Cognition & Development Flashcards
Who’s theory looks at schemas?
Piaget
Which schemas are we born with?
Reflexes
According to Piaget, what do we learn from? (Piaget schema theory)
Interaction with the environment
What is a schema? (Piaget schema theory)
A ‘block’ of knowledge or ‘package’ of information
What did Piaget focus on? (Piaget schema theory)
Schema driven learning
What is adaptation? (Piaget schema theory)
The process of changing our schemas
What leads you to adapt? (Piaget schema theory)
Confusion
What processes does adaptation take place through? (Piaget schema theory)
Assimilation and accommodation
What is equilibration?
When we can comprehend everything around us, preferred mental state, balanced
What is assimilation?
When children deal with a new situation by adding to an existing schema
What is accommodation?
When children make an entirely new schema or make huge changes to existing ones
When does accommodation occur?
When a situation is so radically different that an existing schema cannot possibly assist
What is disequilibrium?
Confusion, incoming information does not fit with pre-existing knowledge
What kind of development is linked to schemas? (Piaget)
Intellectual
When we are confused what are we driven to do? (Piaget schema theory)
Find out/learn about it
What did Piaget call children? (schema theory)
Little scientists because learning is solitary
What does Howe et al support?
Piaget schema theory - own personal mental representations
What did Howe et al find?
Children (9-12) who had the same experiences and listened to same discussions had different conclusions
What did Piaget overemphasise? (schema theory)
The role of equilibration - children differ in intellectual curiosity
What was bad about Piaget’s sample? (schema theory)
All children were intellectually curious so can’t be applied to all children
What does Piaget’s theory of schemas ignore?
The influence of other people in development (Vygtosky)
What practical applications did Piaget’s schema theory have?
Discovery learning in teaching, learning through environment, useful in everyday life e.g. nature walks
Who are the named psychologists for cognition and development? (+ 1 study)
Piaget, Vygotsky, Baillargeon, Selman (+ Sally Anne study)
What are Piaget’s stages of intellectual development?
Sensori-motor (0-2yrs)
Pre-Operational (2-7yrs)
Concrete Operational (7-11yrs)
Formal Operational (11+yrs)
What does operational mean? (Piaget’s stages of intellectual development)
(just to help understand/remember the stages)
The ability to perform a mental function
What does it mean to say Piaget’s stage theory is universal and invariant?
All children go through all the same stages in the same order
What is thinking like in the Sensori-motor stage?
Cannot hold mental representations, thinking is limited to what they can sense and how they can move.
No awareness of past/future.
No awareness they exist as an independent figure
What is the cognitive skill to be learnt in the Sensori-motor stage?
Object permanence
What is object permanence?
The understanding that objects continue to exist even if we cannot see them anymore
When do infants learn object permanence?
Approximately 8 months
Which of Piaget’s studies supports his theory of object permanence?
The 3 blanket study
What was the procedure of the 3 blanket study?
Get child to play with toy.
Hide toy under 1 of 3 blankets.
See if child search for the toy.
If they do they have object permanence
What were the findings of the 3 blanket study?
Infants only looked for the toy after 8 months of age
What were 3 reasons why Piaget’s 3 blanket study may be flawed (and so the research lacks validity)?
Infant may have gotten bored and so not searched for the toy.
Infants may not have the attentional or motor capacities to complete the task.
They were overwhelmed by the 3 blankets
What is the challenging evidence for Piaget’s theory of object permanence?
Bower and Wishart
Had 1-4 month olds play with a toy.
Turned off lights.
Used infrared cameras to observe.
Infants searched for up to 90 seconds.
Later: Bower
Showed 1 month olds a toy.
Placed screen in front of toy.
Secretly removed toy.
Removed screen.
Babies showed surprise.
Both show object permanence is present at a much younger age
What is thinking like in the pre-operational stage?
Can think, but lack of logic.
Can’t understand reversibility (being able to reverse something in your mind) e.g. can’t understand that if you pour water from a cup to a bottle, it can be poured back into the cup for the original cup of water.
Show animism (human characteristics for inanimate objects) e.g. understand what ‘alive’ is, but think the moon or a toy is alive
What are the 2 periods that the pre-operational stage is divided into?
The preconceptual period (2-4yrs)
The intuitive period (4-7yrs)
What is thinking like in the preconceptual period?
Can make use of symbols (e.g. a stick is a sword in play).
Egocentric.
Cannot distinguish between subgroups of categories (e.g. spaniels and dogs are in the class ‘dogs’).
Show animism
What is egocentrism?
Being unable to see things from another’s point of view (literally and emotionally)
What is thinking like in the intuitive period?
Child’s judgements are heavily influenced by the appearance of objects.
Rely on what they can see.
Later able to decentre.
Thinking is confined to what something looks like
What is the first cognitive skill to be learnt in the pre-operational stage?
The ability to decentre
(not egocentrism - that is what they are at the start, then they learn not to be egocentric)
When do children learn the ability to decentre?
Signs of it developing at 6, finished by 7
Which of Piaget’s studies supports his theory of egocentrism/decentring?
The 3 mountain study
What was the procedure of the 3 mountain study?
3 mountains, each with a different top on table.
Doll one side, 4-8 year olds on the other (1 at a time).
Gave child 10 drawings, asked them to pick which picture showed what the doll could see.
Child allowed to walk around.
If they identified the correct picture, they could decentre
What were the findings of the 3 mountain study?
4 year olds always chose what they could see (egocentric).
6 year olds chose different picture, but often wrong (beginning of understanding).
7 and 8 year olds always chose the correct picture (can decentre)
What are 2 reasons why Piaget’s 3 mountain study was flawed?
Child might be unfamiliar with mountains, so couldn’t even really understand what they were seeing.
May not have made sense to all children - the doll can’t actually see
What is the challenging evidence of Piaget’s theory on egocentrism/decentring?
Hughes
Set up a model with policeman dolls where there were 4 sections, and the only one the policemen couldn’t see was C.
Told the 3.5-5 year olds a doll had been naughty and needed to hide.
90% said to hide in C, egocentrism disappears at a much younger age
What is the second cognitive skill to be learnt in the pre-operational stage?
Conservation
When do children learn conservation?
After 7 years old (technically concrete operational stage but AQA wants it in the pre-operational stage)
What is conservation?
Understanding that redistributing material doesn’t affect its quality (volume/mass/quantity)
What was Piaget’s study of conservation of mass? (wouldn’t use this since I don’t have the findings, use volume and/or number)
2 identical balls of clay.
1 is rolled into a long thin shape.
A child can conserve if they know they are still the same amount of clay
What is centration?
When a child is fixated on the physical appearance of objects e.g. looks at height only to determine volume rather than height and width.
This is before conservation: conservation replaces this
What was the procedure of Piaget’s study of conservation of volume?
2 identical cups of water.
1 is then poured into a taller cup.
A child can conserve if they know they are still the same amount of water
What are the 3 things children learn to conserve?
Mass, volume, number
What were the findings of Piaget’s study of conservation of volume?
Children under 7 said the taller glass had more water.
Children over 7 said they had the same amount
What was the procedure of Piaget’s study of conservation of number?
2 identical rows of counters.
1 row gets spread out more.
A child can conserve if they know the rows had the same amount of counters
What were the findings of Piaget’s study of conservation of number?
Children under 7 said the row had more counters.
Children over 7 said they had the same amount
What is the methodological criticism of Piaget’s conservation studies?
Rose and Blank argued if you ask the child the same question twice, they will assume their first answer was incorrect, so they removed the first question and then 6 year olds were able to conserve
What is the challenging evidence of Piaget’s conservation studies?
McGarrigle and Donaldson redesigned the conservation of number study so that the lines changed because a naughty teddy messed them up.
60% of 6 year olds were able to conserve
What is thinking like in the concrete operational stage?
Children can perform mental operations but only with real (concrete) situations.
Can subtract, multiply, divide.
Understand reversibility
What is the cognitive skill to be learnt in the concrete operational stage?
Class inclusion
What is class inclusion
The ability to understand the difference between superordinate groups and subordinate groups and that some objects belong in more than 1 class
What are superordinate categories?
Broad categories e.g. dog
What are subordinate categories?
More specific details, subsets of classes e.g. husky is a subset of dog
Which of Piaget’s studies supports his theory of class inclusion?
The wooden bead study
What was the procedure of the wooden bead study?
Children shown 20 beads, 18 brown, 2 white.
Asked 3 questions, the last tested class inclusion (are there more brown beads or more wooden beads?).
‘Beads’ is superordinate category, colour is the subordinate.
Child can understand class inclusion if they answer the final question correctly
What were the findings of the wooden bead study?
Children in the pre-operational stage answered incorrectly (no understanding of class inclusion).
Children in the concrete operational stage answered correctly (they could understand class inclusion)
What was the challenging study of Piaget’s theory on class inclusion?
McGarrigle’s sleeping cow study.
Children shown 4 cows on their sides (looked like they were sleeping), 3 black, 1 white.
6 year olds asked 2 questions showing class inclusion.
25% answered the harder question correctly.
48% answered the easier question correctly.
Able to understand class inclusion at a younger age than Piaget suggested
What is thinking like in the formal operational stage?
Systematic, logical, scientific, mathematical
What are the 2 developments that occur in the formal operational stage?
Abstract and hypothetical thinking
What is abstract thinking?
Thinking about things that aren’t real/concrete e.g. the soul, happiness, morality
What is hypothetical thinking?
Thinking about abstract things and drawing a logical conclusion
Which of Piaget’s study supports his theory of abstract thinking?
4 beaker study
What was the procedure of Piaget’s 4 beaker study?
Children shown 4 beakers filled with colourless liquids, and a flask labelled G.
Researcher demonstrates adding another colourless liquid to G which turns it yellow.
Children have to try and turn their G yellow.
If they succeed, it shows abstract and logical thought
What were the findings of Piaget’s 4 beaker study?
Children in pre-operational stage mixed at random and gave up quickly.
Children in concrete operational stage used trial and error and were not very successful.
Children in the formal operational stage used logic and advanced thought (systematic)
What is the supporting evidence for Piaget’s view of the formal operational stage, not conducted by Piaget?
Schaffer - third eye hypothetical question.
9 year olds said forehead.
11+ year olds said hand to look round corners (showed hypothetical thinking)
What is the challenging evidence for Piaget’s view of the formal operational stage?
Not everyone reaches this stage:
King - not many adults showed formal operational thinking abilities.
Bradmetz - longitudinal study of 62 children, only 1 of them completed the 4 beaker test at age 15
Piaget either overestimated the amount of people who would reach this stage or underestimated when it develops
What is a criticism of Piaget’s view of the formal operational stage?
It is ethnocentric as it may be a reflection of Piaget’s middle class European background, other cultures may value concrete thinking over abstract thinking
What is a strength of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development?
Supported by cross cultural research, Goodnow found the same sequence of development (Piaget’s) in children in USA, Britain, Africa, and China.
Supports Piaget’s ideas about the stages and the idea that it is biological i.e. universal
What are 3 criticisms of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development?
Ignores influence of culture and social interaction - Vygotsky found socialising sped up development.
May not be distinct stages - children can span 2 stages at the same time (e.g. be able to conserve but not decentre) Piaget later tried to deal with this saying that decalage was possible, others said development is not linear.
It is supported by flawed evidence - he failed to use standardised procedures or control for experimenter effects, so it may be inaccurate
What are the practical applications of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development?
Teachers only teach concept when the child is ‘ready’, e.g. don’t teach under 11 year olds abstract things - shown in the national curriculum
What is Vygotsky’s theory called?
Social Interactionist theory
What are 3 similarities between Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories?
Children are born with a biological organisation that allows them to develop an understanding of the world, and both ignore the influence of innate factors.
Children’s cognitive structures develop and mature in increasingly complex ways.
Children engage with their environment and adapt to the world through their interactions with it
What are 2 differences between Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories?
Vygotsky believed language was a pivotal tool, he thought it shaped thought, Piaget thought it was a tool for thought.
Vygotsky placed greater emphasis on social factors, development occurs through interaction with other older, more experienced people
What did Vygotsky say cognitive development involves?
An active internalisation of problem solving process which take place as a result of mutual interaction between people
What did Vygotsky call children?
Little apprentices
How does cognitive development develop according to Vygotsky?
Rudimentary abilities from birth develop through the guidance of adults: collaboration with those whom already know/possess the skills
How are higher order skills (focused attention, problem solving) transmitted to younger members of the culture according to Vygotsky?
Guided learning experiences which gradually become internalised
What does interpersonal mean?
Between people
What does intrapersonal mean?
Within the individual
Do skills go from interpersonal to intrapersonal or vice versa according to Vygotsky?
Interpersonal to intrapersonal
What is the zone of proximal development?
The difference between what a child can do with assistance and without
What is the basic premise behind Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development idea?
Children develop faster with social interaction - development is a move from being able to do something with help to doing it without help.
Someone must support them in order for development
Is the zone of proximal development dynamic or static and what does this mean?
Dynamic - what is within or beyond a child’s understanding is constantly moving, so you need to stretch/challenge the child so they can develop
What is scaffolding?
The process of others providing support and prompts in order to move a child through the ZPD
How can scaffolding be done?
Using directive methods - very involved in explaining, then slowly withdraw and become less directive
What are some examples of how to scaffold a child?
Prepare for the task.
Demonstrate.
Talk it through when the child is frustrated.
Encourage them to stay on task.
Encourage them to do more alone.
Encourage them to complete the task independently
What is the supportive evidence for Vygotsky’s ideas about scaffolding?
Woods and Middleton - gave difficult task to 4 year olds. Parents tended to demonstrate first, then just give prompts/verbal instructions.
They have heavy input, then withdraw.
Shows parents intuitively use scaffolding, supports ideas of ZPD and scaffolding
What is the supporting evidence for Vygotsky’s idea that social interaction accelerates development?
Norman-Jackson studied low income black families in the US.
Children with older siblings progressed fastest with reading at school
What are 3 criticisms of Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development?
Supported by flawed evidence - Woods and Middleton’s study may not be a valid measure as it is only routine knowledge not conceptual which may be acquired differently.
Overemphasised the importance of social interaction - biological and individual factors, also negative interactions don’t help.
Concepts are poorly defined (he died) - lacks detail, explanation and definition of terms, doesn’t say how it is internalised
What are the practical applications that arose from Vygotsky’s theory?
Educators use scaffolding, group work and peer mentoring - shown to be more effective than traditional teaching
What side of the nature vs nurture debate are Piaget and Vygotsky on?
Nurture
What was Baillargeon’s theory on?
An explanation of early infant abilities (not a theory of cognitive development because she believes you don’t develop it)
How does Baillargeon differ from Vygotsky and Piaget?
She takes a nativist approach - believing that infants are born with an ability to perceive and understand certain things - whereas they thought infants learn from experience
What does Baillargeon believe infants are born with?
A repertoire of knowledge related to objects in the physical world (not social)
What is the Physical Reasoning System (PRS)?
An innate primitive set of rules about the physical world which becomes more sophisticated as we learn from experience
What is the PRS like at the beginning?
Follows an ‘all or nothing’ approach, unable to consider variables which could affect this rule, starts narrow, gets broader in scope as they mature
How does the PRS develop?
Through exposure to unpredicted outcomes (impossible events)
What happens when an infant observes an unpredicted outcome/impossible event?
They look to see the conditions that caused this to happen, which develops new rules
At what age do infants’ PRS develop?
It is unique for every child as it is dependent on the infant’s exposure to unexpected information
How are new rules added to an infant’s PRS?
It is integrated/slotted in (like accommodation, but don’t say this)
What is a Violation of Expectation study?
A study where an infant is shown two conditions: one possible and one impossible. The child should look at the impossible one for longer as it is inferred that they are trying to understand how it occurred
What are Baillargeon’s 2 VoE studies called?
Truck study and Rabbit study
What happened in Baillargeon’s truck study?
3 month old infants shown a truck going down a track and behind a screen.
This screen was removed to show either a block to the side of the track or block in the middle of the track. The screen was then replaced
In both conditions the truck went through.
Infants spent longer looking at the impossible situation, allowing Baillargeon to infer that the infants realised it was impossible and could realise this because they had object permanence
What happened in Baillargeon’s rabbit study?
24 infants aged 5-6 months were shown a tall and short rabbit passing behind a screen with a window.
The possible condition showed on the tall rabbit’s ears, the impossible didn’t show any ears.
Infants spent longer looking at the impossible condition (33.07s) compared to the possible condition (25.11s).
Interpreted as infants showing surprise because they had object permanence and knew the tall rabbit should have been seen
What are 2 strengths of Baillargeon’s VoE studies?
They were reliable - they have been carried out many times and yield similar results each time.
Valid since less biased than Piaget’s sample, and parent was out of sight so they couldn’t unconsciously communicate surprise, and it was double blind so there wasn’t experimenter bias
What are 2 weaknesses of Baillargeon’s VoE studies?
We cannot be certain about what the infant understood. Could be the infants observed difference rather then showed surprise.
The PRS is not supported by them, since the infants were not neonates (just born). So we’re unable to fully accept the PRS concept
What are strengths of Baillargeon’s theory?
Any used to evaluate the VoE studies can be used.
Led to practical applications as helped us see how Piaget underestimated children and helped develop research into the area and furthered understand of how children develop
What are weaknesses of Baillargeon’s theory?
Any used to evaluate the VoE studies can be used
What is social cognition?
The way that social situations are perceived, processed and then responded to.(AQA definition).
The ability to share an understanding of intention and emotional experience (empathy)
What are the 3 theories of social cognition?
Selman’s levels of perspective taking, Theory of mind, Mirror neuron theory
What type of theory is the mirror neuron theory?
Biological
What type of theory is theory of mind?
Cognitive
What type of theory is Selman’s levels ofperspective taking?
Cognitive but slower/more gradual than ToM
What is perspective taking?
The ability to recognise that different people have different views on situations - this underlies moral development and empathy
What are Selman’s levels of perspective taking in order with ages?
Level 0: Undifferentiated/Egocentric perspective taking (3-6 years)
Level 1: Social-informational perspective taking (6-8 years)
Level 2: Self-reflective perspective taking (8-10 years)
Level 3: Mutual perspective taking (10-12)
Level 4: Societal/Conventional perspective taking (12-15 years onwards)
What are the characteristics of a child in the undifferentiated/egocentric level of perspective taking?
Incapable of taking the perspective of others.
Wrongly assume others think about things in the same way they do.
Cannot distinguish between their own emotions and others
What are the characteristics of a child in the social-informational level of perspective taking?
Realise others have different perspectives but think this is because they have received different information.
Can only focus on one perspective at a time
What are the characteristics of a child in the self-reflective level of perspective taking?
Perspectives can differ even when both parties have the same information.
Can ‘step in the shoes’ of another person, but still incapable of considering their own and another’s perspective at the same time
What are the characteristics of a child in the mutual level of perspective taking?
Able to simultaneously consider their own and another perspective.
Realise others can do the same.
Can anticipate how others will react to opposing viewpoints
What are the characteristics of a child in the societal/conventional level of perspective taking?
Can compare perspectives to the general consensus in society.
Realise understanding other’s perspectives is not enough, social conventions must be adhered to.
Can encompass society’s morals and conventions
What is the supporting evidence for Selman’s levels of perspective taking?
Read stories to children and then asked hem questions about how characters would react/what they should do e.g. Holly and a kitten.
Questions like: should Holly climb the tree to rescue the kitten? How will her father react because she made a promise not to climb trees?
Selman found positive correlations between age and perspective taking and this is supported by longitudinal research which shows it develops with age (also reliable)
What are 3 weaknesses of Selman’s levels of perspective taking?
Low temporal validity - the way we communicate has changed (texting), perspective taking relies on face to face communication so it does not apply to electronic communication. Also there’s a delay in reply (asynchronous communication)
Cannot account for biological evidence - mirror neuron theory suggest social cognition development is biological.
Ethnocentric - based on samples of American children, research has suggested there are differences e.g. Israeli and Finnish children use discussion to solve conflicts, Italians do less of this. (Although Osterman et al found 2000 children from Finland, Italy, Israel, Poland and found consistency)
What is a strength of Selman’s levels of perspective taking?
Provided practical applications - therapies have ben developed with the aim of helping children with social problems to develop their perspective taking. Also provided us with an understanding of autism and ADHD
What is Theory of Mind?
The personal understanding of what other people are thinking and feeling, the ability to recognise that which differ from person to person, and empathise
Why is Theory of Mind often referred to as ‘mind reading’?
Can estimate what is inn someone’s mind/what they are thinking/feeling
When does Theory of Mind say social cognition develops by?
4 years old
How does Theory of Mind link to Piaget’s cognitive development theory?
It is believed ToM develops in line with a child’s cognition e.g. to show ToM they have to be able to decentre
What are the 2 factors that can influence ToM?
Language.
Siblings and social interaction
How does language affect ToM?
Relationships have been found between ToM and linguistic ability. Milligan et al did a meta analysis on this and found a positive correlation. Charman et al argued this could be why girls seem to show more advanced ToM than boys (girls develop more advanced language skills before boys)
How do siblings and social interaction affect ToM?
McAlistair and Peterson found having siblings significantly improved a child’s ToM measure indicating a family environment can have an impact on this cognitive ability
How does Theory of Mind explain social cognition?
Allows us to see things from others’ points of view, allows us to understand how they are feeling and why they act in a certain way
What is the supporting evidence for ToM?
Sally-Anne studies by Wimmer and Perner.
Children are told a story of 2 dolls. Sally puts marble in basket, then leaves, Anne moves marble into box. Participants asked where Sally will look.
2-3 year olds said in the box, this shows no ToM.
4 year olds successfully completed the task, showing ToM as they understood Sally didn’t have the same information as they did
What is the challenging evidence for the findings of the Sally-Anne study?
Onishi and Baillargeon claimed to find ToM in younger children by using a different technique:
15 month old sat at a table with a red box and green box, actor took a toy and hid it under a box and retrieved it, done several times. Then when actor isn’t looking, someone else moved toy to other box, then the actor returned.
It was taken that the box the infant spent longer looking at was the box they expected the actor to look in
What are 3 weaknesses of the Sally-Anne study?
Ethnocentric- only used Western samples
Trivial methodological issues - children may have thought task was silly since dolls aren’t real, this limits the internal validity of the results. Also uses language when children have limited language abilities, this is the false belief task paradigm
What are the supporting studies for Theory of Mind?
Sally-Anne studies.
Perner et al found children who were shown a smarties tube assumed it had smarties in it when it actually had pencils. Then asked what the next child would assume was in there. 3 year olds answered correctly, showing ToM(small discrepancy but close) Reliable
Supports that it develops over time
What is a strength of Theory of Mind?
Practical applications - used to explain children with autism and thus develop treatments to help them assimilate into society more effectively
What are the weaknesses of Theory of Mind?
Any used for evaluating the Sally-Anne studies.
Lacks internal validity (it may not be measuring what is was meant to measure) - may actually be measuring Selman’s perspective taking, instead of the recognition that other people’s knowledge and beliefs differ from their own, could be inaccurately investigating an area of social cognition
Cannot account for biological evidence - mirror neuron theory suggest social cognition development is biological
Which theory of social cognition do we use to explain autism (ASD)?
Theory of Mind
What is autism?
A developmental disorder defined as a profound problem in understanding and coping with the social environment. These problems are with verbal and non-verbal communication
Is autism linked to IQ?
No
How does Theory of Mind explain ASD?
Children with ASD lack ToM (have a ToM deficit) sometimes called ‘mindblindness’
What is ‘mindblindness’?
They cannot understand other people’s intentions and emotions, often take literal interpretations
What is the supporting evidence for ToM as an explanation of autism?
Baron-Cohen used a quasi experiment using the Sally-Anne paradigm.
There were 3 groups (all of same age):
Group 1: children with ASD.
Group 2: children who were not diagnosed with a disorder.
Group 3: children with Down’s syndrome.
IQs were measured:
G1’s average was 82, G2’s was 64.
85% of G2 and 86% of G3 completed it correctly, only 20% of G1 did
Shows that success doesn’t come from intelligence and those with ASD don’t have a fully developed ToM
What are 3 weaknesses of Theory of Mind as an explanation of ASD?
It doesn’t explain every symptom e.g. repetitive behaviour patterns or superior visual-attention skills so it isn’t a full explanation.
There are inconsistent findings in research e.g. Tager-Flusberg found recent research doesn’t support the idea that ToM problems are confined to ASD sufferers or that everyone with ASD has ToM deficits so it’s a partial explanation.
Cannot account for the biological evidence: broken mirror theory
What are the practical applications for ToM as an explanation of ASD?
Developing treatments for autism e.g. ‘social stories’ which are designed to help autistic children to learn social cognition through practice
What does the mirror neuron theory suggest?
Our ability to understand intentions and emotional experiences is linked to brain activity at the cellular level
How were mirror neurons first discovered?
Rizolatti had electrodes in a monkey’s brain when a student came in eating an ice cream and the monkey’s brain responded to this as if it was the monkey eating the ice cream. The neurons were ‘mirroring’ observed actions
How do mirror neurons work?
We see others performing an action, the mirror neurons take in this information and produce a change in our bodily state which enables us to understand how others are feeling as if we were in that situation
Where are the mirror neurons?
Brodmann’s area in the inferior frontal cortex
How are mirror neurons unique?
They fire on both execution and observation - can be stimulated externally (other neurons only fire on execution)
What is the supporting evidence for mirror neuron theory?
Wicker used fMRI scams to monitor people’s brains whilst they either smelt rancid butter or watched someone smell rancid butter. Their brain activity was the same
What are 2 strengths of the mirror neuron theory?
Fits with the evolutionary theory - allow us to understand intention, emotion, perspective which are fundamental for living in large groups - has face validity.
Practical applications - used to explain autism using the broken mirror theory, Ramachandran and Oberman, reflection is distorted leading to them being unable to understand other’s emotions
What are 4 weaknesses of the mirror neuron theory?
Supportive research was done on animals so can’t be generalised to humans
Based on inferences since fMRIs have poor temporal resolution with a time lag of 4 seconds, unethical to insert electrodes, so no direct evidence.
Researchers have failed to identify the individual cells and therefore explain how they work/are different from other neurons, challenges existence of specialist neurons.
Ignores cognitive evidence like ToM and Selman’s perspective taking
