Concept development/reasoning Flashcards
What is reasoning?
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.
What are three parts of understanding the physical world?
Physical space
Temporal space
Causal relations
What is the A not B error?
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
What are normal reference points that children use to orient themselves in the physical world?
- Geometric reference points (subjective from the point of reference
-
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
How does spacial orientation develop?
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
Which developmental conditions make spacial perception more difficult?
Turner-Syndrome
Williams Syndrome
Blindness (because they need non visual orientation)
What are the two approaches to conceptualizing time?
- A dimension where things happen (Piaget)
- 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
When does basic understanding of time appear?
Around 4 years!
They can use: before, after, today, tomorrow, yesterday, christmas, birthday, …
How does time concept develop? (qualitativly)
Event based -> Formal measurements
From big units (evening)
To small units (hours)
Autobiographic memory is involved in this development
When do children want to understand causality and always ask: “Why?”
Around 3 years
What are possible modules that children might have, that make them understand causality?
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)
How do children learn causality?
They see that two things happen at the same time, but thats not enough. They need to understand the connection between things.
What is concept extension?
Is when multiple concepts belong to one concept
(Bulldog, german sheperd -> dog)
What is concept intention?
It is what each term has in common
For example all dogs have 4 legs, ears, eyes, fur, they bark, etc…
What are the two main theories of concept formation?
Trait theory
Prototype theory
What is trait theory in a developmental psychology context?
How to children learn about objects according to trait theory?
- At first children look only at physical traits.
- Then categories become disdinguished into more categories.
- Functionality becomes more important
- Then the functional differences become more pronounced.
In the beginning these are very narrow, and children react on small changes.
What is prototype theory?
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)
How does development go according to prototype theory?
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)
What is the concept of slot-fillers?
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”
When does class inclusion develop?
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)
What is class inclusion?
Class inclusion means that one object or item can be contained in several classes at the same time
What is hierarchisation?
That is when one concept can be part of another concept (which also has several concepts as part of itsself)
What are the most important forms of reasoning?
- Induction
- Analogy
- Deduction
How does analogy reasoning work?
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!
How does inductive reasoning work?
By looking at data (in nature) and drawing a conclusion based on that
-> This gives probabilistic hypotheses
How does deductive reasoning work?
Here one takes a general rule and reasons to a specific situation
What is the development of reasoning?
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
What is logical reasoning?
Conclusions are limited by logical rules.
Content is less important, its just the (logical) rules that are
What is a syllogism?
A logical conclusion that build on two (connected) logical statements
What is the 4 card problem?
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
