Cognition and Development

Question 1

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

Answer 1

Development is a systematic, structured process. It isn’t the amount of knowledge that distinguishes an older and younger thing, but the qualitative difference in their thoughts. A child’s thoughts change is signified by changes in their cognitive and intellectual development.

Question 2

Discovery Learning

Answer 2

Learner must be an active participant. Knowledge is not just transmitted verbally, but must be constructed and reconstructed by the learner.

Question 3

Schema

Answer 3

A schema is a cognitive representation of all we know about an object, person or idea. Our schema become more complex and sophisticated.

Question 4

Equilibrium

Answer 4

Point of full understanding.

Question 5

Disequilibrium

Answer 5

Desire to know more about a schema. Asking questions to develop knowledge.

Question 6

Assimilation

Answer 6

Discover information to add to an existing schema.

Question 7

Accomodation

Answer 7

Radical change of a schema or creation of a new one.

Question 8

Stages of Cognitive Development 1936

Answer 8

Structuralist approach, suggesting that we must complete each stage before moving onto the next.

Question 9

Sensory Motor Stage (Birth-18 months)

Answer 9

Child gains understanding of the environment by using its senses and movement. Develop object permanence.

Question 10

Object permanence

Answer 10

Ability to appreciate that things we can’t see still exist. Explanation for low separation anxiety in this stage. Observed children looking at objects. If less than 8 months old, when the object was removed they would switch their attention to something else. If older than 8 months, they would search for it.

Question 11

Pre-operational Stage (18 months- 7 years)

Answer 11

Becomes able to represent objects or events by symbols, signs or language.

Question 12

Conservation Experiment - Piaget

Answer 12

Two different sized beakers of water. Ask the child which has more water- pre-operational child would say the tall one. Both had same amount. Piaget suggested that this is because they did not have understanding of mass and volume.

Question 13

Egocentric

Answer 13

Trouble seeing world from any perspective but their own.

Question 14

Three mountains task - Piaget egocentrism

Answer 14

Placed objects in different locations on a model of three mountains. Children were asked to describe what a doll opposite them can see. They found it difficult to understand and appreciate that the doll would have a different view.

Question 15

Conservation

Answer 15

Understanding of mass and volume.

Question 16

Class Inclusion

Answer 16

Find it difficult to understand things can be put in different subsets within their own categories. e.g. they would know that different types of dogs are all dogs. However, when asked whether there was more dogs or animals when shown 5 dogs and 2 cats, they would answer dogs as they wouldn’t understand that dogs are a subset of animals.

Question 17

Concrete Operational Stage (7-12 years)

Answer 17

The child is decentered (able to take into account multiple views of a situation) and can use more sophisticated mental operations. They are able to conserve, are no longer egocentric and can perform class inclusion tasks.

Question 18

Formal Operational Stage (12+)

Answer 18

Governed by formal logic and is the most sophisticated stage of thinking. Gain the ability to think in an abstract manner about ideas in their head, such as completing mathematical calculations, thinking creatively, using abstract reasoning, and imagining outcomes to actions.

Question 19

Piaget Evaluation

Answer 19

+ Given psychologists many insights into the qualities and limitations of child thought.
- However, many replications of Piaget’s methods have shown that he may have underestimated children.
- Piaget’s theory is domain general (all aspects together so cannot explain domain specific (individual processes) development.
+ Considerable evidence to support the theory.
+ Practical applications in education and the development of educational strategies.
- Vygotsky opposed him, suggesting children learn more from others.
- Saw language as another cognitive processes where others see it as key to development.

Question 20

Samuel and Bryant - Piaget Criticism

Answer 20

Argue that asking the same question twice in conservation experiments is confusing as it causes the child to assume they were wrong.

Question 21

McGarrigle and Donalson - Conservation Critique

Answer 21

Context of ‘Naughty Teddy’ enabled children to be able to conserve at a younger age.

Question 22

Sigeler and Svetina - Class Inclusion Critique

Answer 22

Found that the tasks were confusing the children. When clarified, they were able to perform class inclusion at a younger age.

Question 23

Hughes - decentre

Answer 23

A child could decentre earlier if the three mountains task was more realistic, using 2 dolls and a police officer. They had to position the dolls where the officer would not be able to see them, finding that children as young as 3 1/2 could do it.

Question 24

Bradmetz - adolescents

Answer 24

May have overestimated adolescents. Not all could perform formal reasoning tasks.

Question 25

Vygotsky's Theory of Cognitive Development

Answer 25

Emphasises the importance of the role of social interaction in learning. Social aspect involves an expert guidign the novice until they have gained the knowledge or skills being taught.

Question 26

Intermental

Answer 26

Knowledge begins between the more and less expert individuals.

Question 27

Intramental

Answer 27

Knowledge becomes more within the mind of a newly expert individual.

Question 28

Zone of Proximal Development

Answer 28

We start on the outside with what we can't do, then more into what we can do with help, then finally what we can do ourselves.

Question 29

Scaffolding

Answer 29

Help an adult or more advanced peer will give to a child within the ZPD.

Question 30

Wood, Brunner and Ross (1976)- scaffholding

Answer 30

1. Demonstration- showing the child how to do it. 2. Marking crucial features- highlighting important aspects of the task. 3. Direction maintenance- encouragement to maintain motivation 4. Reduction of degrees of freedom- focus on the tasks and strategies to solve it. 5. Recruitment- engaging a child's interests in an activity.

Question 31

Vygotsky Evaluation

Answer 31

+ Research support for the Zone of Proximal Development and scaffolding. + Research has important implications for development and the role of teachers and peers. - It is difficult to know when to remove the scaffolding. - Cultural and individual differences in the way and rate at which children learn- e.g. varying school starting age.

Question 32

Roazzi and Bryant - ZPD

Answer 32

4-5 year olds estimate number of sweets. Those given support estimated faster.

Question 33

Conner and Cross- scaffolding

Answer 33

Observed mothers and fathers reducing intervention support and help given to their children as they got older and more able.

Question 34

Violation of Expectation Paradigm

Answer 34

Means what is expected is not what happens. Infants stare longer at things they haven't encountered before.

Question 35

Baillargeon and Graber 1987- rabbits

Answer 35

Examined 5.5 month old infants' ability to represent the height of a hidden object. Infants saw two tests where a rabbit travelled along a track. A screen was placed in front with a window in the centre at the top. In the possible event the rabbit was shorter than the window so wasn't seen. In the impossible event the rabbit was taller than the window but still wasn't seen. The infants looked longer at the impossible event indicating they believed the rabbit still existed, knew the height of the rabbit, and expect the rabbit to appear in the window and were surprised that it didn't.

Question 36

Baillargeon 2012- Physical Reasoning System

Answer 36

Physical Reasoning System is innate- babies are born with a basic understanding of the physical understanding and the ability to learn more through experience.

Question 37

Object Persistence

Answer 37

Babies are born with the knowledge that an object remains in existence and doesn't spontaneously change its structure.

Question 38

Baillargeon Evaluation

Answer 38

+ Seems to be a better way of assessing object permanence than Piaget's test as his results could be due to limitations in motor skills and co-ordination rather than lack of object permanence. + Concept of PRS explains why children's understanding of the physical world seems to be universal regardless of experience. - Difficult to objectively study understanding in infants. - Researcher bias - Behavioural response doesn't indicate understanding. - Non-verbal cues from parents.

Question 39

Physical Perspective Taking

Answer 39

Physically understanding what another person can see.

Question 40

Social Perspective Taking

Answer 40

Ability to appreciate a social situation from another person's point of view.

Question 41

Selman 1971- social perspective taking

Answer 41

Gave children scenarios along with questions required them to take the perspective of others- developed a stage theory to explain the way in which children develop their ability to take different perspectives. Tested 30 boys and 30 girls (20 aged 4, 20 aged 5, 20 aged 6) by giving them task designed to measure role-taking ability.- explain how each person will feel is Holly does or doesn't climb the tree.

Question 42

Selman's Stages of Perspective Taking 1971-1976

Answer 42

- Undifferentiated- 3-6 years- children know that self and others can have different thoughts and feelings but confuse the two. - Social-informational- 4-9 years- children know that perspectives differ because people have different access to different information. - Self-reflective- 7-12 years- children can step into another's shoes and view themselves as others do: they know that others can do the same. - Third-person- 10-15 years- children can step outside of the immediate situation to see how they and another person are viewed by a third person. - Societal- 14+- adolescents realise that a third-person perspective is influenced by a broader personal, social and cultural context.

Question 43

Selman and La Russo 2003- three aspects to social development

Answer 43

- Interpersonal understanding- being able to take on different roles shows understanding of social situations. - Interpersonal negotiation strategies- development of social skills to avoid conflict - Awareness of personal meaning of relationships- being able to reflect on social behaviour in the context of life history and nature of relationship.

Question 44

Selman Evaluation

Answer 44

+ Clear evidence that perspective taking improves with age. + Research is useful for understanding atypical development e.g. Autism spectrum conditions. - Selmans theory may be overly cognitive- no emotion- added after - Cultural variations

Question 45

Wu and Keyser- Chinese perspective taking

Answer 45

Chinese children out performed American children in perspective taking tasks.

Question 46

Theory of Mind

Answer 46

The ability to attribute mental states- beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc- to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions and perspectives that are different from one's own. The core deficit of autism is the person's inability to employ a theory of mind. Develops between 4 and 6 years. Ability to understand people's minds are independent and predict behaviour.

Question 47

Sally-Anne Test

Answer 47

Measure ToM in young children. Presented with two dolls. Sally puts a marble in her basket and leaves to play. Anne steals the marble and puts it in her box. The children are asked where it was originally and where it is now as controls and where will she look (the belief question). Answering that wrong suggests they lack theory of mind.

Question 48

Baron-Cohen et al 1983- Sally-Anne Test Original Study

Answer 48

Three groups of children- typically developing children aged 4, children with Down's syndrome aged 11 and children with autism aged 12. Both typical and Down's syndrome children answered correctly around 85% of the time, compared to the children with autism with a pass rate of only 20%.

Question 49

Baron-Cohen et al 1997- The Eyes Test

Answer 49

Developed a new test which is designed for adults. Involved inferring the mental state of a person just from the information in the photographs of a person's eyes. Hypothesised that adults with Asperger's Syndrome couldn't interpret states of mind from eyes. Carried out a natural/ quasi experiment with a matched pairs design- 3 groups of ppts: 16 autistic (13 male, 3 female), 50 typical (25 male, 25 female) and 10 with Tourette's (8 male, 2 female) all matched on age and normal intelligence. Two clinical groups passed 1st ToM test at 6 years old. Shown 25 photos of eyes in black and white for 3 seconds. The Autistic adults identified the target answer 16.3/25 compared to the typical with 20.3/25 or the Tourette's group with 20.4/25. At a significance level of p=<0.0001 typical and Tourette's groups were better than the Autistic.

Question 50

Baron-Cohen Evaluation

Answer 50

- False belief tasks like the Sally-Anne test lack validity as they may have been confusing. - Eyes task lacked validty because in reality reading eyes is only 1 element of many non-verbal communication signs. The eyes lacked context too so we didn't know the persons situation. - It is hard to distinguish ToM from perspective taking in general. - Doesn't explain why Autism occurs - Contradictory theories about how ToM develops: Perner suggests it is an innate ability which develops over time whilst Wilde Astington suggests it develops as a result of social interaction. + Practical applications

Question 51

Mirror Neurones

Answer 51

A special class of brain cells that fire not only when an individual performs an action but also when the individual observes someone else performing it.

Question 52

Giacomo Rizzolatti- Mirror Neurones

Answer 52

Implanted electrodes into the brains of macaque monkeys in the 1990s to study activity when clutching food. Noticed that when he reached for his own food the monkeys had activity occur in their premotor cortex.

Question 53

Marco Iacoboni 2005- Mirror Neurones

Answer 53

Neuroscientist from the University of California- best known for mirror neurone works. Activated when performing and observing behaviour. Shown that mirror neurones may be an important element of social condition and that defects may underlie a variety of mental disorders.

Question 54

Broken Mirror Theory

Answer 54

Cannot mirror behaviour accurately.

Question 55

Mirror Neurones Evaluation

Answer 55

+ Evidence from brain scanning shows areas of the brain believed to be rich in mirror neurones very active during social cognition tasks. - It is difficult to study mirror neurones, scans only show brain activity in general cannot identify role of individual neurones. - Evidence inconsistent. + Link to Adrian Raine APD - Do they even exist? - No conclusive evidence for role in social cognition.

Question 56

Haker et al 2012- mirror neurones fMRI

Answer 56

fMRI with yawning found mirror neurones activated.