Cognition and Development

Question 1

What two influences did Piaget believe that cognitive development was a result of?

Answer 1

Maturation - The effect of the biological processes of ageing. As children get older, certain mental processes become possible.
Environment - through interactions with the environment, children’s understanding of the world becomes more complex.

Question 2

What is a schema?

Answer 2

A schema is a mental framework of beliefs and expectations about the world that influence cognitive processing. They are developed from experience.

Question 3

Define cognitive development.

Answer 3

A general term describing the development of all mental processes, in particular thinking, reasoning and our understanding of the world.

Question 4

What did Piaget believe about the schemas of children?

Answer 4

Children are born with a small number of schemas - just enough to allow them to interact with other people. For example, the grasping reflex or mental representation of a face.

Question 5

What happens to schemas during infancy?

Answer 5

During infancy we are thought to construct new schemas. One of these is a “me-schema” in which all the child’s knowledge about themselves is stored.
With time, we develop schema for other people, objects, physical actions and more abstract ideas like morality and justice and this occurs as a result of interactions with the environment.

Question 6

What are the two types of schema?

Answer 6

Behavioural e.g. grasping an object
Cognitive e.g. classifying objects

Question 7

Piaget proposed two ways that schema’s can become more complex. What are they?

Answer 7

Assimilation;
Accomodation.

Question 8

What is assimilation?

Answer 8

A form of learning that takes place when we acquire new information or a more advanced understanding of an object, person or idea that fits into existing schemas without making change.

Question 9

What is accommodation?

Answer 9

A from of learning that takes place when we acquire new information that changes our understanding of a topic leading us to create a new schema or radically change existing schemas to deal with new understanding.

Question 10

Give an example of assimilation.

Answer 10

A child in a family of dogs can adapt to the existence of different dog breeds by assimilating them into their dog schema.

Question 11

Give an example of accommodation.

Answer 11

A child with a pet dog may at first think of cats as dogs - four legs, fur and tail - but then they accommodate to the existence of a separate species called a cat.
This will involve altering the animal/pet schemas to include cats and forming a new cat schema.

Question 12

Define equilibration.

Answer 12

Experiencing a balance between existing schemas and new experiences.
It takes place when new information is built into our understanding of a topic either by assimilation or accommodation.

Question 13

What is disequilibrium?

Answer 13

A state of imbalance when an experience cannot be assimilated into existing schemas.
An individual is motivated to learn in order to restore balance.

Question 14

Evaluate Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.

Answer 14

1. Individual mental representations - Howe et al put children between ages 9 and 12 in groups of 4 to study and discuss movement of objects down a slope. Although their understanding increased the children had not come to the same conclusions or picked up the same facts, supporting Piaget’s idea that children learn by forming their own personal representations.
2. Applied to education - Prior classrooms had children sat silently in rows, copying from the boards which has been replaced by activity-orientated classrooms which allow children to actively engage.
3. Underplayed the role of other people in learning - the main focus of his theory is individual learning whereas other theories and research expressed the importance of other people in learning. This reduces the validity of Piaget’s work.
4. Over-estimated motivation - he only studies children who belonged to predominantly white, middle-class, well-educated families. Children who come from poorer backgrounds with fewer educational opportunities may display more or less intellectual curiosity. Therefore, Piaget’s theory cannot explain cognitive development in all children.

Question 15

State the 4 stages (and the ages) of intellectual of development stated by Piaget.

Answer 15

Sensorimotor Stage: 0-2 years
Pre-Operational Stage: 2-7 years
Concrete Operations Stage: 7-11 years
Formal Operations Stage: 11 years+

Question 16

Describe a child’s ability in the sensorimotor stage.

Answer 16

Babies focus on physical sensations and basic co-ordinations between what they see and their body movement;
Come to understand people are separate objects and acquire some basic language;
Object permanence develops around 8 months, which is the belief that an object still exists when it goes out of view.

Question 17

Describe the child’s ability in the pre-operational stage.

Answer 17

Children cannot conserve;
Children are egocentric;
Children find class inclusion difficult.

Question 18

What is meant my conservation?

Answer 18

Conservation is the ability to realise that quantity remains the same even when the appearance of an object or group of objects changes.

Question 19

What is meant by egocentrism?

Answer 19

Egocentrism is a child’s tendency to only see the world from their own point of view. This applies to physical objects and arguments in which a child can only appreciate their own perspective.

Question 20

What is meant by class inclusion?

Answer 20

Class inclusion is the recognition that classes of objects have subsets and are themselves subsets of larger classes.

Question 21

Describe a child’s ability in the concrete operations stage.

Answer 21

From around 7 most children can conserve and perform much better on tasks of egocentrism and class inclusion;
Children still have reasoning problems as they are only able to reason on physical operations in their presence and struggle to reason abstract ideas.

Question 22

Describe a child’s ability in the formal operations stage.

Answer 22

Abstract reasoning develops;
Children can focus on an argument and not be distracted by its content;
This formal reasoning can be tested using syllogisms.

Question 23

Describe the supporting research for the sensorimotor stage. (Object permanence)

Answer 23

Piaget hid an object under a cloth and observed whether children would continue to reach for the object;
Before 8 months the children immediately switched their attention away but after 8 months, they continued to reach for it suggesting they understood it still existed.

Question 24

Describe the supporting research for the pre-operational stage. (conservation)

Answer 24

Piaget showed children two rows of counters and asked them to confirm they were the same;
He then spaced out one row of counters and asked if they were still the same or if there were more in one row than the other;
Pre-operational children said they were no longer the same which demonstrated they could not conserve.

Question 25

Describe the supporting research for the pre-operational stage.
(egocentrism)

Answer 25

Piaget and Inhelder showed children a model of three mountains and placed a doll at a different viewing angle to the child;
They then asked children to identify the doll’s view from a set of pictures;
Pre-operational children were not able to do this.

Question 26

Describe the supporting research for the pre-operational stage.
(class inclusion)

Answer 26

Piaget showed 7-8-year-olds pictures of five dogs and two cats and asked whether there were more dogs or animals in the picture;
Children at this stage tended to say they were more dogs suggesting they could not simultaneously see a dog as a member of the dog class and the animal class.

Question 27

Describe the supporting research for the formal operations stage.

Answer 27

Smith et al found that children younger than this stage struggled with syllogistic reasoning tasks such as working out “how many heads does a yellow cat have, if all yellow cats have two heads?”

Question 28

Evaluate Piaget’s pre-operational stage of Intellectual development.

Answer 28

1. TESTS OF CONSERVATION LACKED VALIDITY - Piaget underestimated the ability of children in the pre-operational stage. McGarrigle and Donaldson found that children aged 4 to 6 could conserve if they were not put off by the way they were questioned.
2. EGOCENTRISM CAN OCCUR BEFORE 7 YEARS OLD - Hughs shows children a model with four walls in a cross layout which contained 2 dolls - a boy and a policeman. The policeman doll was placed at different locations and the children were asked whether the policeman could see the baby doll - 90% of 3.5-year-olds and 5-year-olds could understand 2 viewpoints, which contradicts Piaget’s claim.
3. CLASS INCLUSION CAN OCCUR BEFORE 7 YEARS OLD - Siegler and Svetina found that children of 5 could successfully complete a similar type of task to Piaget’s original study if they were given an accurate explanation of class inclusion at the start of the experiment.
4. DOMAIN-SPECIFIC THEORY IS MORE APPROPRAITE THAN DOMAIN-GENERAL - Piaget took a domain-general view of cognitive development that not all psychologists agree with. Studies of children with autistic spectrum disorder suggests intellectual abilities develop independently to social cognition abilities.

Question 29

Evaluate Piaget’s research into object permanence.

Answer 29

OBJECT PERMANENCE MAY OCCUR AT A MUCH YOUNGER AGE - Bower and Wishart found infants aged 1-4 months continued to reach for an object for up to 90 seconds after the lights were turned out.

Question 30

How are Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s work similar?

Answer 30

Vygotsky was influenced by Piaget’s work;
They agreed on many of the basics of cognitive development;
E.g. children’s reasoning abilities develop in a particular sequence, and that such abilities are qualitatively different at different stages.

Question 31

How does Vygotsky’s work differ from Piaget’s?

Answer 31

Vygotsky proposed cognitive development was a social process and that language in involved in the development of knowledge.

Question 32

Describe what is meant by social and independent level in cognitive development.

Answer 32

Vygotsky saw cognitive development as a social process of learning from more experienced others;
Knowledge is first intermental, between the more and less expert individual - this is the social level;
Then intramental, within the mind of the less expert individual - this is the individual level.

Question 33

What did Vygotsky propose children are born with?

Answer 33

Elementary mental functions such as perception and memory.

Question 34

What are elementary mental functions?

Answer 34

They are biological and a form of natural development.

Question 35

What are higher mental functions?

Answer 35

Include mathematical systems and are exclusively human.

Question 36

How are elementary mental functions transformed into higher mental functions?

Answer 36

By the influence of culture.

Question 37

What is the role of others in Vygotsky’s theory?

Answer 37

A child learns through problem-solving experiences shared with someone else, usually a parent or teacher, but also more competent peers;
Initially the ‘expert’ assumes most of the responsibility for guiding the problem solving activity, but gradually the responsibility transfers to the child.

Question 38

What did Vygotsky believe about the role of language?

Answer 38

Culture is transmitted by experts using semiotics - the signs and symbols developed within a particular culture;
To begin with, language takes the form of shared dialogues between the adult and child, but as the child develops mental representation, they begin to communicate with themselves.

Question 39

What is the zone of proximal development?

Answer 39

The region where cognitive development takes place and is the gap between a child’s current level of development and what they can potentially do;
Learning precedes development and occurs through scaffolding.

Question 40

What is meant by scaffolding?

Answer 40

Describes the processes of assisting a learner through the ZPD;
The expert creates a temporary support, which is gradually withdrawn when the child is more able to work independently.

Question 41

What are the 5 aspects of scaffolding identified by Bruner and Ross?

Answer 41

Recruitment - engaging the child’s interest in the task;
Reduction of degrees of freedom - focusing the child on the task;
Direction maintenance - encouraging the child to continue and complete the task;
Marking critical features - highlighting the most important tasks;
Demonstration - showing the child how to do aspects of the task.

Question 42

Evaluate Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development.

Answer 42

1. SUPPORT FOR ZPD - Roazzi and Bryant found that 4-5-year-olds perform better on ‘number of sweets’ challenge when working with peers than alone.
2. SUPPORT FOR SCAFFOLDING - Conner and Cross observed 45 children at intervals between the ages of 16 and 54 months, finding that mothers used less direct intervention as children developed.
3. LEARNING VARIES - cihldren that learn together do not pick up the same skills. HOWE ET AL.
4. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES - Vygotsky assumed learning was largely the same in all children. Some children learnt best during social interaction but this may not be true for everyone.

Question 43

Describe the procedure of Baillargeon’s violation of expectation research.

Answer 43

• 24 infants, aged 5-6 months, were shown a tall or a short rabbit passing behind a screen with a window.
• Possible condition - the tall rabbit can be seen passing the window but the short one cannot.
• Impossible condition - tall rabbit did not appear at the window.

Question 44

State the findings of Baillargeon and Graber’s study and what they meant. (VOE)

Answer 44

• The infants looked for an average of 33.07 seconds at the impossible condition compared to 25.11 seconds at the possible condition.
• This was interpreted as meaning that the infants were surprised at the impossible condition as they looked at it for longer, because they knew that the tall rabbit should have reappeared at the window.
• This demonstrated an understanding of object permanence at less that six months of age.

Question 45

Why did Baillargeon develop the violation of expectation technique?

Answer 45

To compare infant reactions to expected and unexpected event to make inferences about the infant’s cognitive abilities.

Question 46

What is meant by containment?

Answer 46

The idea that when an object is seen to enter a container it should still be there when the container is opened.

Question 47

What is meant by support?

Answer 47

The idea that an object should fall when unsupported but not when it is on a horizontal surface.

Question 48

Describe Baillargeon’s theory of Infant Physical Reasoning.

Answer 48

1. Baillargeon proposed that humans are born with a physical reasoning system. This means we are born hard-wired with a basic understanding of the physical world and the ability to learn more details easily.
2. Initially we have a primitive awareness of the physical properties of the world. This becomes more sophisticated as we learn from experience.
3. At birth we have object persistence which is similar to Piaget’s idea of object permanence.

Question 49

How do Piaget and Baillargeon differ in their views of early infant abilities?

Answer 49

1. Baillargeon suggested infants in the sensorimotor stage have a better-developed understanding o the world than Piaget suggested.
2. Piaget suggested that infants did not reach for a hidden object because they lacked an understanding of object permanence.
3. Baillargeon suggested it might be because they lacked the necessary motor skills to complete the task.

Question 50

Evaluate Baillargeon’s explanation of early infant abilities.

Answer 50

HARD TO JUDGE - we are simply inferring that children understand the physical world - could be many reasons why they find one scene more interesting than another - VOE may not be entirely valid (impact)
CAREFULLY CONTROLLED - the infant sat on the parent’s lap so they could have unconsciously communicated with the baby - to prevent this the parents were told to keep their eyes shut - increases the validity of the findings as it reduces the impact of extraneous variable (impact).
PHYSICAL UNDERSTANDING IS UNIVERSAL - Hespos and van Marle suggests without learning and regardless of experience humans have a good understanding of basic properties of physical objects - the universality of this understanding suggests this system is innate.
BEHAVIOURAL RESPONSE IS NOT THE SAME AS UNDERSTANDING - just because they look longer at an impossible scene does not mean that children understand the world - the knowledge we use to reason the physical world is very complex and this cannot be assessed in children who do not have language.

Question 51

Define social cognition.

Answer 51

Describes the mental processes we use when engaged in social interaction. For example we make decisions on how to behave based on our understanding of a social situation. Both the understanding and the decision making are cognitive processes.

Question 52

Define perspective taking.

Answer 52

Our ability to appreciate a social situation from the point of view of other people and underlies much of our social interaction.

Question 53

What did Selman propose about social perspective taking? How does this differ from Piaget.

Answer 53

Selman proposed that the development of social perspective-taking is a separate process which is a domain-specific approach to explaining cognitive development.
Whereas, Piaget believed in a domain-general cognitive development, so he believed that physical and social perspective-taking would occur hand in hand.

Question 54

Briefly describe Selman’s research on children’s perspective-taking abilities.

Answer 54

He used a series of dilemmas which explore the child’s reasoning when faced with conflicting feelings.
The dilemmas required the child to have to take someone else’s, or several people’s perspectives.

Question 55

Describe the procedure and findings of Selman’s research.

Answer 55

PROCEDURE
- 30 boys and 30 girls took part - 20 aged 4, 20 aged 5 and 20 aged 6
- All were individually given a task designed to measure role-taking ability.
- This involved asking them how each person felt in various scenario.
FINDINGS
- A number of distinct levels of role taking were identified.
- Selman found that level of role-taking correlated with age, suggesting a clear developmental sequence.

Question 56

Describe stage 0 of Selman’s stages of social cognitive development.

Answer 56

Socially Egocentric: ages 3-6 and the child cannot reliably distinguish between their own emotions and those of others but do not understand what social behaviour might have caused them.

Question 57

Describe stage 1 of Selman’s stages of development.

Answer 57

Social Information Role Taking - 6-8 years: The child can tell the difference between their own point of view and that of another but can focus on only one of these perspectives.

Question 58

Describe stage 2 of Selman’s stages of development.

Answer 58

Self Reflective Role Taking - 8-10 years: The child can put themselves in the position of another and fully appreciate their perspective but can only take on board one point of view at a time.

Question 59

Describe stage 3 of Selman’s stages of development.

Answer 59

Mutual Role Taking - 10-12 years: Children are now able to look at a situation from their own and another’s point of view at the same time.

Question 60

Describe stage 4 of Selman’s Stages of Development.

Answer 60

Social and conventional system role taking - 12 years +: young people become able to see that sometimes understanding other’s viewpoints is not enough to allow people to reach agreement, so social conventions are needed to keep order.

Question 61

Describe the later developments to Selman’s Theory.

Answer 61

1) Interpersonal Understanding - If we can take different roles then this shows we can understand social situations.
2) Interpersonal Negotiation Strategies - as well as understanding what others think in social situations we also have to develop skills in how to respond to them e.g. managing conflict.
3) Awareness of Personal Meaning of Relationships - as well as understanding what others think in social situations and how to manage them, social development also requires the ability to reflect on social behaviour in the context of life history e.g. a child can adapt their response to another child based on previous experiences with them.

Question 62

Describe the relation of perspective taking to the ability to deceive.

Answer 62

Deception entails a child planting a false belief in someone else’s mind, they can usually do this around 3 years.
Cole found that children of this age were able to hide their disappointment when they received the worst present if they were being watched by others but showed this disappointment when filmed secretly on their own.

Question 63

Evaluate Selman’s levels of perspective.

Answer 63

1) ADHD - children with ADHD have problems with perspective taking - Marton et al compared 50 8-12 years with ADHD with a control group - those with ADHD did worse on understanding the scenarios and identifying feelings - strength of Selman’s work because the research has useful applications.
2) CULTURAL DIFFERENCES - Wu and Keysar found young adult Chinese participants did significantly better in perspective taking than matched Americans - shows there is more to the development of perspective taking.
3) MIXED EVIDENCE - Buijzen and Vallenburg found a negative correlation between age, perspective taking and coercive behaviour - shows perspective taking is important in developing pro-social behaviour - HOWEVER, Gasser and Keller found that bullies displayed no difficulties in perspective taking.
4) OVERLY COGNITIVE - does not consider other factors such as the development of empathy etc. - there is more to children’s social development.

Question 64

What is meant by Theory of Mind.

Answer 64

Refers to the ability that each of us have to ‘mind-read’ and is our personal understanding of what other people are thinking and feeling.

Question 65

What are the three different methods to study Theory of Mind?

Answer 65

Intentional reasoning research - assesses the emergence of a simple ToM in toddlers.
False belief tasks - assess more sophisticated level of ToM
Eye Task - assess advanced ToM in older children and adults; participants judge complex emotions with minimal information about facial expressions.

Question 66

Describe the intentional reasoning research in toddlers.

Answer 66

PROCEDURE: Meltzoff got children of 18 months observe adults place beads into a jar;
In the experimental condition the adults appeared to struggle with this and dropped the beads;
In the control condition the adults placed the beads successfully in the jar.
FINDINGS: In both conditions, the toddlers placed the beads in the jar, they dropped no more beads in the experimental condition which suggests they were imitating what the adult INTENDED to do.
CONCLUSIONS: This research shows that very young children have simple ToM

Question 67

Describe the false belief task - Sally-Anne Studies.

Answer 67

Baton-Cohen et al told children a story involving two dolls, Sally and Anne.
Sally places a marble in her basket, but when Sally is not looking Anne moves the marble to her box.
The task is to work out where Sally will look for the marble.

Question 68

Describe how Baron-Cohen and colleagues have explored the link between ToM deficits and ASD.

Answer 68

PROCEDURE: 20 high functioning children diagnosed with ASD and control groups of 14 children with Down’s syndrome and 27 without a diagnosis were individually administered the Sally-Anne study.
FINDINGS: 85% of children in the control groups correctly identified where Sally would look for the marble.
20% of children in the ASD group correctly answered.
CONCLUSIONS: This difference demonstrated that ASD involves a ToM deficit which suggests that deficits in ToM is a complete explanation for ASD.

Question 69

How did Baron-Cohen assess ToM in older children and adults with ASD?

Answer 69

The Eyes Task involves reading complex emotions in pictures of faces just showing a small area around the eyes;
Adults on the autism spectrum had a mean score of 16.3 compared to ‘typical’ participants with a mean score of 20.3 out of a maximum of 25.

Question 70

How does Theory of Mind provide a biological basis?

Answer 70

As it appears to develop at a particular age and that it is likely to be absent in many people with autism.

Question 71

What is the Theory of Mind Module?

Answer 71

A specific mechanism that matures in the brain around the age of 4 and explains an individual’s ability to understand the mental states of other people;
With the development comes the ability to manipulate and deceive others by hiding one’s emotions and intentions which occurs from 3 years.

Question 72

Evaluate Theory of Mind.

Answer 72

1. FALSE BELIEF LACKS VALIDITY - Bloom and German suggests other cognitive abilities are required to be successful on a false belief task e.g memory - Sally-Anne story is quite long - problematic as ToM research is dominated by false belief research.
2. RESEARCH HAS BEEN USEFUL BUT ITS QUESTIONED - helping us understand the differing experiences of those on the autistic spectrum and those who are “neurotypical” - HOWEVER, Tager-Flusberg suggests more recent research questioned the assumption that ToM problems are specific to ASD.
3. EYE TASK LACKS VALIDITY - looking at a static pair of eyes in isolation is very different from real life - questions the ToM research as it is not standing on an acceptable level of empirically based ideas - concepts are too difficult to test so until they are the theory cannot be regarded as valid (impact)

Question 73

What are mirror neurones?

Answer 73

Neurones that fire both in response to personal action and in response to action on the part of others.

Question 74

What did Gallese and Goldman suggest about mirror neurones?

Answer 74

Mirror neurons respond not just to observed actions but to intentions behind behaviour;
They believed that we do not just interpret people’s actions with reference to our memory but that we stimulate other’s actions in our motor system and experiment their intentions using our mirror neurones.

Question 75

How are mirror neurons important in theory of mind?

Answer 75

If mirror neurones fire in response to others’ action and intentions, this might give us a neural mechanism for experiencing and understanding other people’s perspectives and emotional states;
It may allow us to interpret what others are thinking and feeling.

Question 76

How are mirror neurones linked to human evolution?

Answer 76

Ramachandran suggested that mirror neurones are key to understanding the way humans have developed as social species;
The uniquely complex social interactions we have as humans require a brain system that facilitates an understanding of intention, emotion and perspective;
Without these cognitive abilities we would not be able to live in large groups with complex social roles and rules.

Question 77

Evaluate mirror neurones.

Answer 77

1. INFERRING FROM BRAIN SCANNING - fMRI’s identify activity levels in regions of the brain but do not allow us to measure activity in individual brain cells- therefore researchers are inferring activity - there is a lack of direct evidence.
2. EVIDENCE FOR ATYPICAL MIRROR NEURON FUNCTION IN ASD HOWEVER INCONSISTENCIES - Hadjikhani reviewed evidence and found scans that showed smaller average thickness for the pars opercularis - HOWEVER, not all findings have been replicated consistently - lack of reliable direct evidence.
3. QUESTIONS OVER PRECISE ROLE OF MIRROR NEURONES - Hickock suggests mirror neurone activity may have more to do with using others’ behaviour rather than understand it - better evidence should be provided to support better evidence.