Cognition and intelligence Flashcards
What is cognition?
The mental processes by which knowledge is acquired, elaborated, stored, retrieved and used to solve problems.
Who came up with the stage theory? What is it about?
Jean Piaget
How children learn through action
What are the stages ad how long do they like?
- Sensorimotor birth – 2 years
- Pre-operational-move from pre operational thinkers- 2-7 years
- Concrete operational-capacity to think logically and reversibly. After that they can make hypothesis things they haven’t encountered yet. 7-11 years
- Formal operational- 11 years+
Sensorimotor birth- 2 years
6 sub-stages. Knowing the physical environment by seeing and touching- ‘thinking only by doing’.
What happens between 2 and 3 months?
Developing memory systems- Rovee-Collier = mobile experiment:
- 2-3 months= develops a memory system. Baby kicks leg when attached to string attached to mobile. Then tests later to see if it remembers to kick
- 2 months – 1 day
- 3 months – 1 week
- 6 months – 2+ weeks
What is object performance of an 8 month old?
Baby interested and will reach out but when they hide they lose interest- like it disappears from the world.
Babies will look for where they it was last hid not where when somewhere puts it elsewhere.
8 months old baby can self recognise what is the practical to show this?
8 months- babies start self-recognition- baby looking in mirror seeing themselves.
Put paint/make up on themselves and they touch it because they realise that their image has changed.
Schema definition
Theories about how the physical and social world operate
Assimilation defintion
Understanding a new object
Accommodation- in terms of schemas
Modifying a schema (by learning something that challenges it)
Pre-operational thoughts- 2-7 years- what is centration?
Thinking about one idea at a time to the exclusion of others- problems with conversation
Pre-operational thoughts- 2-7 years- what is egocentrism?
- self-centred world view
* difficulty taking another’s perspective
Other examples of object performance- birth- 2 years
- Object permanence (will look for object even if covered up)
- Obeys simple requests
- Points to object and follows pointing gestures
- Holds cup to doll’s mouth
- Affection by hugging and kissing
- Shows toes
- Shakes head or says ‘no’ in refusal
What is the 3-mountain problem?
3 model mountains are placed on a table and a child stands facing one side. Doll placed facing the other side. Child asked to describe doll’s view. Not able to do this in pre-operational.
7-11 years = concrete operational- what is operation?
Mental consideration of information in a logical manner- ability to take schema, work through it. Let the conclusion allowed to work out the problem.
7-11 years = concrete operational- what is conservation?
Understanding that amount is unrelated to appearance.
How is concrete operational thought demonstrated?
Demonstrated by clay. Also demonstrated by pouring same volume of water into thin and thick glasses. They can imagine it being poured back into the original glasses - conservation of mass (concrete operational thought).
Formal operational stage- 11+ years
- Able to use and reason symbols related to abstract concepts
- Consider alternatives and plan ahead
- Able to formulate hypotheses and consider possibilities
What is the intelligence quotient?
The intelligence quotient (IQ) was originally calculated as mental age/chronological age x100, but now is calculated from tables of standardised age scores. It’s used as an assessment against a fixed quality.
What are factors that affect IQ?
Factors affecting IQ = genetics, social and racial categories (hence can be influenced to make a ‘superior race’).
Good for measuring educational needs, predicting school performance and assessment following psychological trauma but not a measure of ‘world skills’
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale- what is it?
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale = gives full IQ as well as measuring ability on verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory and processing speed. Can pay for extra 5 if looking at specific abilities. Very costly kit.
Uses and limitations of IQ tests
- identifying educational needs
- assessment following neurological trauma, learning disability, cognitive impairment
- predicting school performance and job success
But
- is IQ stable?
- does not measure underlying competence or ‘world skills’
What is emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence – accurate perception and expression of emotions, ability to access and generate emotions, understanding of emotions and emotional meaning, good emotional regulation.
What is multiple intelligence?
Howard Gardner – multiple intelligences = measures intelligence as: linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, bodily/kinaesthetic, musical, interpersonal and interpersonal (emotional intelligence; not taken into account in other tests), naturalist.
Phrenology
Study of the shape and size of the cranium as an indication of character and ability
Cerebral lateralisation
Tendencies functions of some abilities to be localised to one hemisphere. The hemispheres communicate to each other through the corpus callosum, proven by split brain patients.
Overview of hemispheric asymmetry- left hemisphere
- complex language functions
- complex logical activities
- mathematical computations
Overview of hemispheric asymmetry- right hemisphere
- simple language functions
- spatial and pattern abilities
- emotional recognition
