Cognition and development Flashcards
Describe cognitive development
A general term describing the development of all mental processes, including thinking, reasoning and our understanding of the world. Cognitive development continues throughout the lifespan but psychologists have been particularly concerned with how thinking and reasoning develops through childhood.
define schemas and its relevance to Piaget
Schemas contain our understanding of an object,person or idea. Schemas become increasingly complex during development as we acquire more information or a more advanced understanding of an object, person or idea. A mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing. They are developed from experience. According to Piaget, children are born with a small number of schemas, just enough to allow them to interact with other people. In infancy we construct new schemas. One of these is the “me-schema” in which all the child’s knowledge abut themselves is stored.
describe assimilation
A form of learning that takes place when we acquire new information or a more advanced understanding of an object, person or idea. When new information does not radically change our understanding of the topic we can incorporate (assimilate) it into an existing schema.
describe accommodation
A form of learning that takes place when we acquire new information that changes our understanding of a topic to the extent that we need to form one or more new schemas and/or radically change existing schemas in order to deal with t the new understanding.
describe equilibration
Takes place when we have encountered new information and built it into our understanding of a topic, either by assimilating it into an existing schema or accommodating it by forming a new one. Everything is again balanced and we have escaped they unpleasant experience of a lack of balance- equilibrium.
Describe Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget produced an influential theory of cognitive development.His great contribution was to realise that children do not simply know less than adults do. Divided childhood into stages, each of which represents the development of new ways of reasoning (next lesson). Focussed on: Motivation in development and How knowledge develops. Schemas contain our understanding of an object,person or idea. Schemas become increasingly complex during development as we acquire more information or a more advanced understanding of an object, person or idea. A mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing. They are developed from experience.According to Piaget, children are born with a small number of schemas, just enough to allow them to interact with other people. In infancy we construct new schemas. One of these is the “me-schema” in which all the child’s knowledge abut themselves is stored. According to Piaget, people are motivated to learn when our existing schemas do not allow us to make sense of something new. This Leads to a state of disequilibrium (unpleasant experience of lack of balance).To escape this we have to adapt to the situation by exploring and learning what we need to know.We will then reach equilibration (we have built information into our understanding of a topic and achieved balance). Assimilation takes place when we understand a new experience and equilibrate by adding new information to our existing schemas.We apply our schemas that already exist. E.g. family with many types of dog assimilates new breeds into their schema. Accommodation takes place in response to new experiences. The child must adjust by radically changing current schemas or forming new ones.E.g. child will have to accommodate to existence of a separate species of cats altering schema that all animals with four legs are dogs.
According to Piaget, how do we learn?
Assimilation takes place when we understand a new experience and equilibrate by adding new information to our existing schemas.We apply our schemas that already exist. E.g. family with many types of dog assimilates new breeds into their schema. Accommodation takes place in response to new experiences. The child must adjust by radically changing current schemas or forming new ones.E.g. child will have to accommodate to existence of a separate species of cats altering schema that all animals with four legs are dogs.
According to Piaget, why do we learn?
According to Piaget, people are motivated to learn when our existing schemas do not allow us to make sense of something new. This Leads to a state of disequilibrium (unpleasant experience of lack of balance).To escape this we have to adapt to the situation by exploring and learning what we need to know.We will then reach equilibration (we have built information into our understanding of a topic and achieved balance).
At the age of four years, Paige is visiting the zoo for the first time. She has enjoyed feeding ducks and pigeons in her local park before but this is the first time she has learned about the existence of parrots and bats. Referring to Piaget’s theory, explain the process of learning Paige might go through when she sees the parrots and bats and asks questions about them to understand what they are (3 marks). Use as many key words as you can… Equilibrium, assimilate, accommodation, equilibrate
Paige will probably experience disequilibrium when she visits the zoo because there is so much there she is not familiar with. To equilibrate she will need to assimilate the new animals into her current schemas and also accommodate her new experiences by radically changing schemas and constructing new ones. She might, for example, incorporate parrots into her existing bird schema (assimilation) but she will need a new schema for bats (accommodation).
Explain what is meant by Theory of mind? At what age is ToM typically developed?
Theory of mind refers to our personal understanding ( ‘theory’) of what other people thinking and feeling and is sometimes called “mind-reading.” For example, seeing furrowed eyebrows and inferring that that person is feeling frustrated. Simple ToM can be seen in toddlers by means of intentional reasoning research. A more sophisticated level of ToM can be seen in 3-4 year olds using false beliefs tasks and in older children and adults, advanced ToM can be tested with the Eyes task where PPS judge complex emotions with only facial expressions.
Intentional Reasoning : Briefly explain how Meltzoff (1988) investigated intentional reasoning in toddlers and the results that were found.
Meltzoff (1988) provided convincing evidence to show that toddlers at 18 months have an understanding of adult intentions when carrying out simple actions. 28 month old babies observed adults place beads into the jar and in the experimental condition would pretend to struggle and drop the beads. In the control, the adults would place them successfully. In both conditions the toddlers placed beads into the jar and dropped no more beads in the experimental condition. This suggests that they weren’t imitating what they thought the adults intended to do. Research shows that very young kids have a simple ToM.
False-belief tests and the Sally-Anne test: Outline Wimmer and Perner’s (1983) false belief research with Maxi and the chocolate
False belief tasks were developed in order to test whether children can understand that people can believe something that’s not true. The first was dev, by Wimmer and Perner (1983) who told 3-4 year olds a story in which Maxi left his chocolate in a blue cupboard in the kitchen and then went to the play ground. Then his mother used some of the chocolate and put the rest in the green cupboard. Kids were asked where Max would look. Most 3 year olds chose teh green because Max doesn’t know his mom moved it. But, most 4 year olds identified the blue suggesting that ToM undergoes a shift and becomes more advanced through the years.
An overview of Autism. :Define autism and list three key characteristics of autism from the video.
Autism or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an umbrella term for a wide range of symptoms. All disorders on the spectrum share impairments to three main areas- empathy, social communication and social imagination. Characteristics may include a need for routine, sensory issues towards loud noises or smells and special interests.
Using the Sally-Anne test for Autism:Outline how Simon-Baron Cohen et al. (1985) used the Sally-Anne test to study ToM in Autistic children.
Baren-cohen and colleagues ha explored the links between ToM deficits and ASD suing false belief tasks like th eSally-Anne task. Procedure 20 high functioning children diagnosed as being ASD and control groups of 14 kids with Downs syndrome and 27 without diagnosis we’re administered the Sally-Anne test. Basically where kids were told abt 2 dolls A and S, with S moving the marbles round when A wasn’t looking. The task was to work out where Sally will look for her marble as an understanding that S doesn’t know where A hid it needs an understanding of S fale belief abt where it was. Found that 85% in controls correctly identified where S would look for her marble. But, only 4 in the ASD group could answer( 20%). Difference shows ASD involves a Tom deficit. Baron-Cohen suggested that deficits in Tom might be a complete expl for ASD
- Outline how Simon-Baron Cohen et al. (1985) used the Sally-Anne test to study ToM in Autistic children.
