cognition and development Flashcards

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1
Q

what is the definition of cognition development?

A

a general term in describing the development of all mental processes in particular thinking and understanding of the world. it continues throughout a person’s life but psychologists have particular focus on childhood and adolescence

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2
Q

what is a schema?

A
  • a mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing. they are developed from experience
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3
Q

what does piaget believe about schemas?

A
  • as children get a better understanding of the world, they get more complex schemas
  • children are born with a small number of schemas, just enough to interact with people and the world
  • children develop a “me - schema “ which contains all the information about themselves
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4
Q

what is accomodation?

A
  • takes place when we aquire new information that changes our understanding of an already existing schema to the extent where we need to create a new schema or drastically change existing ones
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5
Q

what is assimilation?

A
  • when we get new understandings about already existing schemas that we can add to the schema. it does not radically change the understanding just changes it slightly
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6
Q

how does equilibrium and disequilibrium happen?

A
  • we are pushed to learn when our existing schemas do not allow us to make sense of something new - this unpleasant feeling is called disequilibrium
  • to escape disequilibrium we have to adapt to the new situation by developing our understanding to reach equilibrium
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7
Q

what is Equilibration?

A

Equilibrium occurs when a child’s schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation. However, an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation).

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8
Q

what is functional invariants?

A
  • structures that stay the same throughout the developmental process, which assist in the discovery and understanding of knowledge
  • includes the process of adaption (assimilation and accommodation) and equilibrium
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9
Q

what is varient structures?

A

structures that change and develop as knowledge is discovered;
- includes schemas and operations

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10
Q

what are Operations?

A

Operations are more sophisticated mental structures which allow us to combine schemas in a logical (reasonable) way.

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11
Q

what happens in the sensori motor stage of development? 0-2

A
  • infants learn about the world through their senses
    they learn many different processes, these include: object permanence;
    self-recognition (the child realises that other people are separate from them); deferred imitation; and representational play
  • At about 8 months, the infant will understand the permanence of objects and that they will still exist even if they can’t see them and the infant will search for them when they disappear.
  • The main achievement during this stage is object permanence – knowing that an object still exists, even if it is hidden. It requires the ability to form a mental representation (i.e., a schema) of the object.
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12
Q

what happens in the preoperational stage? 2-7

A
  • the preoperational stage. It takes place between 2 and 7 years. At the beginning of this stage, the child does not use operations, so the thinking is influenced by the way things appear rather than logical reasoning.
  • A child cannot conserve which means that the child does not understand that quantity remains the same even if the appearance changes.
  • The child is egocentric; he assumes that other people see the world as he does. This has been shown in the three mountains study.
  • As the preoperational stage develops, egocentrism declines, and children begin to enjoy the participation of another child in their games, and let’s pretend play becomes more important.
    infants at this stage also demonstrate animism. This is the tendency for the child to think that non-living objects (such as toys) have life and feelings like a person’s
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13
Q

what happens in the concrete operational stage? 7-11

A

By the beginning of the concrete operational stage, the child can use operations (a set of logical rules) so she can conserve quantities, she realizes that people see the world in a different way than he does (decentring) and he has improved in inclusion tasks. Children still have difficulties with abstract thinking.
- During this stage, children begin to think logically about concrete events.
- Children begin to understand the concept of conservation; understanding that, although things may change in appearance, certain properties remain the same.
- During this stage, children can mentally reverse things (e.g. picture a ball of plasticine returning to its original shape).
- During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think and feel.
- Piaget considered the concrete stage a major turning point in the child’s cognitive development because it marks the beginning of logical or operational thought. This means the child can work things out internally in their head (rather than physically try things out in the real world).
- Children can conserve number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9). Conservation is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance changes.
- But operational thought is only effective here if the child is asked to reason about materials that are physically present. Children at this stage will tend to make mistakes or be overwhelmed when asked to reason about abstract or hypothetical problems.

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14
Q

what happens in the formal operational stage? 11+

A
  • The formal operational period begins at about age 11. As adolescents enter this stage, they gain the ability to think in an abstract manner, the ability to combine and classify items in a more sophisticated way, and the capacity for higher-order reasoning.
  • Adolescents can think systematically and reason about what might be as well as what is (not everyone achieves this stage). This allows them to understand politics, ethics, and science fiction, as well as to engage in scientific reasoning.
  • Adolescents can deal with abstract ideas: e.g. they can understand division and fractions without having to actually divide things up, and solve hypothetical (imaginary) problems.
  • Concrete operations are carried out on things whereas formal operations are carried out on ideas. Formal operational thought is entirely freed from physical and perceptual constraints.
  • During this stage, adolescents can deal with abstract ideas
    They can follow the form of an argument without having to think in terms of specific examples.
  • Adolescents can deal with hypothetical problems with many possible solutions.
    -From about 12 years of age children can follow the form of a logical argument without reference to its content. During this time, people develop the ability to think about abstract concepts, and logically test hypotheses.
  • This stage sees the emergence of scientific thinking, formulating abstract theories and hypotheses when faced with a problem.
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15
Q

limitation of piaget’s theory - conservation research

A
  • critics argue that the children may have been distracted by the fact that the appearance may have changed
  • McGarrigle and Donaldson (1974) set up a study in which one condition was a replicate of Piaget and the other way was in a way that they were asked differently - 72% guessed correclty
  • thsi shows that 4-6 year olds may be able to conserve, ti jsut depends on the way that they are asked
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16
Q

limitation of piagets theory and research - small sample

A
  • the sample used in the object permanace study was small and were all from families who were well-educated and of high socioeconomic status. Because of this unrepresentative sample, it is difficult to generalize his findings to a larger population.
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17
Q

limitation fo piaget - Developmental Variations Exist

A

The theory suggests that all people should at least reach the formal operational stage if not further, yet it is not clear if all people actually fully achieve the developmental tasks that are the hallmark of formal operations. Even as adults, people may struggle to think abstractly about situations, falling back on more concrete operational ways of thinking.

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18
Q

what is Zone of proximal development (ZPD)

A
  • this is the gap between a child’s current level of development and what they can potentially do with the right help from a more expert other
  • he believed that children develop a more advanced understanding of a situation and hence the more advanced reasoning skills
  • believed that higher mental functions such as formal reasoning, could only be acquired through interactions with more advanced others
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19
Q

what did Vygotsky’s believe about development?

A
  • saw development as a social process of learning from others from more experienced others (MKO)
  • Knowledge is first intermental, between the more and less experienced individual, then intramental within the mind of the less expert individual
  • saw language as a much more important part of development than piaget did
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20
Q

what is scaffolding?

A
  • the process of helping a learner cross the zone of proximal development and advance as much as they can, given their stages of development. Typically the level of help given in their stage of development. typically the level of help given in scaffolding declines as a learner crosses the zone of proximal development
    an MKO (more knowledgeable other) uses scaffolding to assist the child to progress
  • As the child learns to master the problem, scaffolding is gradually withdrawn. Learning happens in a social relationship where the MKO and child do things together, then gradually the child does more on its own, This helps relieve the stress and tensions of failure at a difficult task and maintains the child’s self concept and enjoyment of learning
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21
Q

what is internalisation?

A

The ability to think and reason by oneself is called inner speech. For Vygotsky, cognitive development involves the process of internalising the problem solving taking place, during the interaction of the child with its parent, siblings or teacher. Sees the child as an apprentice, gaining skills and knowledge through collaborating with other people

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22
Q

what is concept formation?

A
  • vygotsky gave children puzzle blocks with nonsense syllables on them and they had to work out what the symbols meant
  • the children showed four stages of concept development depending on their age and maturity
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23
Q

what were the 4 stages in concept formation?

A
  1. vague syncretic - child uses trial and error to try to solve the problem
  2. complex - child uses some strategies to try and solve the problem but they are not successful
  3. potential concept - now they are more systematic and look at one aspect of the problem at a time
  4. mature concept - systematic and successful
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24
Q

what are semiotics?

A
  • menas using signs and symbols to create meaning
  • for vysgotsky, this is the primary function of language development
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25
Q

what are the 3 stages of semiotics?

A
  1. social speech (0-3) - pre - intellectual language, where language and thinking are not interdependent
  2. egocentric speech (3-7 years) - self talk and thinking out loud
  3. inner speech (7+) - self talk becomes silent and internal and language is used for communication only
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26
Q

how does culture affect development?

A
  • he beleived that basic mental functions such as attention, perception and memory developed into more sophisticated and effective mental processes through interaction with socio-cultural
  • suggested that thinking, even when carried out alone is affected by the beliefs, vlaues and tools of the culture that the person grows up in
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27
Q

evaluation of Vygotsky - support for ZPD

A
  • there is clear evidence to show that there is a gap between levels of reasonign that children can acheive on their own compared to with the help of a MKO
  • Roazzi and Bryant (1998) gave children aged 4-5 years old the task of estimating sweets in box
  • in one condition they worked alone, in the other they had the help of an older child
  • they gave the children prompts and the children who had the help, mastered the task
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28
Q

evaluation of vygotsky - support for scaffolding

A
  • it has been observed in many tasks - even Roazzi and Bryant how helpful support can be and how it decreases over time
  • Conner and cross (2003) did a longitundunal study in which they looked at the support for chidlren by their mothers from 16 - 54 months
  • help decreased and was only used when needed rather than constantly
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29
Q

strength of vygotsky - real world application

A
  • his ideas have become highly influential in higher education
  • socail learning e.g peer tutoring has proven the benefits of scaffolding
  • keer and verhaeghe (2005) found that 7 year olds tutorted by 10 year olds along side whole class teaching progressed further
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30
Q

counterpoint to real world application - not universal

A
  • Lui and Matthews (2005) point out that classrooms in china that have up to 50 students learn just as effectively than students who have MKOs
  • this means he may have overestimated the importance of scaffolding
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31
Q

what are some key similarities between piaget and vygotsky?

A
  • piaget believed that, learning progresses with age and learn increasingly complex information as they get older
  • vygotsky believed that children learn increasingly complex information and skills as they get older through the performance of more difficult tasks with the help of a MKO
  • piaget places an emphasis on both nature and nurture - the combination of maturation in the brain and body combine with the children responding to the demands of the environment in ways to meet their goal
    -vygotsky places emphasis on both nature and nurture - hereditary and dialogues with more expert members if society contribute jointly to development
32
Q

what are some key differences between piaget and vygotsky?

A
  • piaget beleived children learn though active discovery
  • vygotsky believed that children learn through instruction and guidance
  • piaget believed cognitive development is mostly the same universally
  • vygotsky beleived that cognitvie devlopment differs from culture to culture and onr historical era to the next
33
Q

what did piaget say about age and object permance?

A

that it developed about 8 months old

34
Q

what did Baillargeon say that contrasted piaget’s theory of object permanence?

A

says that object permanence develops much earlier than piaget states and that it develops around 3-4 months

35
Q

what is VOE ( violation of expectation)

A

an unexpected event that happens in a experiment that voilates the baby’s expectation of an experience

36
Q

procedure of Baillargeon and Graber research into VOE

A
  • 24 babies aged 5-6 months
    -took a tall and small rabbit pass through a screen (familairisation event
  • two test evetns with a window, short rabbit passed thorugh as expected, tall rabbit either was seen through the window or not
37
Q

findings of Baillargeon and Graber research into VOE

A
  • babies looked for an average of 33.07 seconds at the unexpected event rather than 25.11 seconds at the expected event
  • the surprise of seeing the rabbit supports the idea of object permanence
38
Q

what is Baillargeon’s theory of infant physical reasoning

A
  • proposed that that humans are born with a physical reasoning system ( PRS) which means that we are hardwired with a basic and more complex understanding of the world which we learn from experience
  • Because of the influence that VOE and PRS have, children are more inclined to explore the world around them
39
Q

strength of VOE - high validity

A
  • gets around an important limitation of Piaget
  • piaget says that distraction will casue children to lose interest
  • the VOE method gets aroumnd this by saying that distraction and looking away is not included in their results
  • this makes it have a higher validity due to a confounding variable
40
Q

counterpoint of high validity for VOE

A

piaget pointed out that acting in concordance to a priciple is not the same as understanding it
- just becuase babies respond to unexpected events, this does not represent a chance in cognitive ability

41
Q

limitation of Baillargeon - may not be object permance

A
  • the theory assumes that the reaction to VOE is linked t unexpectedness and hence object permance
  • they may find VOE more interesting rather than understadning the event
42
Q

strength of Baillargeon - universal understanding

A
  • Hespos and Marle (2012) point that we have very good understanding of the phyiscal world regardless of culture
  • things like dropping keys does not require past experience or culture
  • innate concepts prove PRS
43
Q

according to selman, what is perspective taking ?

A

our ability to appreciate a social situation from another point of view

44
Q

what is the differnece between selman and paiget’s view?

A

piaget just focuses on the view point, selman focuses on the emotions and feeling of the other indiviudal
- piaget believed physical and cognitve processes go hand in hand , selman says they are different

45
Q

what was selman’s procedure on research of perspective - taking?

A

30 boys and 30 girls , 20 4 years olds, 20 5 year olds and 20 6 year olds
- asked them how they would feel in different scenarios
- task involved a young girl called Holly who promised her father she wouldnt climg trees, but did to save her friends cat
- must explain how each person would feel

46
Q

what was selman’s findings on research of perspective - taking?

A

found that level of perspective taking correlated with age

47
Q

what happens in stage 0 (3-6) according to selman?

A

egocentric
- a child cannot distinguish between their emotional state, and the state of others.
- they do not understand what social behaviour might have cuased them

48
Q

what happens in stage 1 (6-8) according to selman?

A

social informational
- a child can now tell the differnece between their point of view and that of others, but they can only usually focus on one at a time

49
Q

what happens in stage 2 ( 8-10) according to selman?

A

self reflective
- at this stage a child can put themselves in the position of someone else , they can only take on one perspective at a tine

50
Q

what happens in stage 3 (10-12) according to selman?

A

mutual
- children are now albe to look at a situation from their own and another’s point of view at the same time

51
Q

what happens in stage 4 (12 years +) according to selman?

A

social and conventional system
- young people become able to see that sometimes other’s point of view is not enough to get people to agree. This is why social conventions are needed to keep order.

52
Q

what does selman tell us about development?

A
  • As children mature, they take more information into account.
  • They realise that different people can react differently to the same situation.
    -They develop the ability to analyse the perspectives of several people involved in a situation from the viewpoint of an objective bystander
  • They can even imagine how different cultural or social values would influence the perceptions of the bystander.
53
Q

strength of selman- evidence

A
  • Selman provided solid evidence that perspective-taking ability improves with age in line with his theory. Selman (1971) gave perspective-taking tasks to 60 children (30 boys, 30 girls), ages 4-6 years.
  • Significant positive correlations were found between the age and ability to take different perspectives in scenarios like that of Holly and the kitten.
  • Longitudinal follow-up studies have shown that perspective taking develops with age in each individual child.
54
Q

limitation of selman - correlation not cause

A
  • The research is mostly correlational, they do not mean that perspective taking skills cause higher levels of social competence (could be the other way round?!).
  • More popular children interact with more people, and that may lead to advances in the development of perspective-taking skills.
55
Q

strength of selman - real world application

A
  • The development of the cognitive ability to take a range of perspectives appears to be important in atypical development.
  • Research has shown that children with ADHD and those on the autistic spectrum have problems with perspective-taking.
  • In one study Marton et al (2009) compared 50 8-12 years-old children with a diagnosis of ADHD with a control group on performance on perspective-taking tasks like those used by Selman. Those with ADHD did worse on understanding the scenarios, identifying the feelings of each person involved and evaluating the consequences of different actions.
56
Q

what is the first stage of later development by Shultz et al (2003)

A

interpersonal understanding
- if we take different roles then we can understadn social situations

57
Q

what is teh second stae of later development Shultz et al (2003)

A

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
- we therefore develop soical skills such as asserting our psoition and managing conflict

58
Q

what is theory of mind?

A

our personal understanding of what other people are thinking and feeling. it is sometimes called “mind reading”

59
Q

what did Meltzoff show about children aged 18 months

A
  • children aged 18 months observed adults place beads into a jar.
  • in the experimental condition, the adults appeared to struggle with this and put some of the beads outside of the jar
  • in the control condition, the adults placed the beads in successfully
  • when observing both conditions, they did it successfully suggesting this imitate what the adults intend to do
  • this suggests that very yougn children have ToM
60
Q

what was involed in crayon false belief tasks?

A
  • were developed in order to test whether children can understand that people can beleive something that is not true
  • they asked what was in the box and then asked what they thought the other person would think
61
Q

what did 3 year olds say about the crayon box?

A
  • said they always thought there were candles in the box and the toy would think the same
62
Q

what did 4 year olds think about the crayon box?

A

said they thought crayons were in the box and the toy would think the same

63
Q

what do children who pass the false belief test understadn

A

things cna be deceptive and other people can have a different beleif

64
Q

what was involved in the sally anne study ?

A
  • children were told a story with sally and anne. Sally walks away and anne hides her marble
  • chidlren are asked to stat wehre sally will looks for the marble
65
Q

waht was the sample of sally anne study?

A

20 austitic, 27 non austitic children, 14 children with down syndrome

66
Q

how did Baron - Cohen help support the idea of ToM and autism

A

foudn that many austitic peopel sturggles on the eye task

67
Q

limitation of ToM - false beleif task

A
  • there is too much relaince on false beleif tasks
  • Bloom and German (2000) state that there is problems with validity with false belief tasks
  • one reason for this is false belief tasks use other cogntivie abilities like visual memeory - suggesting it may be due to memeory differeneces rather than ToM
  • also some children who are successful in pretend play, sturggle with false belief tasks
  • this suggests false beleif tasks may not acutally measure ToM
68
Q

limtiation of ToM - ToM or perspective taking

A
  • Despite being separate cogntive entities, they are related
  • it can be difficult to knwo whether we are measuring one or the other
  • for example, in imitation takss, they may be perspective tasking rather than consciously understadning thier intention
69
Q

strength of ToM - real life support

A
  • the tests used to assess ToM are challenigng for those with autism becuase they amy not understand hwo the person feels
  • this makes it hard for them to socially interact with others
70
Q

what is a mirror neuron?

A

nerve cells that react when a person performs an action, but also when they observe or even hear someone performing an action!

71
Q

how were mirror neurons discovered?

A
  • discovered by Rizzolatti et al (2002) while studying electircal acitivity in a monkey’s motor cortex
  • foudn that the same brain cells fired, whether the monkey or the human picked up the food
  • mirror motor activity of another person
72
Q

how do mirror neurons link to intention?

A
  • Gallesse and Goldman (1998) suggested that mirror neurons respond the the intention of the actions, not jsut the action itself
  • suggested that we stimulate others’ actions in our motor systems and experience their intentions
73
Q

how do mirror neurons link to perspective taking?

A
  • if mirror neurons fire in response to other’s actions and intentions, this may give us a neural mechanism for experiencing, and hence understanding other people’s perspectives and emotional states
  • our own reflected motor actions will allow us to think about perspective
74
Q

how do mirror neurons like to human evolution?

A
  • Ramachandran (2011) say that mirror neurons have changed human evolution
  • without these cognitive abilities, we would not be able to live in large social groups
  • suggests that mirror neurons are key for understanding human development
75
Q

how do mirror neurons link to autism?

A
  • some theories propose problems with mirror neurons may be linked to autism
  • Ramachandran and Oberman (2006) propose the “broken mirror” theory that states that cognitive dysfunction is caused by problems with the mirror neurons