Knowledge Representation

Question 1

Piaget:

Answer 1

Moved beyond behaviourism and founded the field of cognitive development

Question 2

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is called:

Answer 2

constructivism

Question 3

Constructivism says that ;

Answer 3

1) Children construct knowledge on the basis of their experiences in the world
2) Children proceed through stages of development

Question 4

Does Piaget say that there are basic learning mechanisms:

Answer 4

yes, while he has a discontinuous model of development, he thinks we are born with innate mechanisms

Question 5

Assimilation:

Answer 5

a process by which children translate information into a form they understand eg. known concept of a dog can help them understand a new dog they see falls in the category, even without having seen it (basic learning mechanism)

Question 6

Piaget sees children as:

Answer 6

Active Learners

Question 7

Accommodation:

Answer 7

a process in which children revise current knowledge structures in accordance with new experiences (basic learning mechanism) eg. seeing a dog as a 4 legged animal, seeing a dog with three legs, revising

Question 8

Equilibration:

Answer 8

balancing accommodation and assimilation (basic learning mechanism)

Question 9

What does Piaget mean by discontinuous:

Answer 9

as you progress you can’t go back

Question 10

Piaget Stages

Answer 10

1. Sensorimotor (birth to 2 years)
2. Preoperational (2-7 years)
3. Concrete Operational (7-12 years)
4. Formal Operational (12+)

Question 11

Sensorimotor stage

Answer 11

(birth to 2 years)
- Children live in the here and now, restricted to sense
- Basic motor reflexes; sensory perceptual systems, basic learning mechanisms
- Failure of object permanence

Question 12

Preoperational stage

Answer 12

(2-7 yrs)
- Represent experiences in symbolic thought, language, and imagery
- Cannot perform operations (reversible mental activities) Eg. failure of conservation (diff glasses of water)
- Focus on a single aspect of event (centration)
- Failure of transitivity (red better than blue, blue better than green, is red better than green?)
- Failure of egocentricity (cant take another perspective)(theory of mind)
- Failure of appearance vs reality (ex confused at woman with short hair)

Question 13

Concrete Operational Stage

Answer 13

(7-12 yrs)
- Children can reason logically about concrete events
- Difficulty thinking abstractly
- Faliure in deductive reasoning (this, this, therefore this)
- Failure of systematic testing (pendulum options, picking randomly)

Question 14

Formal Operational stage

Answer 14

(12+ yrs)
- Not everyone reaches
- Thinking about abstractions and hypotheticals
- Can experiment and draw conclusions

Question 15

Problems with Piaget:

Answer 15

1. competence/performance distinction (when a child fails they COULD lack the ability OR they were unable to perform true ability
2. Poverty of experience (some children show some kinds of knowledge without experience)
3. Inconsistency of timeline (some abilities occurring earlier, some lacking early abilities later)
4. Children can understand coherence, continuity and contact young
   Motivation can change failures and successes (water vs. mnms)

Question 16

Zone of proximal development:

Answer 16

Range of what children can do unsupported and what they can do with optimal social support

Question 17

Social scaffolding:

Answer 17

social support, more competent other provides structure to help child learn

Question 18

Joint attention:

Answer 18

intentional focus on common referent, ex parent pointing at what they talk about

Question 19

Intersubjectivity:

Answer 19

child arrives at mutual understanding shared by teacher “meeting of minds”

Question 20

Social referencing:

Answer 20

children look to others to know how to respond to unfamiliar events

Question 21

Sociocultural constraints

Answer 21

1. Physical (home, school)
2. Social (family, peers)
3. Economic (wealth - national, family)
4. Cultural (language, values)
5. Historical (war, policies, economy)

Question 22

Vygotsky looked at development:

Answer 22

in relation to others, interpersonal contact, emphasized play, product of culture, active learners, continuous (sociocultural perspective)

Question 23

Information processing theories view children as:

Answer 23

undergoing continuous change, not restricted to stages, constantly occurring changes, problem solvers

Question 24

Basic processes:

Answer 24

simplest and most frequently used mental activities

Question 25

Basic processes are (info processing):

Answer 25

1 Associating events with one another
2 Recognizing objects as familiar
3 Recalling facts and procedures
4 Generalizing from one instance to another
5 Encoding

Question 26

encoding:

Answer 26

the process of representing in memory information-specific features of objects and events

Question 27

Processing speed:

Answer 27

speed which children execute basic processes increases across dev, biological maturation and experience contributing to speed

Question 28

The two biological processes that increase speed processing are :

Answer 28

myelination and increased connectivity among brain regions

Question 29

Memory system components:

Answer 29

Sensory, Working and Long Term
Sensory memory:

Question 30

Sensory memory:

Answer 30

• sights, sounds and other sensations that enter into the cognitive system that are briefly held in raw form until identified
• Con hold a moderate amount of information for a very short time
• Consistent over development

Question 31

Working Memory:

Answer 31

• workspace where information and relevant knowledge are brought together, attended to and actively processed
• Limited in capacity and duration
• Capacity and speed increase over childhood into adolescence

Question 32

Long-Term Memory

Answer 32

• Information retained on an enduring basis
• Can retain unlimited information indefinitely
• Contents of it increase enormously over development

Question 33

Memory strategies (emerge 5-8):

Answer 33

Rehearsal: repeating info over and over

Selective attention: intentionally focusing on information most relevant to current goal

Question 34

Content Knowldge:

Answer 34

A foundation of information

with age and experience, childrens long term memories become more detailed and accessible

Question 35

Core knowledge theory principles:

Answer 35

Children have innate cognitive abilities

Focuses on areas that have been important through evolutionary history

Question 36

Brofenbrenners ecological model:

Answer 36

Nested model, Layers of social and environmental influence

Microsystem (family, peers), Mesosystem (School, parents job), Exosystem (Government, parental leave), Macrosystem (overarching values), Chronosystem (time)