Cognition and Development Flashcards
What is cognitive maturation?
Cognitive maturation is the biological unfolding of mental abilities
What is a schema
A schema is a mental structure often based on previous experiences that helps us formulate expectations and how to operate in the world
Supporting evidence for schemas
Fantz’s face study - innate face schema
What’s Fantz’s face study?
We are innately pre-programmed to prefer/recognise faces. Babies as young as 2 months prefer faces which make sense to those scrambled up, measured by time spent looking at them. Therefore, it can be argued that our schema for faces is innate
What is assimilation?
Assimilation occurs when an individual incorporates new knowledge into an existing schema.
What is accommodation?
Accommodation involves either a child adapting an existing schema to fit new information or creating a new schema in order to deal with the new understanding
Define equilibration
Equilibration can be see as the balance achieved between existing schemas and new knowledge
What happens in the sensorimotor stage?
Piaget believed infants learn to do-ordinate sensory input with motor actions. Piaget used the term circular reactions to describe how how an infant repeats actions over and over again to rest sensorimotor relationships
What is object permanence?
The realisation that objects have a permanent existence even when they are out of sight
How did Piaget test for object permanence?
He showed a toy to an infant before hiding it or taking it away. In one version of his experiment, Piaget would hide a toy under a blanket and then observe to see if the infant would search for the object
What is the contesting evidence for object permanence?
Bower found infants as young as 3-4 months were surprised when an object had disappeared from a place they had seen it previously
What are the key characteristics of the pre-operational stage?
- Animism
- Egocentrism
- Class inclusion
- Conservation
What age is the sensorimotor stage?
0-2 years
What age is the pre-operational stage?
2-7 years
Define egocentrism
Egocentrism means that you can only see the world from their own perspective and being unaware of other peoples viewpoints
How did Piaget and Inhelder test egocentrism?
The 3 mountains task:
Children were shown a model of 3 mountains with different features and saw views of the model from different angles. They were asked to select from pictures what a doll placed on the other side of the model could see. Children under 7 tended to choose the picture that showed their own viewpoint, rather than that of the doll suggesting they could not grasp that others had a different viewpoint to them
Who contested against the 3 mountains task?
Hughes argued that the 3 mountains task was too abstract and children couldn’t relate to it
Define class inclusion
Class inclusion is the ability to work out how categories of objects relate to one another, and includes sub categories. Understanding the reaction between two classes where all members of one class are included in the other
How did Vygotsky see the child?
An apprentice
What does mental functions involve in Vygotsky’s theory?
- Born with elementary mental function (memory, perception) - biological, part of natural development
- Transformed into higher functions by the influence of culture
What does the role of culture involve in Vygotsky’s theory?
- Children learn through problem solving experiences shared with someone else
- More knowledgeable other/expert guides the process at first then shifts responsibility to the child
What does the role of language involve in Vygotsky’s theory?
Culture is transmitted by semiotics (signs and symbols) - language, and math symbols
Who is supporting evidence for Vygotsky’s stages?
Gredler (1992)
What did Gredler(1992) find
Found people in Papua New Guinea who used a counting system involving their digits and arms which ended at 29 meaning they cannot deal in large numbers suggesting their cognitive abilities had been shaped by cultural context. This can be explained by the fact that people in this culture have no need for complex maths, so this counting system fits their cultural needs
Who is supporting evidence for the Zone of proximal development?
- Roazzi + Bryan’s (1998)
- Wertsch et al (1980)
Overall evaluation of Vygotsky - GRAVE
Generalisability - Good, cross cultural research (e.g. Gredler) supports language and culture element of theory, but individual differences not accounted for (do we all like group work? Nomothetic approach)
Reliability - Evidence often relies on observational data, may lack reliability
Application - Yes
Validity - Difficult to test/falsify the main concepts such as ZPD, some supporting evidence exists, ignores individual differences
Reductionism - Focuses on social environment causing cognitive development, downplaying role of genetics/biology/personality type
How does Piaget view the child?
As a scientist
What are Piaget’s structure and processes?
Schemas
Assimilation
Accommodation
Equilibration
What 3 questions did Piaget and Szeminska ask?
- Are all the beads wooden?
- Are there more brown or white beads?
- Are there more brown beads or wooden beads?
What is animism?
Attributing human intentions to objects
What is conservation?
The ability to recognise that reorganising the appearance of materials and objects does not alter properties like volume, mass and number
Describe the traditional Piagetian conservation task
It was asked whether two instances (e.g. rows of counters or beakers of liquid) were the same or different both before and after a change was made to their physical appearance. Children under 8 years old extremely struggle to grasp this concept
What did McGarrigle & Donaldson do?
Used a conservation of number task and found 16% of 6 year old participants showed number conservation if the experimenter deliberately messed up the rows, whereas 62% showed conservation if a ‘naughty teddy’ appeared to accidentally mess up the rows. This suggests that Piaget’s original research may have in accurately measured children’s actual abilities at these ages
What does a child have problems with in the concrete operational stage?
Abstract thinking
What does abstract thinking mean?
Solve problems of transivity inferences without concrete examples
According to Vygotsky, what are the two major influences on children’s development of understanding?
- culture and social interaction
- language
What are the 3 speech development stages?
Pre intellectual speech
Egocentric speech
Inner speech