Introduction - CD1 Flashcards
What is cognitive development?
changes that occur in how children think between infancy and adulthood
Who are the 2 frontrunners in cognitive development?
Piaget and Vygotsky
What is the Piegetian perspective? (3)
- children actively construct their own cognition
- this drives and leads to the discrete stages of cognitive development
- constructivist theory
What is the Vygotskian perspective? (4)
- we share some cognition with animals
- children’s cognition is also constructed through social interactions = scaffolding
- social constructivist theory
- child is still active in construction but scaffolding helps them
What did Piaget think about science and reason? (3)
- they are the pinnacle of human development
- cognitive development is the process of developing it
- societies without it are primitive
What is cognitive adaption?
changing knowledge structures in response to the environment to improve response
What 2 processes does cognitive adaption happen through?
assimilation and accommodation
What is assimilation?
incorporating new information into already existing knowledge structures (schemas)
What is accommodation?
modifying already existing knowledge structures (schemas)
What are concepts? (3)
- similar to assimilation
- but more strictly referring do your ideas of entities, not just knowledge about anything
- they are knowledge structures about entities
What is categorisation? (2)
- similar to accommodation
- processing of new information with support from concept knowledge (knowledge structures)
What processes are involved in movement between Piaget’s stages of development?
assimilation and accommodation
Where do most changes happen in Piaget’s theory?
between the stages, not within
What are Piaget’s 4 stages of development? When do they happen?
- sensorimotor stage - 0-2
- preoperational stage - 2-7
- concrete operational - 7-11
- formal operations - 11+
What happens in the sensorimotor stage? (2)
- learning about entities and properties within the world
- do this through trial and error
What happens in the preoperational stage? (3)
- can think symbolically and engage in make believe play
- thinking is egocentric and lacks logic
- lack of conservation (properties are the same when arranged differently)
What happens in the concrete operational stage? (2)
- start to think more rationally and move away from centration and egocentrism
- more concrete thinking and struggle with abstract and hypothetical
What happens in the formal operational stage? (2)
- move towards more adult-like thinking
- more abstract and hypothetical thinking
Why is perspective taking an important ability? (3)
- understand more about objects and entities by considering how others perceive them
- help understand the minds of others by tracking mental states and perspectives
- support the building of social and language conventions
In which stage did Piaget suggest perspective taking isn’t present at all?
sensorimotor
What tests can be used to examine perspective taking? (2)
- three mountains task
- appearance-reality task
In which stage to children improve at perspective taking?
throughout the preoperational stage
At what age are there lots of errors in the appearance-reality task?
3
How can the appearance-reality task be modified and lead to different results?
- the trick task (‘tricking’ the experimenter)
- more 3 year olds pass it now
What is a concept in cognitive psychology?
an idea that allows us to organise objects, events etc, on the basis of some similarity
How do nativists and empiricists differ in their ideas of where concepts come from?
- nativists = born with some concepts, so some conceptual information is innate
- empiricists = concepts form only by experience, so we are born with the ability to construct concepts
How can categorisation help us learn about cognitive development?
If infants group two things together then they must have an idea of a common element, so that element is a concept they have
What are 3 characteristics of category structure?
- hierarchical
- prototypicality
- abstraction
What are the 3 types of category in a hierarchical structure and what do they mean?
- super-ordinate = general category that is hard to grasp as no one entity will tell you much about the category (e.g. mammal)
- basic = easiest to perceive, one thing in the category tells you a lot about others (e.g. dog)
- sub-ordinate = if further differentiation can be made
How does prototypicality relate to category structure?
some concepts within a category are going to be more category-like than others
What is abstraction?
A category is a core idea extracted from the similarities between entities you have experienced, so it is a summation or average
What can be used to test ability to distinguish between basic categories?
visual paired comparison task
What happens in a visual paired comparison task?
- familiarised to 2 identical stimuli by showing over and over until they get bored
- tested by showing the old and the new stimuli next to each other and see if they look at the novel one more
What happened when 3 month old infants were shown different cats in the familiarisation phase of a visual paired comparison task? What does this suggest?
they looked longer at a bird in the test phase
suggests they can work with basic level _cat_egories
What happened when 3 month old infants were shown different mammals in the familiarisation phase of a visual paired comparison task? What does this suggest?
They looked longer at non-mammals in the test phase
suggests they have a superordinate category formed with limited experience (basically just the familiarisation phase)
What happened when infants were shown different exemplar shapes of squares/triangles in the familiarisation phase of a visual paired comparison task? What does this suggest?
they looked longer at a diamond shape in the test phase, even though the square/triangle shape was slightly different to familiarisation phase
suggests they formed abstract categories
What do empiricists suggest about knowledge formation? (4)
- start with reflexes to build simple conceptual knowledge
- then mobility and experience increases through sensory streams
- use simple concepts to explore the world more
- build on this to construct more sophisticated conceptual knowledge
How does object permanence develop? (4 age groups) What is this evidence for?
- 0-8 months = no searching for hidden objects
- 8-12 months = search for moved objects in their original location
- 12-18 months = do not track objects that change location when out of sight
- 18-24 months = develop full object permanence and tracking
- empiricist view of knowledge formation
What do nativists suggest about knowledge formation?
infants are born with some unlearned conceptual knowledge called core knowledge
What is core object knowledge?
core system of object representation centred on a set of expectations about how objects move
What are the 3 expectations for how objects move in core object knowledge?
- cohesion (move as connected and bounded wholes)
- continuity (objects move on connected unobstructed paths)
- contact (influence each other through contact)
What is evidence for cohesion knowledge in 2 month old infants?
habituation to moving line behind block
more looking when block is removed and reveals it was 2 lines all along rather than one
What is core number knowledge? (3)
magnitude, ratio, addition
What is evidence for knowledge of magnitude in 2 day old infants?
- familiarised to 16 sounds or 4 sounds
- looked longer at bunch of objects the same size as the number of sounds they heard
Why might infants look longer at the same number of objects as sounds, rather than looking at the novel one?
they know there is a connection but can’t quite figure it out so look longer while they process it
What is core geometry knowledge?
distances and angles
What is core mind knowledge?
understanding others’ beliefs about the world
How can you test core mind knowledge?
the false belief task (e.g. Sally Anne)
According to a meta-analysis, how does performance on the false belief task change across childhood? (1) What does this suggest? (2)
- improves, particularly after age 4-5
- mind knowledge can’t be core knowledge
- it happens cross-culturally so it develops similarly in everyone
What is some evidence that 15 month olds can anticipate false beliefs?
- adult puts thing in box and looks away
- thing moves by itself to other box
- infants are surprised if the adult looks in the box the object has moved to, suggesting they understand that the adult shouldn’t know it moved and therefore should look where they left it
What are some problems with the nativist view? (3)
- can’t really measure what’s innate
- don’t know how perceptual experience could change or shape innate categories
- innate categories: where did they come from, where did they go, where did they come from cotton-eye joe
