Cognitive Development

Question 1

The neutral, preferred category for a given object, at an intermediate level of specificity

Answer 1

Basic-level category

Question 2

A set of entities that are equivalent in some way. Usually the items are similar to one another

Answer 2

Category

Question 3

The mental representation of a category

Answer 3

Concept

Question 4

An example in memory that is labeled as being in a particular category

Answer 4

Exemplar

Question 5

The belief that member of a category have an unseen property that causes them to be in the category and to have the properties associated with it

Answer 5

Psychological essentialism

Question 6

The difference in “goodness” of category members, ranging from the most typical (the prototype) to borderline members

Answer 6

Typicality

Question 7

Piagetian stage between ages 7-12 when kids can think logically about concrete situations but not engage in systematic scientific reasoning

Answer 7

Concrete operations stage

Question 8

Problems pioneered by Piaget in which physical transformation of an object or set of objects changed a perceptually salient dimension but not the quantity that is being asked about

Answer 8

Conservation problems

Question 9

Ways in which development occurs in a gradual incremental manner, rather than through sudden jumps

Answer 9

Continuous development

Question 10

Development that does not occur in a gradual incremental manner

Answer 10

Discontinuous development

Question 11

Piagetian stage starting at age 12 and continuing for the rest of life, in which adolescents may gain the reasoning powers of educated adults

Answer 11

Formal operations stage

Question 12

Theories that focus on describing the cognitive processes that underlie thinking at any one age and cognitive growth over time

Answer 12

Information processing theories

Question 13

The Piagetian task in which infants below about 9 months fail to search for an object that is removed from their sight and, if not allowed to search immediately for the object, act as if they do not know that it continues to exist.

Answer 13

Object permanence task

Question 14

Awareness of the component sounds within words

Answer 14

Phonemic awareness

Question 15

Theory that development occurs through a sequence of discontinuous stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages

Answer 15

Piaget’s theory

Question 16

Period within piagetian theory from age 2-7, in which kids can represent objects through drawing and language but cannot solve logical reasoning problems

Answer 16

Preoperational reasoning stage

Question 17

Large, fundamental changes, as when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. Theories such as piagets posit that each stage reflects qualitative change relative to the previous stage

Answer 17

Qualitative changes

Question 18

Gradual, incremental change, as in the growth of a tree’s width

Answer 18

Quantitative changes

Question 19

Period within piagetian theory from birth to 2, during which kids come to represent the enduring reality of objects

Answer 19

Sensorimotor stage

Question 20

Theory founded in large part by Lev Vygotsky that emphasizes how other people and the attitudes, values, and beliefs of the surrounding culture influence children’s development

Answer 20

Sociocultural theories

Question 21

A characteristic that reflects a genetic liability for disease and a more basic component of a complex clinical presentation. They are less developmentally malleable than overt behaviour.

Answer 21

Endophenotypes

Question 22

Measure the firing of groups of neurons in the cortex. As a person views of listens to specific types of information, neuronal activity creates small electrical currents that can be recorded from non-invasive sensors placed on the scalp. ERP provides excellent information about the timing of processing, clarifying brain activity at the millisecond pace at which it unfolds.

Answer 22

Event-related potentials (ERP)

Question 23

Uses powerful magnets to measure oxygen levels within the brain that vary with changes in neural activity.

Answer 23

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

Question 24

The set of neuroanatomical structures that allows us to understand the actions and intentions of other people

Answer 24

Social brain