Concept development/reasoning

Question 1

What is reasoning?

Answer 1

It means to make conclusions on perceived connections.
Including factual and contrafactual
(How it is, vs how it could be)

contrafactual thinking: If people were 4 meter tall, doors would be 4 meters tall.

Question 2

What are three parts of understanding the physical world?

Answer 2

Physical space
Temporal space
Causal relations

Question 3

What is the A not B error?

Answer 3

When a child that has object permanence, but is conditioned that an object is placed one place, when it sees that the object is placed another place, will still look in the first place.

-> This is not a motor issue
-> This is usually in the sensimotor stage

This shows, that children are not born with a geometric module

Question 4

What are normal reference points that children use to orient themselves in the physical world?

Answer 4

1. Geometric reference points (subjective from the point of reference
2. Landmarks
   (Unique properties of a place)

-> This ability becomes stronger and stronger during development
-> Development is first Geometric reference points, then Landmarks

This was used in experiments where colored pillows were used. A child found it easy under the different pillow, more difficult when it was between or close to a different colored pillow. -> Landmarks for orientation

Question 5

How does spacial orientation develop?

Answer 5

22 months: Little use of landmarks, just geometry
22-36 months: Use of landmarks
2 years: Child can go around obstacles
5 years: Simple maps can be used

Question 6

Which developmental conditions make spacial perception more difficult?

Answer 6

Turner-Syndrome

Williams Syndrome

Blindness (because they need non visual orientation)

Question 7

What are the two approaches to conceptualizing time?

Answer 7

1. A dimension where things happen (Piaget)
2. A framework, where events can be placed into

Piaget looked at:
1. Order of events
2. How long something takes
3. What the intervals between them were

Question 8

When does basic understanding of time appear?

Answer 8

Around 4 years!

They can use: before, after, today, tomorrow, yesterday, christmas, birthday, …

Question 9

How does time concept develop? (qualitativly)

Answer 9

Event based -> Formal measurements

From big units (evening)
To small units (hours)

Autobiographic memory is involved in this development

Question 10

When do children want to understand causality and always ask: “Why?”

Answer 10

Around 3 years

Question 11

What are possible modules that children might have, that make them understand causality?

Answer 11

Coreknowledge: Knowing how things behave

Persistence principle: things have a natural consistency to keep their properties. This is expanded on pga experiences

FunFact: Children develop f.eks. object collision when they develop eye hand coordination (4months)

Question 12

How do children learn causality?

Answer 12

They see that two things happen at the same time, but thats not enough. They need to understand the connection between things.

Question 13

What is concept extension?

Answer 13

Is when multiple concepts belong to one concept

(Bulldog, german sheperd -> dog)

Question 14

What is concept intention?

Answer 14

It is what each term has in common

For example all dogs have 4 legs, ears, eyes, fur, they bark, etc…

Question 15

What are the two main theories of concept formation?

Answer 15

Trait theory

Prototype theory

Question 16

What is trait theory in a developmental psychology context?

Question 17

How to children learn about objects according to trait theory?

Answer 17

1. At first children look only at physical traits.
2. Then categories become disdinguished into more categories.
3. Functionality becomes more important
4. Then the functional differences become more pronounced.

In the beginning these are very narrow, and children react on small changes.

Question 18

What is prototype theory?

Answer 18

Things are added into categories.
A typical member (average) of the concept, assesses typicality of that thing.

They can have three levels:
superior level: Animal
basic level: Dog
subordinate level: Doberman

This is supported by reaction time experiments (think: Bird - Sparrow - Pinguin; fast&slow)

Question 19

How does development go according to prototype theory?

Answer 19

Because children do focus on physical traits first, they first create categories in that order:
1. subordinate level - 3 months
2. basic level - 2,5 years (mainly perceptual)
3. superior level - (?)

This might be, because they pay attention to a lot of details at first.

They might not have the ability to abstract in the same way

They have not seen any/so many other examples of these categories.

Children have to be taught that horses are also animals, otherwise they will deny that they are animals (they copy the way the parents talk about animals)

Question 20

What is the concept of slot-fillers?

Answer 20

These are concepts that children in preschool children, that all can fill a certain slot (think food to eat for breakfast)

They become fewer and fewer with age and get reorganized into hierarchical structures (Basic level)

This seems to be its own category, because children in that age name more things for “breakfast foods” than for just “foods”

Question 21

When does class inclusion develop?

Answer 21

Different studies say different things.

Piaget says not before the concrete operational stage.

Others say down until 4 years

This is maybe easier for children when performed in areas of their expertise (toys. f.eks)

Question 22

What is class inclusion?

Answer 22

Class inclusion means that one object or item can be contained in several classes at the same time

Question 23

What is hierarchisation?

Answer 23

That is when one concept can be part of another concept (which also has several concepts as part of itsself)

Question 24

What are the most important forms of reasoning?

Answer 24

1. Induction
2. Analogy
3. Deduction

Question 25

How does analogy reasoning work?

Answer 25

By looking at one object and transfering its properties to another one

It is based on mental models

It is the basic building block of school teaching
-> Understandable analogies are important!

Question 26

How does inductive reasoning work?

Answer 26

By looking at data (in nature) and drawing a conclusion based on that
-> This gives probabilistic hypotheses

Question 27

How does deductive reasoning work?

Answer 27

Here one takes a general rule and reasons to a specific situation

Question 28

What is the development of reasoning?

Answer 28

Age 2 children manage easy analogies!
Horse-Foal: Dog-? (puppy)

Missing knowledge can make young children unsure and easily influenced.

Age 5 children can do A>B, B>C, C>D

Age 9-11 children get less easy distracted by unneccesary information.
-> They also develop pure logical reasoning

Question 29

What is logical reasoning?

Answer 29

Conclusions are limited by logical rules.

Content is less important, its just the (logical) rules that are

Question 30

What is a syllogism?

Answer 30

A logical conclusion that build on two (connected) logical statements

Question 31

What is the 4 card problem?

Answer 31

The Wason selection task:

People need to verify whether they some cards follow a rule.

Rule:
1. If there is an even number, the color is blue
2. Everyone under 18 cannot drink alcohol

It is much easier to solve in domains one has knowledge in/pragmatic reasoning schemata

The test can also show confirmation bias, because one has to look for information that disproves the rule, rather than proofs it.

This could also be proof for domain specific knowledge/skills