Cognitive Development

Question 1

Piaget’s Constructivist theory of cognitive development is based on the premise that people actively construct higher levels of knowledge from elements contributed by both ________________ and the ___________________.

Answer 1

• Biological maturation
• Environment

Question 2

For Piaget, the motivation for cognitive development comes from a drive toward cognitive _________________; development occurs when a state of _______________ is brought on by a discrepancy between reality and the person’s current understanding of the world (repetoire of cognitive schemas).

Answer 2

• Equilibrium (Equilibration)
• Disequilibrium

Question 3

Piaget’s concept of Adaptation involves two complementary processes - _______________ and ___________________.

Answer 3

• Assimilation
• Accomodation

Question 4

Piaget defines __________________ as the incorporation of new knowledge into existing cognitive schemas.

Answer 4

Assimilation.

Question 5

Piaget defines _____________________ as the modification of existing schemas to incorporate new knowledge.

Answer 5

Accommodation.

Question 6

Piaget describes ___ stages of cognitive development.

Answer 6

4.

Question 7

___________________ (birth to 2 years): During this stage, a child learns about objects and people through the sensory information they provide (e.g., how they look, feel) and the actions that can be performed on them (e.g. sucking, hitting). Learning at this phase is predominantly the result of circular reactions (i.e., actions that are performed in order to reproduce events that initially occurred by chance).

Answer 7

Sensorimotor Stage.

Question 8

Piaget describes the Sensorimotor Stage in terms of ___ substages.

Answer 8

6.

Question 9

Substage 1 - __________________ (birth to 1 month): The infant exercises his/her reflexes.

Answer 9

Reflexive Schemes.

Question 10

Substage 2 - __________________ (1 to 4 months): The infant attempts to repeat pleasurable events involving his/her own body (e.g., thumbsucking).

Answer 10

Primary Circular Reactions.

Question 11

Substage 3 - __________________ (4 to 8 months): The infant attempts to reproduce pleasurable events involving other people or objects (e.g., shakes a rattle).

Answer 11

Secondary Circular Reactions.

Question 12

Substage 4 - __________________ (8 to 12 months): The infant combines secondary circular reactions (schemas) into new, more complex action sequences (e.g., uncovers an object and then grasps it).

Answer 12

Coordinated Secondary Circular Reactions.

Question 13

Substage 5 - __________________ (12 to 18 months): The infant deliberately varies an action or action sequence to discover the consequences of doing so (e.g., drops a toy from different heights).

Answer 13

Tertiary Circular Reactions.

Question 14

Substage 6 - __________________ (18 to 24 months): The infant develops representational (symbolic) thought, which involves forming internal representations that allow him/her to think about absent objects and past events and to anticipate the consequences of an action.

Answer 14

Mental Representation.

Question 15

Development of _____________________ begins in Sensorimotor Substage 4 (Coordinated Secondary Circular Reactions), and allows the child to recognize that objects and people continue to exist when they are out of sight.

Answer 15

Object permanence.

Question 16

Other important accomplishments of the Sensorimotor Stage include the beginning of an understanding of ______________ and the emergence of deferred ______________ and make-believe play.

Answer 16

• Causality
• Imitation

Question 17

______________________ (2 to 7 years): A key characteristic of this stage the symbolic (semiotic) function, which is an extension of representational thought and permits the child to learn through the use of language, mental images, and other symbols. This capacity allows children to engage in symbolic play and solve problems mentally, though abilities at this stage still suffer from several limiting factors.

Answer 17

Preoperational.

Question 18

___________________: A limitation of preoperational cognition, it reflects and incomplete understanding of cause and effect. Examples include magical thinking (i.e., belief that thinking about something will casue it to occur) and animism (e.g., the tendency to attribute human characteristics to inanimate objects).

Answer 18

Precausal transductive reasoning.

Question 19

_____________________: Another limitation of preoperational cognition, this refers to the child’s inability to separate his/her perspective from that of others. They are incapable of imagining another’s point of view.

Answer 19

Egocentrism.

Question 20

Children in the preoperational stage do not recognize that actions can be reversed (_________________), and they focus on the most noticeable features of objects (_______________), rendering them incapable of conserving (i.e., understand that changing one dimension of an object does not change its other dimensions).

Answer 20

• Irreversibility
• Centration

Question 21

_______________________ (7 to 11 years): Children in this stage are capable of mental operations (i.e., logical rules for transforming and manipulating information). They are able to classify in more sophisticated ways (e.g., solve class problems), seriate (order items in terms of quantitive dimensions), understand part-whole relationships in relational terms, and conserve.

Answer 21

Concrete Operational Stage.

Question 22

_____________________ depends on the operations of reversibility and decentration and develops gradually, with conservation of number occurring first, followed by conservation of liquid, length, weight, and displacement volume. Piaget used the term ___________________ to describe the gradual acquisition of conservation abilities.

Answer 22

• Conservation
• Horizontal Decalage

Question 23

___________________ (11+ years): A person in this stage is able to think abstractly and is capable of hypothetico-deductive reasoning. In adolescence, there is a renewed egocentrism, which involves an inability to to separate one’s own abstract thoughts from the thoughts of others.

Answer 23

Formal Operational Stage.

Question 24

Elkind (1984) extended Piaget’s work by identifying the specific characteristics of ___________________; these include the personal fable (the belief that one is unique and not subject ot the natural laws that govern others) and the imaginary audience (the belief that one is always the center of attention).

Answer 24

Adolescent egocentrism.

Question 25

Cross-cultural studies suggest that the ages in which children reach each stage:

• Vary?
• Stay the same?

Answer 25

Vary.

Question 26

Contrary to Piaget’s posits, when simpler or more familiar tasks are used, children as young as ___ seem to be able to recognize that other people see things from another perspective.

Answer 26

2.

Question 27

There is evidence that many adolescents and adults do not necessarily exhibit _______________________ thought, especially on tasks and in situations that are unfamiliar.

Answer 27

Formal operational.

Question 28

Information processing theories grew, in part, our of research comparing the functioning of _____________________ to the human mind.

Answer 28

Computer programs.

Question 29

Information processing theories describe cognitive development as involving increasing information processing _______________ and ______________.

Answer 29

• Capacity
• Efficiency

Question 31

Information processing theorists view cognitive ability as _________-specific.

Answer 31

Task.

Question 32

____________________ theories combine the information processing and Piagetian approaches.

Answer 32

Neo-Piagetian.

Question 33

Vygotsky’s _________________ theory views all learning as socially mediated and proposes that cognitive development is first ____________________ (which refers to the child’s interactions with others) and then __________________ (which occurs when the child internalizes what he/she has learned).

Answer 33

• Sociocultural
• Interpersonal
• Intrapersonal

Question 34

Vygotsky posits that cognitive development is facilitated when instruction and other environmental demands fall within the child’s __________________, which refers to the discrepancy between a child’s current (independently functioning) developmental level and the level of development that is just beyond his/her level, but can be reached when and adult or more experienced peer provides appropriate support/guidance.

Answer 34

Zone of Proximal Development.

Question 35

Vygotsky conceptualizes _________________ as instruction, assistance, and support; it is most effective when it involves modeling, provideing cues, and encouraging the child to think about alternative plans of action.

Answer 35

Scaffolding.

Question 36

Vygotsky describes self-directed (private) speech as helping children regulate and organize ___________________. As they grow older, this becomes internalized as inner (silent) speech.

Answer 36

Their own behaviors.

Question 37

Brown and Palinscar’s (1989) ___________________ was influenced by Vygotsky; when using this method, the teacher initially leads the instruction adn models the appropriate kinds of questions to ask in order to foster student’s understanding of the text. Gradually, students take over the teacher’s role.

Answer 37

Reciprocal teaching method.

Question 38

Studies using habituation as the research methodology have found that, by ___ months of age, infants demonstrate recognition memory for a stimulus for up to ___ hours following exposure to that stimulus.

Answer 38

• 3 months
• 24 hours

Question 39

The ability to recall past events is apparent by ___ to ___ months of age.

Answer 39

6 to 12 months.

Question 40

Age related differences in long-term memory appear due, in large part, to differences in the use of ____________________; younger children use non-deliberate mnemonics and are more prone to distraction, while older children are more capable of generalizing retention methods to novel situations and regularly use rehearsal, organization, and elaboration.

Answer 40

Memory strategies.

Question 41

Memory differences between younger and older children (and adults) are also related to improvements in _____________________ and ____________________.

Answer 41

• Metacognition
• Metamemory

Question 42

_________________ is a term used to describe the inability of most adults to recall most events experienced prior to age ___ or ___.

Answer 42

• Childhood (infantile) amnesia
• 3 or 4

Question 43

Childhood amnesia has been attributed (in part) to __________________, as well as absence of ________________ necessary to encode information in ways that would enable later retrieval.

Answer 43

• Lack of brain development (esp. the pre-frontal lobes)
• Absence of language abilities

Question 44

When studying recall in adults aged 50 and older, the ________________ refers to the phenomenon of greater recall of very recent events.

Answer 44

Recency (or retention) effect.

Question 45

When studying recall in adults aged 50 and older, the phenomenon of greater recall of events that occurred from about age 10 to 30 is referred to as the __________________.

Answer 45

Reminiscence bump.

Question 46

The reminiscence bump has been attributed to the larger number of ________________ that occur between the ages of 10 and 30, more _________________ during this period, and affiliation of these memories with an individual’s sense of _____________.

Answer 46

• Novel experiences
• Efficient encoding
• Identity

Question 47

The ________________ refers to the influence of circadian arousal on task performance, in which older adults experience peak arousal and task performance levels in the morning, while younger adults experience these in the evening.

Answer 47

Synchrony effect.

Question 48

Research has found that multitasking, ________________, and ___________ reasoning are all adversely affected by increasing age.

Answer 48

• Selective attention
• Inductive

Question 49

Studies have found that older adults exhibit the greatest age-related declines in _________________ memory, followed by the ___________ memory aspect of short-term memory, while remote long-term memory, memory span, and sensory memory are relatively unaffected.

Answer 49

• Recent long-term (secondary) memory
• Working memory

Question 50

Studies have found that _______________ memory is more adversely affected by age than semantic or procedural memory; ____________________ shows some age-related decline, although this is moderated by certain individual characteristics (e.g., self-efficacy beliefs) and the nature of the task.

Answer 50

• Episodic
• Metamemory

Question 51

Age-related declines in working memory appear to be largely due to reduced __________________, while decrements in long-term memory are largely due to less effective _______________.

Answer 51

• Processing efficiency
• Encoding strategies

Question 52

Differences between gifted vs. non-gifted children:

• Slightly higher scores on measures of _____________
• Quicker information processing
• More effective ________________
• Better ____________ skills

Answer 52

• Self-concept (esp. academic self-concept)
• Learning strategies
• Metacognitive