Cognition & Development Flashcards
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
- children do not simply know less than adults do, but instead think in entirely different was
- their thinking is ‘QUALITIVELY DIFFERENT’
Piaget: Schema role in cognitive development
- as children develop they construct more and more detailed and complex mental representations of the world
- representations stored as: schemas
- ‘mental structure containing all the information we have about one aspect of the world’
- children are born with a small no. of schemas just enough to allow interaction with people
Piaget: motivation to learn
disequilibrium: when our existing schemas do not allow us to make sense of something new –> lead to disequilibrium
Equilibrium: to escape disequilibrium we must adapt to the new situation by exploring and learning what we need to know –> achieve equilibration
Assimilation
- when we understand a new experience and equilibrate by adding new info to exiting schemas
- e.g. a child in a family of dogs can adapt to the existence of different dog breed by assimilating them to their dog schema
Accommodation
- response to dramatically new experiences
- child adjusts by radically changing existing schemas or forming new ones
- e.g. child with pet dog may at first think cats are also dogs, (four legs, fur and a tail) but then accommodate to the existence of a separate species of cats
- this involves altering animal/pet schemas to include then and creating new cat-schema
Piaget’s stages of intellectual development are….
- universal: apply to all cultures
- invariant: must go through in the same order
- Discontinuous: staged model
- maturational: different ages
Piaget’s stages explained
- you are not able to do something at a younger age, but when you get to the next stage you are biological ready to learn
- at each stages child’s understanding is ‘qualitatively different’
Sensorimotor stage: age and understanding
- 0-2 years
- understands the world via sensory information- e.g. understands limited sensations: warm, soft, loud, etc
Sensorimotor stage key feature
- object permanence: understanding that objects still exist when they are removed from view
- Piaget suggested this is developed at 8 MONTHS OLD
- child understand object permanence if when object is cover/removed from view they look for it
- if they do not look for it –> lack object permanence
Object permanence how Piaget studied it
- observed babies looking at objects
- it was then removed from sight e.g. a screen was put in front of it
- babies under 8 months lost interest a soon as it was out of sight
- after around 8 months they would try to look for it
- led Piaget to believe this is when it was developed
Criticisms of Piaget’s testing object permanence
- younger babies are less mobile and cannot physically look for an object compare to those who are older e.g. 2 months vs 8 months –> may just be they cannot physically look for the object
- How can we test who has looked for it and who is just looking around - hard to operationalise
testing object permanence alternative research
- Wishart and Bower
- 1 month old babies show surprise when toys disappear
- they must therefore understand that objects exist
- —> how do we know they’re surprised
Pre-operational stage: age and understanding
- 2-7 years
- understanding is rooted in physical experiences
- e.g. learns from interacting with environment
Pre-operational stage: key feature
- Egocentrism
- inability to understand that another person’s view or opinion may be different than their own
- child is egocentric if they cannot identify situations from another’s point of view
Egocentrism how Piaget studied it
- 3 mountains task
- child is shown three mountains each with different features on each side
- child is shown both sides of the mountains and asked what they can see from one side
- then asked what someone (a doll) standing on the other side would see
- if egocentric: they will state the doll sees the same as what they can see
- if not: thy will state what they could see when they went round to the other side of the mountains
Criticisms of Piaget’s testing egocentrism
- required child to remember what was n the other side of the mountains –> 3 year olds memory may be less developed
- complex task: required young chi8dren to understand the questions and what was being asked of them -> many children will never have stood on different sides of a mountain = low ecological validity
testing egocentrism alternative research
- ‘3 mountains task= too difficult to understand’
- Policeman doll study
- 2 intersecting walls, policeman doll and boy doll
- asked to place the boy doll where the policeman would not be able to se it/hide it
- this related to a game children have often played before: hide and seek (^ ecological validity)
- harder study involved 2 policeman dolls in which there was only one correct place to put the doll
- tested 3 year olds (preoperational)
- 90% gave correct answers
- harder task: 90% of 4 year olds got it right
- suggest Piaget’s task was just too difficult to understand and egocentrism is largely gone by 4 years old
pre-operational stage: another key feature
- Class inclusion
- an understand basic classification
- pre operational children struggle with class inclusion
- children under 7 cannot simultaneously see a dog as a member of the dog class and of the animal class
How Piaget tested class inclusion
- Children shown picture of 5 dogs and 2 cats
- asked: ‘are there more dogs or animals’
- preoperational children were likely to say that there were more dogs
- could not simultaneously see a dog as a member of the dog class and a member of the animal class
Concrete operational stage: age and understanding
- 7-11 years
- able to use mental operations (reasoning abilities)
- these operations can only be applied to physical objects in the child’s presence rather than abstract ideas and imaginative ones
Concrete operational stage: key feature
- conservation
- understanding that if the shape of something changes, the mass, volume or number do not change too
How Piaget tested conservation
Conservation of liquid:
- showed child two beakers that were the same with the same volume of liquid
- asked the child if they were the same
- if yes: poured the liquid from one of the beakers into a narrower glass and asked ‘are they the same’ 2x
- ‘they’re the same’ = have conservation
- ‘the taller one’ = do not have conservation
Conservation of number:
- 2 rows of objects e.g. cubes with the same no. in each
- asked same questions
- this time one row is spread out
conservation of length:
- 2 ribbons each the same length
- asked same questions
- this time one ribbon is coiled
conservation of matter
- 2 balls of clay
- asked same questions
- this time one ball was rolled out into a longer thinner, shape
criticisms of How Piaget tested conservation
- adult intention may have effected answer: they moved it on purpose –> McGarigle and Donaldson used naughty teddy to ‘accidentally’ move counters etc. this increased the % of children who did the task correctly
- ‘are they the same’ asked 2x = demand characteristics
- yes then no if they asked again first answer must’ve been wrong
Testing conservation alternative research
- Samuel and Bryant did Piaget’s tasks again but this time only asked ‘are they the same’ 1x
- asking 2x may have led the child to believe that their first answer was wrong (demand characteristics) and urge them to change their answer
- study:
- 252 children groups of 5years,6years,7years,8years
- 3 conditions:
> Piaget’s asking 2x
> one judgment: asking 1x
> fixed array: asked once and only saw objects after they’d been changed - one judgement = least amount of errors made = questions Piaget’s methodology
- younger=more mistakes = supports Piaget
Formal operations
- aged 12–>adulthood
- capable of formal reasoning and abstract thought
Key feature of formal operations
- abstract and logic thinking
- able to focus on the form of an argument s and not be distracted by it content
How Piaget tested formal operations
- logic questions
- Rule and application of rule
- ‘all yellow cats have 2 heads’
- I have a yellow cat named Charlie, How many heads does Charlie have?’
- correct answer=two
- younger children become distracted by the fact that cats do not have 2 heads
Evaluation: Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
P - research support
E - Conservation
- showed child two beakers that were the same with the same volume of liquid
- asked the child if they were the same
- if yes: poured the liquid from one of the beakers into a narrower glass and asked ‘are they the same’ 2x
- ‘they’re the same’ = have conservation
- ‘the taller one’ = do not have conservation
- children under 7 were more likely to say the taller beaker had more liquid
- C - this demonstrates how children in previous stages have qualitatively different thinking to those in later stages and support Piaget’s theory
- H - However, Piaget’s conservation task has been found to have methodological issues (asking twice) - research by Bryant has found conflicting evidence
P - good applications
E - Piaget’s stages have been used to develop key stages in schools
- the level of development is used to determine the child’s learning type
- e.g. KS1 - emphasis on play vs KS3 - emphasis on abstract thought such as algebra
C helps provide conditions that are optimal for children in each stage to learn and reach best cognitive ability
P - Culture bias
E - theory is based on his own West- European ideas
e.g. for Piaget if child shows abstract though this means they are cognitively developed WHEREAS in other cultures operational abilities are more fundamental in displaying cognitive development
C - weakness because it lacks generalisability across cultures
P - diff learning styles
E - some children may be more independent learners whereas others may work better in social settings
- discovery learning vs peer learning
C - explains some children but cannot be used to explain the cognitive development of all children
Vygotsky’s theory of social development
- agreed with Piaget that young children are curious and actively involved in learning
- placed more emphasis on social contributions to the process of development rather than self-initiated development/discovery
- believed children acquire their cultural values, beliefs, and problem-solving strategies through interaction with other, more knowledgeable people.
- sociocultural approach to cognitive development
Cultural differences in cognitive development
- children will pick up the mental tools that are most important for life within their physical, social and work environments
- these tools vary between cultures
Zone of proximal development
- a gap between a child current level of development i.e. what they can understand and do alone, and what they can potentially understand after interaction with more expert others
—> in order for new learning = tasks must be just outside child’s current ability
- assistance allows the child to understand as much of a subject/situation as they are capable - level of development still limits this to some extent
Scaffolding
- structured interaction between MKO and learner
- helps learner achieve a specific goal
- Wood suggested features: engages child, focuses child, motivates child, identifies most important parts and demonstrates task
- involves verbal instructions, prompts and cues that are progressively withdrawn
influence of others on learning
- Vygotsky said that children develop a more advanced understanding and more advanced reasoning abilities by learning with others rather than individual exploration
- especially if this other person is more knowledgeable on the subject than they are (more knowledgeable other)
- interaction with others does not only result in acquiring more info but also more advanced reasoning abilities
Evidence for MKO
Roazzi and Bryant:
- tested 4-5 year olds on estimating abilities when working with an older child
- worked alone = less likely to succeed
- worked with MKO = more likely to both succeed and master task
Evaluation Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development
P - evidence support
E - Connor and cross
- Longitudinal study
- observed mothers and children engaging in tasks
- 16mths, 2.5, 3.5 and 4.5 years
- mothers used less and less direct intervention and more prompts a children gained more experience
C - This shows support for Vygotsky’s theory as it shows that using progressively withdrawing help is an effective method for teaching children
P - Application in schools
E - social interaction in learning e.g. peer work and MKOs such teacher assistants have been used to scaffold children through their ZPD’s
C - we now know what techniques can encourage learning and help children reach their potential
P - individual differences
E - not everyone learns in the same way and do not learn the best through social interaction
C - the theory therefore unhelpful in some cases as it cannot be generalised to all children and all learning style
Baillargeon’s explanation of early infant abilities
- infants may be much more capable than Piaget claimed, and at least some of the physical world is innate
- Baillargeon believed the reason infants appeared to fail to understand object permanence was because they did not have the necessary motor skills to pursue a hidden object
Violation of expectation studies: methodology
- measured the amount of time that children look at an expected event vs an unexpected event
- expectation: children will look at the unexpected event for longer
- tests object permanence
- children consistently looked at the unexpected even for longer
- this was interpreted as surprise
- surprised = must understand what should have happened
- this demonstrates object permeance
Selman’s perspective-taking research
- 60 children
- 1/2 boys 1/2 girls
- 20 = 4 y/o 20 = 5 y/o 20 = 6 y/o
- given tasks that measure role-taking ability
- given scenarios and asked how each person felt within these scenarios (interpersonal dialemmas)
- e.g. girl asked by dad not to climb trees girl must climb tree to save friends cat
- how would each person feel if girl did or did not climb the tree
—> lead to the identification of distinct levels of role-taking these correlated with age suggesting it was to do with development
Stage 1: Socially egocentric
- Ages 3-6
- child cannot reliably distinguish between their own emotions and those of others
- they can identify the emotional states of others but cannot identify what social behaviour may have caused them
Stage 2: Social information role-taking
- Ages 6-8
- child can now tell the difference between their own viewpoint and that of others, but they can usually focus on only one of these perspectives
- they can appreciate that others may have a different POV because they have access to different info
Stage 3: Self-reflective role-taking
- Ages 8-10
- child can put themselves into the position of another person and fully appreciate their perspective
- but can only take on one broad point of view at a time
Stage 4: Mutual role-taking
- Ages 10-12
- child now has the ability to look at a situation from their own perspective and another’s perspective at the same time
- e.g. as a third person viewpoint
Stage 5: Social and Conventional system role-taking
- Ages: 12+
- child realises that understanding other peoples viewpoints is not enough to allow people to reach an agreement
- perspective is also influenced by personal, social and cultural factors
social cognition
- the mental processes we use when engaged in social interaction
- we make decisions based on our understanding of the social situation
- both understanding and decision making are cognitive processes
perspective-taking
- Piaget = physical + social perspective-taking occur together
- Selman identified social perspective-taking as separate:
- the ability to appreciate a social situation from another’s perspective
- underlies much of our normal social interactions
Selman’s findings
- children gave answers relevant to their age group
- as children mature they take into consideration more information and begin to understand that people may react differently
- they develop: the ability to analyse objectively to be a ‘neutral bystander’
- and realise that different cultural and societal values affect the perspective of the bystander
Selman: Evaluation
P - Applications
E - Pair therapy
- used to help children with behavioural and emotional difficulties to develop perspective-taking and negotiation skills that are appropriate to their age.
e.g. talking through the perspectives of others
C - this is a strength because it can be used to improve the QOL of children and help them develop social cognition
HOWEVER P - Selman’s theory overemphasises the cognitive aspects of social interactions;
E - perspective-taking is not the only aspect needed for good social interactions e.g. family climate and opportunities to learn
- so this would need to be taken into account for pair therapy to work in the best way possible.
P - evidence that perspective-taking gets better with age
E - found correlations between age and ability to take different perspectives in original interpersonal dilemmas study
- a longitudinal follow up study
- show: perspective-taking develops with age in each child
- earlier research = not simply the result of
individual differences in social-cognitive ability in different groups
C - strength because Selman’s ideas are based on solid research and are supported by a range of studies
P - cultural differences
E - Wu et al found young adult Chinese p’s did significantly better in perspective-taking tasks than matched Americans
C - weakness because it shows there is more to the development of perspective-taking than cognitive maturity because the differences here were down to cultural inputs.
Theory of Mind
- our personal understanding of what other people are thinking and feeling
- understanding that other people hav e different POVs
- provides the ability to predict and interpret the behaviour of others
False belief tasks
- tests whether children can understand that people can believe something that is not true
- test whetehr they can interpret a scene from anothers POV
- if they understand the false belief they have a TofM
- TofM becomes more advanced at around 4
Sally-Anne task (Baron-Cohen)
- sally put the marble in her basket
- sally leaves
- anne moves the marble to her box
- where will sally look for the marble?
- understanding that sally does not know that anne has moved the marble requires an understanding of Sally’s false belief about where the marble is
Sally-Anne task sample
- 20 Autistic children (chronological age: 12) (verbal mental age: 5.5)
- 14 with Down’s Syndrome (CA: 11) (VMA:3)
- 27 Typically Developed (ages: 4.5)
why did Baron-Cohen use Down’s Syndrom P’s asa control
- to see whether the results from the ASD children related to induviduals with disorders in general or jsut those with autism
- if its just those with ASD it can be applied to explain why children with ASD lack socail skills
Sally-Anne task: method
questions to ensure p’s understood the task:
- naming Q: ‘what is this doll called?’
- reality Q: ‘ where is the marble now?’
- memory Q ‘where was the ball in the begining’
- —-> all P’s answered 100% correctly (they understand)
- Belief question: ‘where will Sally look for the marble’: revealed the differences between P’s
Blue cupboard, Green cupboard
- 3-4-year-olds told a story
- Maxi left his chocolate in the blue cupboard
- his mum uses it and places it in the green cupboard
- where would Maxi look for his chocolate?
- 3 year olds - incorrect (green)
- 4 year olds - correct (blue cupboard) - understood that Maxi doesn’t know his mother moved it
- TofM become more advanced at around 4
Sally-Anne: findings
correctly answered:
- Down’s: 86%
- Typically developed: 85%
- Autistic: 20%
Sally-Anne: conclusion on austism
- the children with ASD didn’t understand the false belief
- so lack TofM
- This suggests TofM explains the development of social cognition
- if TofE develops so does social cognition
- a lack of TofM can result in ASD
- explains the social cognition difficulties in induviduals with ASD
Eyes task
- found impaired TofM in adults rather than lack
- suggests t it develops just with deficit
- reading emotions based off of cropped images of eyes
- adults with AS and those with ASD struggled
- further supports the idea of lacking TofM may cause ASD
Evaluation: TofM
P - research had good methodology
E - the inclusion of the Down’s control group in the Sally-Anne task answered ‘no’ to ‘is it just disorders in general that cause lack o TofM?’
- additionally all questions asked were closed Q’s which made it easy to make comparisons between the 3 groups
C - increases validity of the findings and in turn the theory
P - False belief tasks validity issues
E - young children who were not successful at the sally-anne task - still engage in imaginary play (requires TofM)
- they have a TofM and still struggle –> is it a valid way of testing TofM?
C - is it measuring what we think it is? –> reduces validity
P - other validity
E - autistic children can be very ‘literal’
- they know dolls aren’t real and don’t have thoughts etc
C - so we may not be measuring the child’s TofM but their ability to understand that inanimate objects don’t have thoughts - reduces the validity
H - however, a replication of the study with human models found the same results
- ^ validity –> suggests it was measuring TofM
P - Application: Social stories
E - encorage children to consider different POVs
- explains social situations through stories
- teaches what to expect and what to do
C - helps ASD children to understand social situations
The mirror neuron system
- special brain cells called mirror neurons distributed in several areas of the brain
- unique because they fire both in response to personal action and in response to action of others
- may be involved in social cognition allowing us to interpret intention and emotion in others
How mirror neurons are studied
- fMRI and EEG’s
Ramachandran, mirror neurons & autism
- Ramachandran proposed the ‘broken mirror’ theory of ASD
- dysfunction in the mirror neuron system prevents developing child imitating and understanding social behaviour in others
- e.g. ASD infancy –> Autistic children imitate adult behaviour less than others
- later problems with the mirror neurons can lead to difficulties in social communication
- —-> as children fail to develop the usual abilities that aid in reading the intentions and emotions of others
The discovery of mirror neurons
- Electrical activity in a monkey’s motor cortex was studied
- when a researcher ate in front of a monkey
- monkey’s motor cortex became activated in the same way in which it would if the monkey reached for the food itself
- Further investigations: it was the same cells that fired when the monkey reached itself or watched some else reach.
- These cells were then called mirror neurons.
Mirror neurons and intention
- understanding each other’s intentions is central to social cognition
- It was suggested that mirror neurons respond not just to observed actions but to intentions behind behaviour.
- We interpret people’s actions with reference to our memory AND experience their intentions using our mirror neurons
Mirror neurons and perspective taking
- associated with TofM and ability to take other’s perspectives
- mirror neurons fire in response to others’ actions and intentions –> this may give us a neural mechanism for experiencing and understanding others’ perspectives and emotional states.
- the same information that we use to determine intention may allow us to interpret what others are thinking and feeling.
Mirror neurons and human evolution
- Ramachandran
- complex social interactions humans have require a brain system that contains the ability to understand intention, emotion and perspective
- without these - we could not live in large groups with complex social roles and rules
Mirror neurons: evaluation
P - Evidence support for dysfunction of mirror neuron system in people with ASD
E - Ramachandran: mu waves
- in typical people: mu waves suppressed during movement of own body AND observation of other people moving those same body parts (involves mirror neurons)
- ASD P’s: mu waves are suppressed when moving own body but not when observing others
C - scientific evidence support increases the validity of the theory
H - however, there are issues with sample (only male) which decreases the generalisability of the results
P - Correlational evidence
E - evidence of brain structure is simply correlational, one variable occurs alongside the other
- e.g. here the mirror neuron dysfunction occurs alongside ASD there is no evidence to say it CAUSES it
C - reduces validity of the theory because we cannot establish cause and effect
P - difficulty studying mirror neurons
E - Evidence fcomes from brain scanning which identifies activity levels in regions of the brain
- doesn’t allow us to measure activity in individual brain cells (ethically not possible to insert electrodes into human brain)
C - Weakness - because researchers are generally measuring activity in a part of the brain and inferring that this means activity in mirror neurons.
- This is a lack of direct evidence for mirror neruons from studies like this.
