Equilibrium
Change
Piaget’s “definition” of intelligence
is instructive
“…a form (Structured, organized “schema”)
of equilibrium (The pattern of thinking allows adaptation to social & physical environment)
towards which all organisms tend” (Equilibria are temporary, unstable, And “tending” described in terms of “stages” –> final” equilibrium is the last stage, Perfect adaptation)
Five Main Features of Piaget’s Theory
Universals
Invariant sequence
Transitions via “equilibration”
Logical structures
“Constructivism”
Universals
(1) Growth of knowledge, the “epistemic subject”, not individual child
Invariant sequence
(2) Stage development shows constant order of succession
don’t skip stages - if alreay resoning at stage don’t go back to resoning at an eariler stage
Transitions via “equilibration”
(3) assimiliation-accommodation
move from stage to stage in equlibration - when resolve disequlibum between assimlation and accomidation
Logical structures
(4) There is an organization & structure to intelligence
“Constructivism”
(5) Against “empiricist” and “nativist” perspectives
the child constructs their own inteleges by the operations performed on enviorment (child is nieve scientst) - helps to build cognative structures
all learning is medated by own cognative activity - pepole of differnt ages see world differently
Piaget’s Cognitive devolopment stages
think of Stages as species of reasoning based on structural characteristics
Sensori-Motor
Pre-Operations
Concrete Operations
Final Operational
Sensori-Motor
last for about two years (has 6 substages)
Coordination of sensory schemas - “reciprocal assimilation” infants get by sensory information - may have organized way of looking and a way of grasping but the two are not cordinated - a go along - become cordinated
Lack of object permanence - wont look for absent objects because not know exist if not looking at it
Gradual internalization of action (prefoemed in past, make mental simples)
Origin of thought is not language
Interiorization of action schemes
Pre-Operations
Achievements & Limitations
age 2 - 7 ish
Achievements
Classify on basis of a single property
Group objects into classes
Concept of number (“cardinal principle”)
Arrange objects in a series
Limitations
Egocentrism: perspective-taking (hard time thinking about others feelings, thinking, etc. so attribute to the other their own perspective)
Fail “conservation tasks”
fail to conserve identty of something when you conserve it (ex. liquid quanity, number ammount)
Achivements of Concrete Operations
school aged
Conservation
Can conserve “identity” of attributes when transformed
Reversibility
Mentally undo transformations, inverse sequence of steps, or perform opposite operations
e.g., addition/subtraction, multiplication/division
Logic of Hierarchical Classes
“class inclusion” problems (ex. more dogs or cats preoperational child - can group into classes and can count - can solve task. or more dogs or animals - need to know about logical addion and subtraction. concreat operational - can solve - mental activity is operational - reverable.
Final/formal Operational
Theoretical Reasoning- Apply logic of classification, conservation, serial order to relationships not observable
Combinatorial- All conceivable combinations or permutations of abstract items
Proportional- State and interpret functional relations in math form
Control of Variables- Experimental design
Probabalistic & Correlational- Recognize relationships in spite of variation
Limitations of Concrete Operations
Reasoning is “concrete” (beakers and clay, things you can manipulate, not work with abstract, theoretical)
Children think in organized, logical fashion mostly on concrete tasks they perceive directly
Their mental operations work poorly when applied to abstract ideas.
Or “contrary-to-fact” propositions
Changes in Cognition going though childhood to adolescences (Cognative Devolopmental Hypothisis of adolsence)
- Thinking about possibilities (Hypothetical thinking, deductive reasoning)
(1) Underwrites idealism, crushes, move between actual and possible, generate alternative possibilities, make comparisons. - Thinking about abstract concepts
(2) Politics, morality, religion, democracy, friendship - Thinking about thinking (“metacognition”)
(3) “Adolescent egocentrism” (Imaginary Audience, Personal Fable) - Thinking about multiple dimensions
(4) Complex explanations (“Civil War”), self-descriptions, sarcasm - Relativism
(5) Don’t accept facts on face value or in absolute terms
2-5 in Formal Operations
Cognitive Developmental Hypothesis of Adolescence”
Major cognitive features of adolescence are associated with formal operations
Features:
Idealism
Criticizing adult institutions
Hypothetical deductive reasoning
Introspection (“thinking about thinking”)
Self-consciousness
Facility with abstraction
Perspective-taking from “systems” level
“Adolescent Egocentrism”
Egocentrism during transition to formal operations
“Second-Order Thinking”- Thinking about thinking, about the self, introspection, self-consciousness
“Thinking about possibilities” - Hypothetical reasoning
Theoretical reasoning, Contrary-to-fact thinking
imaginary audiences
Self-consciousness
Shame, shyness, embarrassment
Rumors
Class clown
Exotic self-presentation
personal fables
Invulnerability
Personal Uniqueness
Omnipotence
Invulnerability:
predicted risk behavior, substance use
Uniqueness
: predicted depression & suicidal ideation
Omnipotence :
-r(simble for correlation) with internalizing symptoms; +r with mental health
computer metafor
storage comactivy
RAM mem
IP speed
human brain has too
Improvements in ____ (attention) adolsence
selective attention & divided attention
selective attion
Focus on reading while tuning out roommate’s video game
devided attenton
Studying while texting friend
attend to complex tasks
(e.g., reading & comprehending)
Adolescents better able to attend to complex tasks
inhibiting unwanted response
Maturation of brain systems: impulse contro
Improvements in ___ memory durring adolsence
working memory and long-term memory
long term memory
Including autobiographical memory
reminiscence bump
reminiscence bump
Brain’s “recording device” is hypersensitive to emotion
Not result of better memory, or because many events are novel;
Working memory
More important than LTM for many problems
Linked to greater connectivity among brain regions
self refrence effecct
items encoded with refrence to self - better rembered - cleaner expantions - self going throuhgb so many dramatic changes
Speed (information processing)
3000-fold increase in speed of neural transmission
Occurs mainly in early adolescence
Difference in speed between 9yo and 12yo
> difference between
12yo & 15yo
Metacognitive Knowledge
Knowledge of Cognition
Knowledge of Control Processes
Knowledge of Cognition
Declarative (knowing that)
Procedural (knowing how)
Conditional (knowing when)
Knowledge of Control Processes
Planning
Monitoring
Evaluating
Metacognitive knowledge of cognition (in younger children)
Young children do not realize that memory skills vary from person-to-person
Over-estimate their memory ability (e.g., they “always” remember well)
Think that verbatim is as easy to remember as gist
And that organization does not matter
Metacognitive knowledge of control processes (in younger children)
Young children show poor comprehension monitoring (dont understand that they dont understand, untill ask (ex. to play game )
Inefficient allocation of study time
Too optimistic about recall readiness
Metacognitive knowledge is associated with
success in school
Steinberg discusses social cognition under 4 headings
Theory of Mind
Thinking about Relationships
Understanding Social Conventions
Conceptions of Laws, Liberties, and Rights
Social cognitive development drives psychosocial advances in
identity, friendship, moral judgment
Thinking about Relationships
Interpersonal understanding
Related family of stage sequences
Self-other subjectivity
Friendship
Peer group relations
Parents
Driven by advances in perspective-taking
Understanding of self-other is a
social cognitive structure that shows developmental change
Stages of Social Cognitive Development
0 - preschage
1
2 aproaching early adoltence
3 early adolsence
4- adolsencet/young adult
Persepactave taking stages
0- undifferentaed/egocentric
1- subjective/Differentated - not able to think about self from others persective
2- Reciprocal
3- third party - step outside of selfes - adopt 3d person perspective - self observing ego (self conousness - preforming for own 3d party ego)
4- in depth societal, cordiante the self absorbing egos of others
self sunjectivity stages
0- Physicalistic (describe self as what own/have)
1- Inner-outer distinguished, but aligned (unsrtstanding self has an inner part, some subjectivity, what feel inside and how present self to others - allighned if smiling must be happy)
2-Need not align; “false front” is possible (consern about authotensity, fakes, phonies,etc.)
3- Aware of own self-awareness; Self-observing ego
4- Unified system of levels Conscious & unconscious
frendhsip stages
0 -Momentary physical playmate
1 -One-way assistance (someone who helps me)
2 - Fairweather cooperation (help eachother, frenship easily broken by dissagrements)
3- Intimate, mutual sharing
4 - Autonomous Interdependence
development of perspective taking drives
development in other stages
Implications of Stages of Social Cognitive Development
Steinberg credits these implications to adolescents developing a ___
Adolescents can discern another’s perspective on some issue…but also
Understand that person’s perspective on their own point of view (top two - level’s 2)
Should lead to improvements in communication
And improvements in perspective-taking could change dynamics with parents (for good or ill)
Steinberg credits these implications to adolescents developing a more sophisticated Theory-of-Mind
Theory of Mind
The ability to attribute mental states to self and others
Helps us understand that others have unique beliefs different from out own
Facilitates daily social interaction as we interpret mental states of others as cues for governing our own behavior
mental states
Beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions
ToM is an ___ developmental achievement
early
Early precursor skills for ToM
Joint visual attention (both look over at something together)
Intentionality
Social referencing (look to see reaction)
minds can be interfaced
Development of ToM follows a series of steps
1) Understanding “wanting”
Others have diverse desires & to get what they want
act in different ways
2) Seeing leads to knowing
If someone hasn’t seen something, they will need extra information to understand
3) Understanding false-belief
Understanding that others may have false-beliefs that differ from reality
4) Understanding hidden feelings
Others can hide their emotions —put up a “false front”
False belef problem - the smarties task
box says smarties
ask what think they are - say smarties
open and see pencels ask what friend will think is in box - says pencils - fail taks
3yo fail task - pencils
4-5yo correctry - smarties
Passing false-belief ToM tasks is an achievement of
early childhood
sally and anne ball in basket/box taks
~85% of normally developing kids answer correctly
~85% of kids with Downs syndrome answer correctly
~85% of kids on autism spectrum answer incorrectly
passing false-belief ToM tasks is an achievement of early childhood
The brain regions (mPFC, mentalizing network) that undergo the most significant development during adolescence overlap with those
that have been linked to the ability to take other people’s perspectives and to infer mental states”
mPFC
Differentiate self vs. unknown others vs. close friends
medial prefontal cortex
mentalizing network
Superior temporal sulcus (STS)
Temporal parietal juncture (TPJ)
Temporal poles amygdala
Adolescents & emerging adulthoods recruit the same mentalizing network on
intentional causality tasks (ex. Likely to change seats at cinema if have trouble seeing the screen)
Adolescents & emerging adulthoods recruit the same mentalizing network on intentional causality tasks
but differences emerged when comparing __
Adolsences__
Early adults ___
intentional vs. physical causality tasks (physical- Tree makes a noise if it falls?)
Adolescents activate mPFC more than EAs on intentional (vs. physical)
EAs activated superior temporal sulcus more than adolescents
Neural strategy for thinking about intentions ___ from adolescence to EA, with ___
shifts from adolescence to EA, with refinements
in ToM Same brain regions implicated in EAs and children ____, but increased sensitivity to ____
5-11
mental state info with age
In young children right & left TPJ respond equally to ____
But these regions are more sensitive to ____ in adolescence & EM
stories about mental & non-mental states
mental state information
Mentalizing judgments of “self” and “other” associated with ___
mPFC, left TPJ, posterior cingulate
also differentiation of brain activity in Self vs other
self
Ventral PFC
Left ventral lateral PFCLeft insula
Other
Dorsal PFC
Bilateral TPS
Cuneous
main points:
Mentalizing is distributed;
PFC plays a role in a variety of social cognitions
__ are core to “social cognition”
Judgments of self & other
Selman’s “interpersonal understanding” charts stage sequences of perspective-taking
and “egocentrism” is a famous “Piagetian” problem of self-other
How does perspective-taking work at the neural level?
Identify cortical regions that “light-up” switching from 1st-person (1PP) to 3rd-person (3PP) perspective
lead to simulation theory
simulation theory
Egocentrism here is an attempt to __
We adopt model of self-perception as default mode when we attempt to access another’s state of mind
Egocentric bias (1PP)
use resources of one’s own perspective to simulate behavior of another
We project ourselves into the situation & attempt to construct the other’s perspective (3PP) from our own vantage point
Evidence for simulation theory
1PP (peson perspective) and 3PP activate the same neural networks -
common brain regions when:
Execute an action
Mentally represent the action
Witness another performing the action
may be confusing - need to differntate from 1PP and 3PP
____ regions appear crucial for registering difference between 1PP and 3PP
Cortical (mPFC, left temporal pole, Left TPJ)
Activation of regions similar to ToM is recruited to evaluate what another person knows or feels
Frontopolar cortex may exert inhibitory control in suppressing egocentric 1PP in both perspective-taking and ToM
- Is social cognition in adolescence the result of improvements in ToM?
- Is social cognition in adolescence the result of cortical changes of the “social cognitive brain?”
(1)
ToM is an achievement of early childhood, and many of the features of adolescent perspective-taking noted by Steinberg are characteristics of childhood stages identified by Selman’s “interpersonal understanding
(2)
But maybe changes from adolescence to EA in social cognition is tied to cortical changes to the developing brain?
Differences in way perspective-taking is understood by neuroscience & by developmental psychologists
Dev. Psyhologists:
Coordinated inter-subjectivity of agents
At different levels (interior self to “systems”)
Embedded in relationships
Drives interpersonal understanding, family, groups, friends
Situated, dynamic, embodied
Neurosentists:
Neural networks
Switching from 1PP to 3PP
1PP simulation and perspective-suppression
Social reasoning is structured into domains
Moral Domain, Conventional Domain, & Personal Domain
Personal Domain
Judgments that apply only to self (friends, what music to like)
Moral Domain
Harm & fairness (can’t change)
Conventional Domain
Social organizations (Can be changed by consensus)
Domain theory has implications for how adolescents ___
understand issues of peer inclusion & exclusion
In clear cut cases most teens oppose exclusion on moral grounds of fairness and equality—but active coordination is required when ___
moral issues are overlaid with conventional and personal considerations
Decision-Making Redux Factors
Invulnerability - adolsents ofer over estimate risk (feel more vonurable)
Sensation-Seeking
Impulsivity
Comparative vs Absolute judgements
Comparative - teens report less vulurvility
Absolute - teens report more vulnreblity
Optimistic bias
think we have a better chance than the average peron, feel more involurable
Unconditional vs conditional way to ask question
unconditional - more opmistic buas
constional - more venerability
Subjective invulnerability and optimism bias are
empirically distinct constructs
Danger involurabluty
can drink and drive and nothing will happen
psychological involubility
roomor/gosip not bother
Psychological Invulnerability also counter-indicates
depression, self-esteem problems and interpersonal problems
Some aspects of invulnerability are adaptive
Psychological Invulnerability neg assocated with __ pos assocated with ___
PI was negatively associated with depressive symptoms
PI was positively associated with mastery coping
Danger invonrepility pas assocated with ___
DI was positively associated with delinquent behavior and drug use
Invulnerability and smoking
Invulnerability predicted smoking behavior (but not vice versa ex. smoking not predict invulnerability)
1-point increase in Danger Invulnerability at Time 2 was associated with a 9% increase in odds of smoking at Time 3
But effects of invulnerability wash out after controlling for friend’s smoking; & perceptions of smoking’s benefits
senscation seeking
propencity to risk behavior
impuslitivty
inc early to middle adolsence
inc.
inc. only modertly
Impulsivity comes in three forms
“Acting without thinking”
“Impatience”
“Sensation-seeking”
“Acting without thinking”
early in pubertal cycle
Hyperactivity without evidence of deliberation or attention to environment
Early risk for substance use
Impatience
Impatient when given choice between immediate small reward vs. larger but delayed reward
More likely to experiment with drugs
“Acting without thinking” and “Impatience” are associated with
early - onset trajectories
Impulsivity predicts
Problem Behavior (oppositional behavior and ADHD symptoms)
Predicts Risk Behavior (drinking, fighting, smoking, gambling)
Increase of risk behavior with __
with age, but working memory also increased
“engaging in risk behavior is related to cognitive maturation”
Sensation seeking chartistic of __
tendency to approach ___ despite risk
linked to realse of ___
is a ____ univerasal
Positivlty corrolated with ___
influence of peers can ____
Characteristic of most adolescents
Tendency to approach novel & exciting experiences despite risks
Linked to release of dopamine to ventral striatum
A biological universal in mammals
Positively correlated with IQ
Influence of peers can catalyze sensation-seeking effects on risk behavior
