Cognitive Development, thinking and perspective taking

Question 1

Schema

Answer 1

A mental framework on how certain situation should look

Question 2

Assimilation

Answer 2

The cognitive process of using new information fit into our existing schema

Question 3

Equilibrium

Answer 3

A state of stability, when existing schemas fit a new situation

Question 4

Disequilibrium

Answer 4

A state of instability when existing schema does not fit a situation

Question 5

Accommodation

Answer 5

The cognitive process in which new information does not fit into our existing schema

Question 6

Sensory Motor Stage 0-2

Answer 6

-Children learn via trial and error.
-Develop senses
-Object permanence at around 8 months

Question 7

Pre Operational Stage 2-7

Answer 7

-Child is egocentric, i.e. the child cannot see from any other POV but their own
-The child cannot conserve, so they do not understand the concept of quantity
-Animism- believes that toys have feelings
-Class inclusion cannot put things into categories

Question 8

Concrete operational stage 7-11

Answer 8

-Children become less egocentric
-They can now categories objects and they can now also conserve
-More logical

Question 9

Formal operational stage 12+

Answer 9

-Understands abstract concepts
-Reason
-deeper understanding
-can make rational choices

Question 10

Piagets overall theory

Answer 10

-children have to actively engage and become active learners, he believes children learn via trial and error. That cognition develops biologically alongside age.

Question 11

Ball and Blanket

Answer 11

-Piaget carried out a study whereby he found that babies above 8 months looked for the hidden ball, this suggests that object permanence exists

Question 12

3 Mountains

Answer 12

• Doll sits around mountain
  -child has to pick photo of what doll can see
  -4 year old’s consistently picked their perspective#
  -7 year old however picked right photo
  -proof of egocentrism

Question 13

Piaget Methodology A03

Answer 13

• Piagets experiments to support his theory where carried out by himself, which may have lead to investigator bias, as piaget may have looked for the evidence to back up his theory
  -Small sample size, of all same cultured children

Question 14

Nature VS Nurture Piaget

Answer 14

Piaget did not consider nurture as something that could affect the development of cognition and development. He therefore assumes that age is the determining factor though some children may exceed faster than others
-To ensure this theory to be more valid he should have taken a more of an interactionalist approach

Question 15

Culture Bias Piaget

Answer 15

Piaget’s theory is mostly based on western culture. There is no evidence or cross cultural studies to generalize findings. Beta bias
Children of different culture cognition may be different

Question 16

McDonald’s research into conservation

Answer 16

-McDonald’s study included children in the pre operational stage. Like piaget answered wrong number of counters first time, but when the ‘naughty teddy’ knocked the counters closer together, they said same as before

Question 17

Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development

Answer 17

Vygotsky believed that children learn via social interaction. Believed that language was important because language connects the child to others and a wider community to learn. He also believed that cultural differences were important in determining cognitive development.
At 0-3 years the child is external and learns approval and disapproval. At 3-7 they are still egocentric and think aloud, and at 7/8 they develop an inner voice.
-Scaffolding is when a more knowledgeable other tailors support to meet the needs of the learner, zone of proximal development increases

Question 18

Vygotsky’s A03

Answer 18

• Evidence to support scaffolding. A piece of longnitudal research followed people aged 16, 26, and 44, found more mothers scaffolded more effective
  -Evidence to support zone of proximal development, 4/5 year olds estimate number of sweets in a box, group with MKO was more successful
  -Keer and Pierre- found that 10year old’s who helped 7yr olds read- excelled
  in school application sch as teaching assistant and peer group learning

Question 19

Vygotsky Nature Vs Nurture

Answer 19

-Vygotsky was definitely more on the nurture side, he did not account for biological factors and development of learning, if he took a ore interactional approach- more valid

Question 20

Vygotsky Culture

Answer 20

A strength to this theory is that Vygotsky took into account cultural elements

Question 21

Baillargeon’s explanation to early infant abilities

Answer 21

-Baillargeon research aimed to discover unsuspected abilities of new-borns and young children. She said that children are born with a Physical reasoning system, disagreed with piaget and said it was a lack of motor ability to carry out search for objects
-Basic understanding and knowledge.
-one being Occlusion is understanding an object can be blocked by another object.

Question 22

Violation of expectation research

Answer 22

VOE is the idea that infants will look at new things for longer than they will look at things they have encountered before
Presented with a new stimulus.
Until look away, in which no longer consider to be new
One stimuli is a possible event, one is an impossible event
If infants have object permanence will look at impossible even for longer

Question 23

An example of VOE research

Answer 23

• two groups, expected event and the impossible event.
  –24 infants, a tall and a short rabbit behind a screen with a window. In possible condition, the tall rabbit can be seen passing through window whereas small rabbit cannot.
  -In impossible neither rabbit could be seen
  Findings, 33 seconds impossible, 25 seconds at possible

Question 24

Drawbridge

Answer 24

Infants repeatedly shown a stimulus, in this case drawbridge.
Habituation drawbridge moves to 180 degrees. Box placed- impossible stimulus
-looked more at impossible stimulus

Question 25

Baillargeon A03

Answer 25

-Use drawbridge study
-Assumptions about VOE, assumes she knows that looking longer means the infant must be surprised
-Working with children- Consent from parents and a right to withdraw
-observer bias
-Culture bias, only from her culture, methodology used was selecting children from a local newspaper
-Nature over nurture

Question 26

Selman’s theory A01

Answer 26

Selman believed that for a child to take another persons perspective they must have experienced the scenario themselves. Although Selman does label his stages with ages, he does account for an overlap as he recognises that although experience happens with age, this experience may happen at different ages.

Question 27

Egocentric stage 0-6

Answer 27

The child only sees from their own perspective

Question 28

Social informative role taking stage 2-7

Answer 28

The child recognises that other people have different perspectives from their own but they cannot take any other perspective at this stage

Question 29

Social reflective role taking stage 5-9

Answer 29

The child can now take the perspective of one person but not multiple

Question 30

Multiple perspectives 7-15

Answer 30

-The child can now take on multiple perspectives at the same time

Question 31

Social and conventional role taking stage

Answer 31

-The child can now recognise that perspectives do not all reach agreement.
-Evaluate views on societal level

Question 32

Selman A03

Answer 32

-There has been evidence found, that perspective taking does get better as we age. The Holly and cat scenario found a significant positive correlation. Also cross sectional research has found the same thing
-Overly cognitive- Selman’s theory is arguably overly cognitive, does not account for other internal factors, and even external factors which may affect cognition development
-Keysar- Not culture bias, allowed studies to be carried out in other cultures, Keysar found that Chinese children were better than Western cultures at PT
-Nature and Nurture both accounted for
-An explanation for autism- Marton et al, 8-12 year olds with ADHD and autism done worse on perspective taking

Question 33

Mirror Neurons A01

Answer 33

-Rizzolotti et al. discovered mirror neurons accidentally, whilst studying neuron activity in the motor cortex of the macaque monkey species
-Mirror Neurons are neurons which fire when an observer views a meaningful action, this means that the individual experiences the the action as if it were there own.
- This allows the person to imitate the actions of another person, because it is like they are acting out the same activity.
-Development of social cognition- ToM etc..
-Understanding intentions
-Language acquisition

Question 34

Lacoboni intentions (frontal and partial cortex)

Answer 34

MNs encode not just what but why. Found highest level of activity in the inferior frontal cortex during the intention clip compared to Context and action.
(context, tea cup full then empty, Action, grasping tea as if drinking, intention both)

Question 35

Language acquisition

Answer 35

-Imitation of speech sounds and MN
-Brain scan imaging, MN in broca area, assossiated with speech, human equivilant to F5

Question 36

Di Pellegino research

Answer 36

-Electrodes where inserted into individual neurons of macaque monkeys, recorded when monkey reached for an apple, but also when the monkey observed another monkey reach for an apple, activity levels were high

Question 37

Mirror Neuron A03

Answer 37

-Link with the ToM, however monkey brains are not as complex as humans, in terms of developing empathy, also FMRI research has also found that brain areas are active when we feel emotions that other people are also feeling- support for empathy
-Meltzoff and Moore, infants imitate within first year of life- suggesting either have minor innate basis or another factor causes it.
-Unethical- for humans- electrodes