intro to cognitive development

Question 1

Piagetian perspective

Answer 1

Children are active in the learning and cognitive development that drive stages of development.

Question 2

Constructivist theory

Answer 2

children construct their own knowledge over time, some others may have a role, associated with piaget

Question 3

what does piaget believe underpins human development

Answer 3

Reason & science the pinnacle of human development.

Question 4

what is cognitive development?

Answer 4

Cognitive development is the process by which we develop science and reason.

Question 5

what are the two processes of cognitive adaption?

Answer 5

assimilation and accommodation

Question 6

assimilation

Answer 6

Incorporating new information into already existing knowledge structures (schemes of thought – schemas).

Question 7

accommodation

Answer 7

Accommodation —> Modifying already existing knowledge structures (schemas). building up knowledge of cats and dogs.

Question 8

how do assimilation and accommodation work together?

Answer 8

Both of these allow us to navigate the world and reduce cognitive load to better interact with the environment.

Question 9

According to Piaget how do children work with their environment?

Answer 9

the knowledge and knowledge structures you had would change over time, adapting as you encounter more and more of the environment around you. - they would actively engage in this.

Question 10

modern concepts for how children interact with the environment and learn

Answer 10

concepts and categorisation

Question 11

concepts

Answer 11

An idea that allows us to organise objects, events etc on the basis of some similarity. Mental representations that support categorisation.

Question 12

nativism

Answer 12

Ppl can be born with some concepts – some conceptual knowledge is innate.

Question 13

Empiricist

Answer 13

Concepts form only by experience – born with the ability to construct concepts from perceptual experience.

Question 14

for cognitive psychologists what is a concept?

Answer 14

an idea that allows us to organise objects and events, supporting categorisation

Question 15

categorisation

Answer 15

Mediate our interaction with entities/concepts in the world. Helps us to process information as we navigate the world – so we mostly have something to go on when we encounter something new.

Question 16

types of categorisation

Answer 16

Hierarchical Structure
Prototypicality
Abstraction

Question 17

What is the hierarchical structure model of categorization?

Answer 17

A model that organizes concepts into a tree-like structure with general categories at the top and more specific ones below.

Question 18

What are the three levels of the hierarchical structure model?

Answer 18

1. Superordinate level (broadest, e.g., “Animal”)
2. Basic level (intermediate, e.g., “Dog”)
3. Subordinate level (most specific, e.g., “Golden Retriever”)

Question 19

Which level in the hierarchical model is typically the most useful for everyday thinking?

Answer 19

The basic level (e.g., “dog” instead of “animal” or “Golden Retriever”) because it provides the right balance of generality and specificity.

Question 20

How does the hierarchical model help with learning and categorization?

Answer 20

It allows for efficient organization of knowledge, making it easier to recognize patterns, retrieve information, and make distinctions between similar concepts.

Question 21

What is the prototypical model of categorization?

Answer 21

A model that categorizes concepts based on a best or most typical example (prototype) rather than strict definitions.

Question 22

What is a prototype in categorization?

Answer 22

A mental best example of a category that represents its most typical features (e.g., a robin is a more typical bird than a penguin).

Question 23

How do we categorize new items in the prototypical model?

Answer 23

We compare them to the prototype; the more similar they are, the more easily they fit into the category.

Question 24

Why is the prototypical model useful?

Answer 24

It explains fuzzy category boundaries, where some items fit a category better than others, and reflects how people naturally think about concepts.

Question 25

What is an example of a prototype in everyday life?

Answer 25

A chair is a prototypical example of furniture, while a beanbag is less typical but still belongs to the category.

Question 26

Abstraction

Answer 26

- A category is the core idea. - A core idea which has been extracted from the similarities between many entities you have encountered and experienced. - The core idea will be a summation or average of all the entities. - You’ve abstracted the similarities from across your many entity experiences to form your core idea or concept. - This means you’re core idea won’t represent anything that’s actually real – but it represents the core idea you’ve learnt from the similarities between your many entity experiences.

Question 27

example of abstraction

Answer 27

Picture a monkey You’ll picture a prototypical example of a monkey that represents your core idea of the concept. It’s unlikely you’re picturing a specific monkey (unless you have one as a pet…)

Question 28

Can infants distinguish between basic categories?

Answer 28

Basic categories —> Statistics: Infants looked at bird (new stimuli) 64% while cat (familiar object) 34%. They do this at just 3 months old.

Question 29

describe the Visual Paired Comparison experiment

Answer 29

- Infant sits on caregiver’s lap in front of 2 different displays presenting different stimuli. - Experimenter looks through the holes to see where the infant looks and timing how long they look.

Question 30

can children differentiate between subordinate categories?

Answer 30

yes - they would stair longer at the mammal they had not been shown to yet suggetsing it was new

Question 31

can infants learn with limited experience?

Answer 31

This suggests that infants do have a concept of mammals which makes the birds look more different than the cake compared to the hippopotamus. They probably didn’t know these mammals too, so learned with limited experience.

Question 32

Can infants learn abstract categories?

Answer 32

yes when children became familiar with triangles or squares they stared more at the diamond when show this since it was new,

Question 33

What cues do infants use to form categories

Answer 33

basic visual features: shape colour size Auditory cues higher level visual features touch

Question 34

what are piagets stages of development?

Answer 34

sensorimotor (birth to 2 years), preoperational (2 to 7 years), concrete operational (7 to 11 years), and formal operational (12 years and up).

Question 35

Sensorimotor stage (age 0-2 years)

Answer 35

Infants learning about entities and properties within the world.

Question 36

how do infants learn about the world in the sensorimotor stage

Answer 36

They do this through trial and error of interacting with the world. Learning that objects fall when you knock them off the table. The process of learning that objects still exist when they are out of view – object permanence

Question 37

what stage are children learning about object permeance?

Answer 37

the first stage - Sensorimotor stage (age 0-2 years)

Question 38

Preoperational stage (age 2-7 years)

Answer 38

Chn can think symbolically and engage in make believe play, but thinking is egocentric and lacks logic.

Question 39

what do children struggle with at preoperational stage?

Answer 39

lack conservation centration egocentrism

Question 40

conservation

Answer 40

the ability to conserve characteristics across different situations

Question 41

Centration

Answer 41

the struggle to de-centre from the here and now and hold multiple aspects

Question 42

Egocentrism

Answer 42

Difficulty seeing the world from another's perspective. Piaget explored this with the three mountain task.

Question 43

Concrete Operational stage (age 7-11 years)

Answer 43

Start to think more rationally. Thinking much more concrete but struggle with abstract concepts.

Question 44

Formal Operational stage (age 11+ years)

Answer 44

Move towards more adult like thinking – showing the ability to think more abstractly and hypothetically.

Question 45

Three mountain task

Answer 45

children focus on certain features and then struggle to hold on to different perspectives this test whether they can state what a person will see of the mountains, from a different perspective to them.

Question 46

when do children pass three mountain task?

Answer 46

concrete opertaional - 7

Question 47

Appearance reality task

Answer 47

cat or dog with mask on? Struggle until 6 years old. rock task (rock that looks like an egg) - 29% pass this task

Question 48

Appearance-Reality Trick Task

Answer 48

hn primed: asked to play a trick on an experimenter. 79% of 3-year-old chn pass the task.

Question 49

Vygotskian Perspective

Answer 49

We share some cognition with animals, Children’s cognition is also constructed through social interactions. So guidance and instruction provided by the social structures around also help in the process of cognition construction.

Question 50

Scaffolding

Answer 50

ognition/knowledge construction during development is scaffolded through social interactions and guidance where the child is an active participant within this – but also that not everything to do with cognition is constructed, if we share some cognitive systems with animals it might be that we inherit some aspects of cognition from our ancestors

Question 51

how do piaget and vgotsky differ?

Answer 51

Piaget focused on individual cognitive stages driven by maturation and exploration, while Vygotsky emphasized the role of social and cultural interactions in learning and development.

Question 52

how do empiricits think knowledge starts?

Answer 52

Start: Reflexes - Start the perceptual experience journey. - Starting to build very simple conceptual knowledge.

Question 53

how do empiricits think knowledge grows?

Answer 53

Growth: Mobility & experience increases - Through multiple sensory streams: visual, auditory, haptic/touch. - Use simple concepts to explore the world more. - Build on this to construct more sophisticated conceptual knowledge.

Question 54

Object Permanence Case Study: 0-8 months

Answer 54

Infants do not search for hidden objects.

Question 55

Object Permanence Case Study: 8-12 months

Answer 55

Searching for moved objects in their original location. Not looking where it has been moved to.

Question 56

Object Permanence Case Study: 12-18 months

Answer 56

They do not track objects that change location when the object is out of sight. They can now search in the location they see the item being moved to. However, if the location changes when you can’t see the object they can’t track this.

Question 57

What happened in the habituation phase of the experiment into childrens understanding of object permenance ?

Answer 57

Infants watched a screen rotate back and forth until they became familiar with it.

Question 58

What was added in the test phase of the experiment into object permenance?

Answer 58

A box was placed behind the rotating screen.

Question 59

Describe the possible event in the experiment, object permenance.

Answer 59

The screen rotated and stopped when it reached the hidden box, as expected.

Question 60

Describe the impossible event in the experiment. object permenance

Answer 60

The screen appeared to rotate a full 180 degrees, as if the box had disappeared.

Question 61

What was the key finding of object permenance study?

Answer 61

Infants looked longer at the impossible event, suggesting they expected the box to still be there.

Question 62

What does the study suggest about object permanence?

Answer 62

Infants as young as 3–5 months have an understanding of object permanence, earlier than Piaget proposed.

Question 63

do infants have knowledge of cohesion (objects move as connected & bounded wholes) .

Answer 63

succeed at 2 month olds and as early as 72 hours. they get confused when the red block moves and they see two disjoined poles and not one joined pole

Question 64

What is the Sally-Anne task, and what does it test?

Answer 64

The Sally-Anne task is a false belief test used to assess Theory of Mind in children. In the task, Sally places a marble in a basket and leaves the room. Anne then moves the marble to a box. When Sally returns, children are asked where she will look for the marble.

Question 65

how old can you anticipate false beliefs?

Answer 65

15-month-olds can anticipate false beliefs.

Question 66

when do you improve on sally ann task?

Answer 66

Performance improves over early childhood – particularly after age 4-5.

Question 67

false belief task

Answer 67

- familiarise to an adult putting an object in a right box - adult turns around - object moves to left - where does infant think the adult will look?

Question 68

what does passing false belief task suggest?

Answer 68

Suggesting that maybe there is some core knowledge potentially about other’s mind – as a fairly sophisticated understanding is showing earlier than empiricists would have originally thought.

Question 69

in false belief task how do we know if children understand?

Answer 69

- surprised) when the adult reaches where the object **actually is.** - Suggesting they expected the adult to have a false belief.

Question 70

when infants were habituated two 16/4 sounds what happened?

Answer 70

- 2-day-old infants that had heard 16 sounds looked longer at 16 objects. * Infants who had heard 4 sounds looked longer at 4 objects.