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Lifespan Development > Cognitive Development > Flashcards

Cognitive Development Flashcards

1
Q

Cognitive Development

the 2 main theorists of cognitive development

A
  • Piaget
  • Vygotsky
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2
Q

Cognitive Development

cognitive development relies on a combination of biological maturation and experience and is an active process in which a child constructs knowledge by interacting with the environment according to who?

A

Piaget

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3
Q

Cognitive Development

according to Piaget, the source of motivation for cognitive developmnet is what?

A

equilibration (an innate drive toward a state of equilibrium between one’s current ways of thinking and the environment)

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4
Q

Cognitive Development

when disequilibrium occurs, a child is motivated to restore equilibrium through adaptation, which consists of what 2 processes

A

1) assimilation
2) accommodation

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5
Q

Cognitive Development

____ occurs when a child attempts to understand a new object or situation using an existing cognitive schema

A

assimilation

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6
Q

Cognitive Development

____ occurs when a child modifies an existing cognitive schema or creates a new schema to fit the new object or situation

A

accommodation

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7
Q

Cognitive Development

when a young child, who is familiar with dogs, sees a cow for the first time and yells out “dog!!” - what type of adaptation is this an example of?

A

assimilation

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8
Q

Cognitive Development

when a young child, who is familiar with dogs, sees a cow for the first time and thinks its a dog but hears the cow moo instead of bark, the child will experience disequilibrium and create a new cow schema with the help of a parent who says the animal is a cow, points out that cows are bigger than dogs, & says “moo” - what is this an example of?

A

accommodation

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9
Q

Cognitive Development

list the 4 universal stages of cognitive development according to Piaget

A

1) Sensorimotor
2) Pre-operational
3) Concrete Operational
4) Formal Operational

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10
Q

Cognitive Development

what factors might affect a child’s cognitive development

A

culture & environmental factors

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11
Q

Cognitive Development

Piaget’s stages of cognitive development are classifed as ____ because each stage involves qualitatively different cognitive processes and are classified as ____ because Piaget considered cognitive development to be a process in which children interact with the environment to construct knowledge during each stage

A

discontinuous; active

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12
Q

Cognitive Development

characteristics of Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage of cognitive development

age range, associated features of development, examples

A
  • birth to 2 years of age
  • involves learning about the environment through sensory input & motor actions
  • 6 substages
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13
Q

Cognitive Development

list the 6 substages of Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage

A

1) Reflexive Reactions: 0 to 1 month
* responds to external stimuli with innate reflexes
2) Primary Circular Reactions: 1 to 4 months
* repeats enjoyable actions involving their own body (e.g., sucks thumb, kicks legs)
3) Secondary Circular Reactions: 4 to 8 months
* reproduces actions involving objects (e.g., shakes rattle to hear sound) and imitates familiar actions of others
4) Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions: 8 to 12 months
* drops small toy in a cup & then picks up the cup and imitates actions of others that aren’t in their repertoire
5) Tertiary Circular Reactions: 12 to 18 months
* deliberately experiments to discover consequences (e.g., drops ball from different heights) and finds new ways to achieve goals)
6) Internalization of Schemas: 18 to 24 months
* develops mental representations of reality and solves some problems mentally

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14
Q

Cognitive Development

list the accomplishments of the Sensorimotor Stage

A
  • the development of object permanace
  • representational (symbolic) thought
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15
Q

Cognitive Development

what substage of the Sensorimoto Stage is associated with the development of object permanence

A

substage 4) Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions

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16
Q

Cognitive Development

what substage of the Sensorimotor Stage is associated with the development of representational thought? What characteristics are associated with representational thought development?

A
  • substage 6) Internalization of Schemas
  • make-believe play & deferred imitation
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17
Q

Cognitive Development

define & give an example of make-believe play

A

aka pretend & symbolic play
* acting out everday activities

e.g., pretending to feed toy food to a stuffed animal

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18
Q

Cognitive Development

define deferred imitation

A

the ability to remember the actions of other people & imitate those actions at a later time

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19
Q

Cognitive Development

contemporary research has found that some infants actually show deferred imitation of ____ after a brief delay by ____ of age and deferred imitation of very simple behaviors after a brief delay as early as substage ____ but don’t exhibit deferred imitation of complex behavioral sequences until substage 6 (Piaget’s proposed age/substage)

A
  • deferred imitation of facial expressions
  • 6 weeks of age
  • substage 4
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20
Q

Cognitive Development

characteristics of Piaget’s Pre-operational Stage of cognitive development

age range, associated features of development, examples

A
  • from about 2 to 7 years of age
  • increased representational thought about past & future and things not immediately in the environment
  • more sophisticated forms of make-believe play
    • use of one object to represent another (e.g., pretend that a cardboard box is a race car)
    • invent imaginary playmates
    • participate in role-playing with other children
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21
Q

Cognitive Development

what 2 factors limit the preoperational stage

A

1) transductive (precausal) reasoning
2) egocentrism

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22
Q

Cognitive Development

transductive reasoning leads preoperational children to think that unrelated events that occur at the same time are ____ related

A

causally

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23
Q

Cognitive Development

____ limits childrens’ ability to understand that other people don’t experience things the same way they do

A

egocentrism

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24
Q

Cognitive Development

2 outcomes of the limitations of the preoperational stage

A

1) magical thinking
2) animism

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25
Q

Cognitive Development

define magical thinking

A

the belief that just thinking about something can make it happen

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26
Q

Cognitive Development

define animism

A

the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities

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27
Q

Cognitive Development

the inability for preoperational children to conserve is due primarily to what 2 characteristics of preoperational thinking

A

1) centration: the tendency to focus on 1 aspect of an object or situation
2) irreversibility: the inability to understand that an action or process can be reversed

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28
Q

Cognitive Development

characteristics of Piaget’s Concrete Operational Stage of cognitive development

age range, associated features of development, examples

A
  • about 7 to 12 years of age
  • use of logical operations (mental activities that allow them to think logically aobut concrete situations)
  • ability to classify objects according to physical characteristics (e.g., order items in terms of length & perform number operations such as adding, subtracting, multiplying, & dividing)
  • ability to conserve
  • decentration
  • reversibility
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29
Q

Cognitive Development

concrete operational children form the ability to conserve, which depends on what 2 operations? Define each.

A

1) decentration: ability to focus on more than 1 aspect of an object or situation at the same time
2) reversibility: ability to understand that actions & processes can be reversed

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30
Q

Cognitive Development

Piaget proposed that concrete operational children develop conservation in a predictable order. List the order. What is the sequential order of conservation skills an example of?

A
  • conservation of:
    1) number
    2) length
    3) liquid quantity
    4) mass
    5) weight
    6) volume
  • horizontal decalage
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31
Q

Cognitive Development

Piaget refers to the gradual development of a skill within a single stage of development as…

A

horizontal decalage

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32
Q

Cognitive Development

characteristics of Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage of cognitive development

age range, associated features of development, examples

A
  • about 12 years of age and continues into adulthood
  • abstract thinking (e.g., thinking about democracy and equality)
  • hypothetical-deductive reasoning
  • propositional thought
  • at the beginning of this stage, renewed egocentrism (e.g., imaginary audience & personal fable
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33
Q

Cognitive Development

____ is an adolescent’s belief that he/she is always the subject of other people’s attention & concern, while ____ is an adolescent’s beliefs that he/she is special & unique, can’t be understood by others, and is omnipotent and invulnerable to harm.

A

imaginary audience; personal fable

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34
Q

Cognitive Development

define hypothetical-deductive reasoning and propositional thought

A
  • the ability to derive & test alternative hypotheses to determine the solution to a problem
  • the ability to evaluate the logic of verbal statements (propositions) without having concrete examples
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35
Q

Cognitive Development

list some reasons why Piaget’s theory of cognitive development has been challenged

A
  • underestimating the abilities of infants & young children
  • Piaget did not adequately consider the impact of social interactions on cognitive development
  • lack of cultural considerations
36
Q

Cognitive Development

assumptions of Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

A
  • cognitive development is influenced by social & cultural factors
  • cognitive development always occurs first on an interpersonal level and then on an intrapersonal level
37
Q

Cognitive Development

give an example of interpersonal vs. intrapersonal levels of cognitive development according to Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

A

when helping a child understand how to solve a math word problem, a teach might provide the child with verbal prompts to help the child solve the problem (interpersonal). Then, when solving similar problems alone, the child will verbalize the teacher’s prompts to guide his/her own behavior (intrapersonal).

38
Q

Cognitive Development

Vygotsky referred to the speech that children utter aloud to guide their actions as…

A

private speech

39
Q

Cognitive Development

research has shown that private speech is associated with what?

A

more effective problem-solving

40
Q

Cognitive Development

as predicated by Vygotsky, research has shown that private speech begins to be replaced with ____ speech by about ____ of age. However, older children, adolescents, & adults may revert to private speech when face with difficult tasks.

A

inner (silent) speech; 7 years of age

41
Q

Cognitive Development

according to Vygotsky, what preceds and facilitates cognitive development

A

learning

42
Q

Cognitive Development

define zone of proximal development

A

the gap between what a child can currently do independently and what he/she can do with assistance from an adult or more competent peer

43
Q

Cognitive Development

the assistance provided to a child by another person is referred to as… and is more effective when it involves the use of prompts, questions, and feedback rather than providing correct answers and solutions.

A

scaffolding

44
Q

Cognitive Development

Vygotsky proposed that what creates a zone of proximal development that enables children to practice new social roles & behaviors

A

make-believe (symbolic) play

45
Q

Cognitive Development

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to…

A

explain and predict other people’s behavior by attirbuting to them indpenedent menatl states, such as beliefs & desires

46
Q

Cognitive Development

research using false-belief tasks has found that Theory of Mind develops when children are between ____ and ____ years of age

A

3 and 5 years of age

47
Q

Cognitive Development

false-belief tasks test what according to Theory of Mind

A

a child’s understanding that another person can have a mistaken belief about something and will act in accord with that belief

48
Q

Cognitive Development

a type of false-belief task that is commonly used. What does this task involve

crash course example - stuffed shark on side table

A
  • change-of-location task
  • having children observe a scene in which Person A puts an object in Location 1 and then leaves the scene. Person B then moves the object to Location 2. After observing the scene, children are asked where Person A will look for the object when she returns.
49
Q

Cognitive Development

in the change-of-location false-belief task, where do children under 4 years old usually predict Person A will look for the object? why? what about children 4.5 to 5 years of age?

A
  • in location 2
  • because they do not understand that Person A does not have the same information that they have
  • Person A will look in Location 1
50
Q

Cognitive Development

what is the misinformation effect associated with eyewitness testimony

A

occurs when memories of an event are altered by subsequent exposire to misleading information about the event

51
Q

Cognitive Development

research has shown that the effects of misinformation tend to decrease with…

A

increasing age (the eyewitness testimony of young children tends to be lease accurate followed, in order, by the testimony of older children, adolescents, & adults. This is because suggestibility declines with increasing age)

52
Q

Cognitive Development

explain the reverse developmental trend

A
  • the idea that the testimony of young children is more accurate than the testimony of older children, adolescents, & adults
  • due to age-related differences in knowledge: increasing age is associated with greater knowledge, and greater knowledge increases the likelihood of generating spontaneous false memories from suggestive information
53
Q

Cognitive Development

some evidence suggests that children as young as ____ can provide reasonably accurate eyewitness testimony as long as they are intervieweed in a nonsuggestive way & are not exposed to midsinformation

A

3 years of age

54
Q

Cognitive Development

6 month old infants can remember information for about ____, while 20 month old infants can remember information for up to ____.

A

24 hours; 12 months

55
Q

Cognitive Development

most adults cannot recall events they experienced before they were how old?

A

3 or 4 years old

56
Q

Cognitive Development

list some explanations for childhood amnesia

A
  • that language allows memories to be encoded & children less than 3 or 4 years old have limited language skills
  • a sense of self is necessary for developing personal memories & very young children have not yet developed a stable, coherent sense of self
57
Q

Cognitive Development

research has found that, when older adults are asked to recall important events from their lives, the largest number of recalled events occurred during when? the second-largest number of recalled events occured when?

A
  • the ten-year period prior to being tested
  • between the ages of about 15 and 25 years old
58
Q

Cognitive Development

explain the reminiscence bump

A

the increased memory for events that occurred from mid-adolescence to the mid-20’s

59
Q

Cognitive Development

primary factor attritbuted to the reminiscence bump

A

identity formation: during this period, many memorable events (e.g., events related to life transitions) occur that are important for adult identity formation

60
Q

Cognitive Development

older adults experience the greatest age-related decline in what 2 types of memory? (list in order)

A
  • long-term memory
  • working memory (an aspect of short-term memory)
61
Q

Cognitive Development

what 2 types of memory are relatively unaffected by increasing age?

A

1) the storage aspect of short-term memory (aka primary memory)
2) remote long-term memory (aka tertiary memory)

62
Q

Cognitive Development

research suggests that age-related declines in recent long-term memory often occur because older adults are less likely than younger adults to use what? research also suggests that older adults benefit from training in the use of what?

A

encoding strategies; memory strategies

63
Q

Cognitive Development

some experts refer to what 2 types of memory are the primary aspects of long-term memory

A

declarative & nondeclarative

64
Q

Cognitive Development

declarative memory (aka explicit memory) consists of memories that are retrieved…

nondeclarative memory (aka implicit memory) consists of memories that are retrieved…

A
  • consciously & intentionally
  • automatically or with little effort
65
Q

Cognitive Development

define episodic vs. semantic memories

A

episodic: memories for autobiographical events

semantic: memories for facts, concepts, & other kinds of knowledge

66
Q

Cognitive Development

self-defining memory (SDM) is sometimes identified as a component of what type of memory, which consists of memories that contribute to the construction & maintenance of personal identity

A

episodic

67
Q

Cognitive Development

list the 5 characteristics of self-defining memory (SDM)

A

1) emotional intensity
2) vividness
3) high levels of repetition
4) linkage to similar memories
5) connections to enduring concerns or unresolved conflicts

68
Q

Cognitive Development

self-defining memories of older vs younger adults tend to be… and more likely to include…

A
  • more vivid
  • more positive
  • of greater importance
  • integrative meaning statements that address what the memories have taught them about themselves
69
Q

Cognitive Development

nondeclarative memories consist of what memories

A
  • procedural memories (learned skills & actions)
  • memories created by classical conditioning (conditioned associations between 2 stimuli)
  • memories affected by priming (in which prior exposure to a certain stimulus affects how a person responds to a subsequent stimulus)
70
Q

Cognitive Development

research has found that ____ memory (aka explicit memory) declines with increasing age in adulthood while ____ memory shows little to no age-related decline

A

episodic; semantic

71
Q

Cognitive Development

research on the ____ has confirmed that there are age-related differences with regard to the optimal time for successful performance on various visual & verbal memory tasks, problem-solving tasks, & other cognitive tasks, especially tasks that depend on the ability to inhibit a prepotent response.

A

synchrony effect

72
Q

Cognitive Development

researchers have found that the optimal time associated with the synchrony effect is related to differences in what. And that, peak task performance is in the morning for (older/younger) adults and in the late afternoon & evening for (older/younger) adults.

A
  • circadian rhythms; older; younger
73
Q

Cognitive Development

studies investigating sex differences in cognitive abilities and personality traists have found that reliable differences are ____.

A

rare

74
Q

Cognitive Development

research suggests the most reliable sex differences in cognitive abilities & personality traits have been found in the following areas:

A
  • mathematical
  • verbal
  • visual/spatial
  • agression
  • self-esteem
  • developmental vulnerability
75
Q

Cognitive Development

in terms of mathematical abilities, by adolescence girls outperform boys on measures of what skills. While boys outperform girls on measures of what & have acquired more mathematical problem-solving strategies

A

computational skills; mathematical reasoning

76
Q

Cognitive Development

in terms of verbal abilities, girls obtain higher scores on many measures of verbal ability throughout childhood & adolescence, including ____ and ____ achievement. However, boys outperform girls on measures of ____.

A

speech fluency and reading and writing achievement; verbal analogies

77
Q

Cognitive Development

in terms of visual/spatial abilities, boys obtain higher scores on measures of visual/spatial abilities, especially on tasks requiring what?

A

mental rotation

78
Q

Cognitive Development

research has consistently found that boys engage in physical aggression as early as ____ of age

A

2 years of age

79
Q

Cognitive Development

according to research, how is relational aggression defined

A

engaging in behaviors that have the goal of harming social relationships by, for example, spreading rumors and social exclusion

80
Q

Cognitive Development

research on relational aggression among girls & boys has been inconsistent due to what factors?

A
  • the ages & cultures of research participants
  • the methods used to assess relational aggression
81
Q

Cognitive Development

research investigating age, gender, & self-esteem have found that self-esteem is higher among males than females when? In contrast, the studies have found that the lifespan trajectory of self-esteem for males vs females is ____.

A
  • beginning in late childhood and persisting until late adulthood
  • similar (both genders self-esteem is relatively high in childhood, drops in adolescence, increases from late adolescence through middle adulthood, and then declines in late adulthood
82
Q

Cognitive Development

there is evidence to suggest that the size of the gender gap re: self-esteem varies across culturs. The tends to be larger in countries that are ____, ____, and ____ and smaller in countries that are ____, ____, and ____. Give examples of these countries

A
  • individualistic, developed, and wealthy (e.g., U.S., Canada, Netherlands)
  • collectivistic, less developed, and poorer (e.g., India, Indonesia, Malaysia)
83
Q

Cognitive Development

(girls/boys) are more vulnerable to pre- and perinatal hazards & diseases and are more likely to have developmental problems, such as autism, ADHD, intellectual disability, & speech defects

A

boys

84
Q

Cognitive Development

research on mathematical abilities has found that parents are influenced by gender-role stereotypes and expect sons to outperform daughters in math and attribute their sons’ successes in math to ____ but their daughters’ successes to ____.

A

ability; effort

85
Q

Cognitive Development

girls are more likely to ____ and ____ about their math skills

A

underestimate and feel anxious

86
Q

Cognitive Development

examples of gender-typing by parents within the first 24 hours after birth: sons vs. daughters

A

sons
* described as being strong, alert, & well-coordinated

daughters
* described as being soft, delicate, little, & pretty/cute

Lifespan Development (6 decks)

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