COGNITION AND DEVELOPMENT Flashcards
Describe Hughes 1975 police man and doll study
- conducted a study to investigate children’s ability to understand different perspectives.
- children were asked to place a doll in a position where it couldn’t be seen by a “policeman” figure
- The study found that children as young as 3.5 years old could succeed in this task, suggesting that young children may understand others’ perspectives and decentre earlier than Piaget proposed.
- opposes 3 mountains task and suggests it was too difficult a task
Describe Piagets 3 mountains task
- tested children’s egocentrism
- He showed them a model of three mountains and asked them to choose from a selection of photos what the doll, placed at a different viewpoint, would see.
- preoperational children often chose their own perspective, showing egocentrism.
- children 7+ found it easier to consider the doll’s viewpoint,
-suggesting Piaget’s theory that egocentrism decreases with age as children move into the concrete operational stage.
Describe Howe et al’s slope study (1992)
- tested children of 9-12 years old
- all watched the motion of the same object sliding down a slope
- children were then allows to discuss what they had seen
- despite all seeing the same motion, each child reported different details and different understandings of the motion
- confirms Piaget’s prediction that individual mental representations are formed through discovery learning and a child’s existing schema affects their understanding of a situation
- supports the role of schemas
Describe Roazzi and Bryant (1998) study
gave 4-5 year old children the task of estimating the number of sweets in a box.
In one condition children worked alone and in another condition they worked with an older child. The children who worked with the expert who offered prompts to help them gave better estimates.
- evidence for vgotsky’s MKO, scaffolding
Describe Balliargeon and Graber (1987) study into object permanence
• Infants were shown two test events; an expected event and an unexpected event which violates their expectations of the physical world (VOE - refers to events which defy logic and do not appear to be physically possible)
• 24 infants , aged 5-6 months
• Short and tall rabbit pass behind a screen with a window
• control condition - Possible condition where the child can see the tall rabbit but not short (cause small isn’t tall enough to be seen in window)
• Impossible condition - the child can see neither rabbit
• Looked longer at the impossible event 33 seconds compared to 25 – suggesting they were surprised as they thought the rabbit should re-appear
• This suggested children understand object permanence at 2-3 months rather than 8 months which Piaget suggested
Describe Rizzolatti et Al’s findings (1996) monkey study
Found that the same neurones fired in a monkeys motor cortex (the part of the brain controlling movement) when a researcher reached for their food and when the monkey reached for food.
-> evidence for mirror neurones (fire in response to personal action and in response to others actions)
Describe Siegler and Svetina (2006) findings class inclusion
- studied 100 5 year olds with three sessions of class inclusion tasks and found that young children struggled with class inclusion…
- but when they were repeated with explanations in between, their responses improved
-> Piaget underestimated younger children
Describe Piaget’s research into object permanence
- Piaget presented a toy to a child
- while the child is watching, he hides the toy under a blanket
- Piaget observes to see if the child searches for the toy
- stated that object permanence develops around 8-12months
- prior to this age, infant will lose interest and assume the toy has disappeared due to not having object permanence
Describe Piaget’s class inclusion (1964) study
Piaget showed children pictures of:
• 5 dogs
• 2 cats
He then asked the child:
“Are there more dogs or more animals?”
Findings:
• children under 7 answered “more dogs”— as they didn’t understand that the dogs and cats could fit into more than one category
• children 7-11 were more likely to answer correctly, saying there are more animals.
-> evidence for class inclusion developing in the concrete operational stage
Describe Conner and Cross (2003) study scaffolding
Longitudinal study using 45 infants
- found that mothers help/intervene less as children age
- and that children are able to go beyond developmental stage with support
-> supports idea of scaffolding and help of MKO’s
Describe Wu and Keysar (2007) study for Selman’s theory of mind
- found that young Chinese adults were significantly better in perspective taking than matched Americans
-> supporting Selmans theory that both maturity and the social environment (culture) contribute to development of perspective taking
Describe Selman (1971) study into perspective taking
Aim:
To investigate children’s ability to take another person’s perspective (understand their thoughts and feelings) and how it develops with age.
PROCEDURE:
• presented children aged 4 to 12 with hypothetical dilemmas (e.g., the “Holly and the kitten” scenario).
• asked children were asked how different characters might feel or think to analyse their responses to determine how well they could understand other people’s viewpoints.
Findings:
• perspective-taking developed in stages as children get older.
• Younger children could only see their own point of view, while older children could consider multiple perspectives
• This showed that social understanding becomes more advanced with age, and helped him to produce his levels of perspective taking
Describe the Sally - Anne study Wimmer and Perner (1983)
Children told a story where about two dolls:
• Sally has a basket, Anne has a box.
• Sally puts a marble in her basket and then leaves the room.
• While Sally is gone, Anne moves the marble from the basket to the box.
• Then Sally comes back.
The children were asked the question:
“Where will Sally look for the marble?”
- the question requires an understanding of Sallys false beliefs that the marble is still in her basket
-> theory of mind develops at 4
- children younger than 4 were unable to have theory of mind and said that the marble was in the box because they cannot understand that sally has different knowledge to what they have
Describe Baron Cohen’s (1985) Sally - Anne study of autistic children
Sally-Anne task given to 20 autistic children, 27 non-autistic children and 14 children with Down’s syndrome.
Findings:
only 20% autistic children successful vs 85% non-ASD.
- those with Down’s syndrome had the same score as non autistic children and developed theory of mind around 4 too
-> suggests children with ASD have an under developed theory of mind
Describe Haker et Al’s findings (2012) contagious yawning
Used fmri scans to investigate whether the mirror neuron system was activated when individuals observe yawning and compared it to fmri scans of individuals watching neutral face expressions
-> mirror neurones in Brodmann’s area were activated when watching others yawn
-> contagious yawning is as a result of basic empathy and highlights the role of mirror neurones in sharing empathy with others
Describe Ramachandran and Oberman (2006) study proposing the ‘broken mirror theory’
- EEG of autistic children watching hand movements vs imitating the hand movements and compared with a non autistic control group
- mirror neurones fired in non autistic group for both the video and their own hand movements and had no problem imitating
- reduced mirror neurone activity when autistic group watched the video
- autistic children also struggled to imitate hand movements
-> dysfunctional mirror system may contribute to difficulty in social interaction and empathy
-> reinforces idea of broken mirror theory as an explanation for certain traits of ASD individuals
Describe Hamilton (2013) study ASD and mirror neurones
- metal analysis of 25 studies
- concluded there was little evidence for a dysfunction of mirror system in autistic children
- lack of replication of findings makes it less reliable
