Development Flashcards
Preformationism-
Preformationism dominant until 19c
children are smaller stupider adults on path to adult
Deficient creature
Echoed by william james
refutation of preformationism
Actually infant mind changes a lot in fundamental ways–developmental psych document how this happens
Attempt to understand the transformation/info processing changes between infancy and adulthood
Piaget
Created field of developmental psych
Child prodigy in science
Didnt do statistical tests just detailed observations of a bunch of kids
So todays standards it wouldnt count as scientific study but he did discover stuff
Key insight constructivism–
constructivism–
kids construct knowledge based on their experiences in the world
Piaget theories of cognitive development
Performs intelligent experiments Breaks down learning into 3 processes Assimilation Accommodation Equilibration-
Assimilation
–process by which kids translate info to smthn they can understand/fit to current theories
Using previously learned grip to pick smthn up–assimilation
Accommodation
–revising knowledge in response to new experiences
Learning new way of grasping object–accommodation
Equilibration-
-process by which kids balance assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding/make most of current theories and flexibly creating new ones/equilibrium
Ideal state of learning
Stages of development:
not adults w.o knowledge, smthn diff
Sensorimotor
Preoperational
Concrete operational
Sensorimotor
(birth→ 2 yr)
Here and now, nothing but conscious awareness (no object permanence)
Even after OP is established still A not B error (location wont change even if location does)
Learn to
Basic motor/reflex
sensory/perceptual systems
Learning mechanisms of 3 processes
Preoperational
(2-6 yr)
Begin to represent imagery in lang/imagery/symbolic thought
Centration
Failures:
Cant perform operations (reversible mental activities)
conservation
this also has component of centration
Bad at transitive property and egocentricity
Cant do appearance vs reality
Sponge that looks like rock is rock
Concrete operational
(6-12 yr)
Children can reason logically about concrete objects/events
Still hard to think in purely abstract terms in combining info systematically
Fail at:
formal logic
Systematic
centration
focus on a single perceptually salient aspect of an event
egocentricity
not understanding that people have different perspective then themselves
conservation
(when things look diff but are still the same; liquid, solid, number…
Balance beam test:
make beam balance w 3 weights
Piaget influence–
constructivism in the classroom
Far transfer is piaget’s goal of learning
Memorization teaches u particular facts but hard to transfer
Critical thinking more aligned with transfer
Teaching transfer
Its hard to give opportunities to transfer
Constructivist model–teaching principles in a transferable way/problem solving
How do we learn best?
Transfer in learning–taking info learned in one context and apply it to another
Near transfer when the context changes are small
Far transfer when context changes are large–chess vs military strategy
Problems w piaget:
Rise of smart babies, Problems w stages
Rise of smart babies
The whole thing of object impermanence–piaget studied their physical reactions but babies bodies are limited/maybe coordinating arms is hard or memories are short so doesnt know where it is or two step motor processes are hard or unmotivated??
Spelke, winn, baillargeon studying hypothesis that babies are smarter/but need to ask questions in way that dont require motor
Babies are bad at coordinating physically but are really good at looking at things/could we test looking?
Babies habituated to toys/we could use habituation to find out what they know/show them same stuff over and over and eventually they get used to cats or whatever so show pic of dog and see if they pay attention to that indicates they k the diff
Violation of expectation–start off showing baby something they dont expect (turning cat into dog); see if baby notices–if they get surprised theyll look more intently
Infants k a lot about physical world even before they can operate
Object permanence–baby shouldnt expect screen to lower all the way if the object is still there blocking screen (and they do expect screen to stop!)
Solidity
Cover wall and roll ball at it and see if babies are surprised w ball on other side (they are at about 2 months)
Continuity
Objects continuous time space (obv there are two! They do get surprised early!)
Cohesion (expecting it to be one object) babies also surprised
contact
Problems w stages
Children can pass diff conservation tests at different times
They do better if theyre motivated earlier
Children do not always behave egocentrically/if it’s a large diff in perspective (diff room) they understand
Adult errors of egocentric thinking
They often think ppl know the things they know/will really exaggerate what others will know
Horizontal vs vertical faculties
Piaget thought 1 way of thinking dominates each stage
Horizontal faculties^ so each thing is connected that way (all the abilities in that category develop together)
Vertical faculty–each ability develops at its own pace over time
No one thing that describes at an age (this one mostly the right one)
This is basically idea of modularity--each module develops on its own mind not a general purpose computer but rather a collection
possible horizontal faculties
Inhibitory control–might actually be horizontal control (stopping urself)
Working memory also maybe
Core knowledge–
born w certain expectations/knowledge
Core knowledge–
numbers
born w certain expectations/knowledge (looking at understanding of number)
Babies count to three
Same limit in rhesus monkeys (evolution)
they have
small number system
second system for understanding approximation of larger numbers
If they see screen with eight dots
And size of dots change
And if u habituate baby to it baby gets more surprised by 16 than by 8 at 6 months old
This is about ratios–they understand 1:2 but not 2:3
This is also in tamarin monkeys
So these cores get combined into primate innate number system thru language
Lang helps us understand concept and therefore overcome innate number system limits
