Development

Question 1

altricial

Answer 1

young are born in an underdeveloped state and require feeding and caring by parents

Question 2

precocial

Answer 2

young are born in an advanced state and can care for themselves almost immediately

Question 3

reason for humans as secondarily altiricial

Answer 3

large brain + constraints on size of human pelvis

long childhood as adaptation to cognitively demanding lifestyle

Question 4

Mechanisms of developmental change

Answer 4

1) learning
2) maturation
3) critical periods

Question 5

Neurological Maturation

Answer 5

in utero = form all + more of adult neurons
infancy and childhood = synapses peak
childhood and adolescence = myelination (frontal lobe last)
throughout life = new neurons in hippocampus (BUT NOT in cortex)

Question 6

Critical Periods

Answer 6

learning within a maturational window (like some components of language)

Question 7

Piaget’s basic theory

Answer 7

child as scientist : observes effects of manipulations of the world, formulate theories to explain them)

Question 8

schemes

Answer 8

motor program + expectation of result

can be chained, embedded

Question 9

Piaget’s 3 mechanisms of developmental change

Answer 9

Assimilation
Accommodation
Reflective Abstraction

Question 10

Assimilation

Answer 10

experience conforms to scheme

Question 11

Accommodation

Answer 11

experience doesn’t conform —> change scheme

Question 12

Reflective Abstraction

Answer 12

Scheme goes from concrete (motor) to abstract (conceptual)

Question 13

Piaget’s Stages of cognitive development

Answer 13

sensorimotor
preoperational
concrete operational
formal operational

Question 14

Sensorimotor (range, description, milestone)

Answer 14

birth -2
experiences world through senses and actions
milestones: object permanence
stranger anxiety

Question 15

preoperational (range, description, milestone)

Answer 15

2-6
representing things with words and images but lacking logical reasoning
Milestones:
ability to pretend 
egocentrism

Question 16

concrete operational (range, description, milestone)

Answer 16

7-11
thinking logically about concrete events: grasping concrete analogies and performing arithmetical operations
Milestones:
conservation
mathematical transformations
abstract logic

Question 17

formal operational (range, description, milestone)

Answer 17

12- adulthood
abstract reasoning
Milestones:
potential for mature moral reasoning

Not always reached, might be a result of western education

Question 18

Flynn Effect

Answer 18

increased schooling explains increase in formal operational reasoning

Question 19

Decallage

Answer 19

problem with Piaget’s theory; stages don’t apply to all domains

Question 20

Domain specificity(intuitive theories)

Answer 20

Wihtin domains (like intuitive physics, biology, psychology and design) knowledge develops: innate or (acquired early) core principles + lots of acquired knowledge

Question 21

Habituation

Answer 21

technique for testing if a baby knows something by waiting until the baby becomes bored with an event and then changing the event to see reaction

Question 22

Theory of Mind

Answer 22

intuitive psychology developed at age 4, evidenced by false-belief tests, failed by autistic children