Lec 2-3.5 Memory/ Goswami, Schneider, Steinberg

Question 1

• cognition
• Piaget’s theory
  
  • independent learning
  • Stage: 0-2
  • What is a major tool in the toolkit?
• Vygotsky
  
  • vs Piaget/ diff? - 2 things
  • How do children learn? - 2 ways
• Current view of cog dev
• Info processing theory
  
  • Age and processing relationship
• Core knowledge theory
• Moral dev
  
  • Circle-square task
  • Conclusion

Answer 1

Cog dev: infancy

• Cognition: how we think and reason about the world
• Piaget:
  
  • Stage theory
  • Independent learning: Children are scientists, use their tool kit to explore
    
    • Ex. 0-2 yo, sensorimotor period
    • They develop language (a tool in the toolkit)
  • Vygotsky:
    
    • More continuous, not discrete stages
    • Expanded his theory a bit into adulthood
    • Social interaction drive children learning
      
      • Learning is scaffolded by adults and older children
      • Kids imitate behavior of ppl around them
• Theories in cog dev:
  
  • 1 Current view: learning is explained by a combination theories
    
    • Piaget’s stage theory of cog dev
    • Sociocultural theory (mainly from Vygotsky; older adults teach children)
  • 2 Info processing theory: humans are like computer, take input, process input, produce output/ behavior
    
    • Processing improves as we age
      
      • This is b/c neuron pruning and we have more practice
  • Core knowledge theory (nativism)
    
    • Genetically programmed knowledge
      
      • ex. numbers – know difference b/w 2 vs 1 objects
      • ex. innate understanding of physical laws - bb are surprised when they see strange things that do not obey physical laws
• Moral dev
  
  • bb (4-6 mo) hv complex ideas of what is good vs mean b
  • Prefer nice character over mean
  • Circle and square task: If square helped circle get up the hill, the bb recognize the square is good
  • But we don’t know if they learnt that or if they are born w/ this understanding

Question 2

• 2 phases of cog dev after infancy
• 5 main domains that advance after infancy
• 2 cog dev processes in infancy that shape cog skills after infant period
  
  • How does it help?

Answer 2

• After infancy, things get messier
• Many cog advances happen independently after infancy (Goswami, 2011)
  
  • Ex. At first, they are better at everything (eg. math, physics, social reasoning, etc)
  • Ex. for older children, a domain is improving, while other domains are not
• Domains that advance
  
  • Memory
  • Moral dev
  • Spatial reasoning
  • Physics
  • Scientific reasoning
• cog dev processes in infancy that shape cog skills after infant period
  
  • Memory (this wk)
    
    • Advances in memory allows children to become better thinkers, understand and manipulate more about their env
  • Inhibitory processes (next week)

Question 3

• when does the 2 major shifts in mem capacity happen?
• how do they change?
• mechanism of change - 2 characteristics
• x
• Mem structure
  
  • ‘Hardware’ definition
    
    • 3 parts
      
      • how it works
  • Software definition
    
    • 2 types of software
    • 2 subtypes of strategies
• Age, software, and hardware relationship
• exception

Answer 3

Mem dev: modern approaches

• mem capacity
  
  • There are major shifts in pre-adol (i.e. b4 puberty) and pre-adult
  • They increase, then suddenly jump in improvement
• mechanism of change - 2 characteristics
  
  • These dev rapidly at diff ages
  • They follow diff dev trajectories

Mem structure

• ‘Hardware’: encoded memories
  
  • Sensory: lasts 1-2 s
    
    • Ex. pain, vision, auditory
    • Continuous firing of senses, brain processes some sensory info, which moves into STM
  • STM aka WM
    
    • Misconception: only about things that happen recently
    • Processing/manipulate info
    • Ex. hold series of #s in mind
  • LTM
    
    • If you can recall info, that info is in LTM
    • Also includes mem from long time ago
• Software: ways that we use memories to manipulate env
  
  • Strategies
    
    • Rehearsal
    • sorting
  • Content knowledge
    
    • Ex. chess expert can put the chess-related info into the mem faster than chess novices
• Hardware and software develop as we age (except sensory domain)

Question 4

• 2 types of LTM
• Special feature of procedural memory
• • How to test implicit mem?
• Why is there less rs in implicit mem?
• Dev trajectory of implicit mem
• Berry et al 2014
  
  • Process of perceptual priming task
  • Results
    
    • explicit mem
    • implicit mem

Answer 4

LTM development

• 2 categories:
  
  • explicit/declarative mem (facts, we can talk about it)
    
    • Ex. capital of Canada
  • Implicit/procedural mem (knowledge on how to do things)
    
    • Ex. how to type on keyboard
    • Note: you can have procedural memory in things we are not fluid in (ex. learn to ride a bike)
• 1. Implicit mem dev
     * Implicit LTM is tested w/ perceptual priming tasks
     * Since it is tough to test, there is less rs in this domain than explicit mem dev
     * Most rs show that implicit mem dev occurs early in infancy and does not dev much after early childhood
     * Ex. perceptual priming task[EL1]
     
     • Perceptual priming tasks: we show faster recog of prev seen stimuli
     • Berry et al 2014
     • 1. Show a series of image to child
     • 2. Child press a button once they know what the image is
          
          • Results: older children are faster at recognizing the fragmented photo (explicit memory)
          • But after exposure to the photo, even very young children experience a similar of priming
     • IOW both improve at a similar rate
       
       • 8 yo: b4 need 6 trials to see elephant -> after priming, it takes 4 trials
       • 6 yo: b4 10 trials -> after priming, 8 trials
     • They recog photo faster fi they have been exposed to it b4

Question 5

• episodic mem
• How to test it?
• 2 types of episodes in the testing
  
  • Which type do children remember well?
• developmental changes (Knopf 1999)
  
  • explicit mem
  • implicit mem
    
    • 4 vs 8 yo
• False mem and age
• Why does it happen?
• Hot air balloon study
  
  • Method
  • Result

Answer 5

• 2. Explicit (declarative) mom dev
     * Episodic mem: recall events
     * Methods:
     
     • Tell them a story, then tell them to recall it
       * Types of episodes that are tested
     • Habitual (script-based)
       
       • Things that kids experience many times (ex. b-day party
     • One-time (novel)
       
       • Ex. moving
         
         • Children remember both types of events well: they care about familiarity and novelty
         • There are developmental changes (Knopf 1999)
     • Implicit mem improvements are constant
     • Explicit mem improvements a lot (more than 2x accuracy)
       
       • 4 yo remember 20% of the story presented
       • 8 yo remember 50% of the story presented
• • In early childhood, the encoding memory process mixes up real and false memories
• As we age, we are better but can still have false memories
• Study: hot air balloon
  
  • Method
  • Adults’ parents convince their adult children they went on hot-air balloon child using photoshopped pictures
  • Then adult children made up memories about this experience that was not in the pic

Question 6

• how to test episodic mem?
• When does a jump in episodic mem happen?
• Infantile amnesia
• When do we 1^st acquire autobio mem?
• Why does infantile amnesia happen? - 2 major reasons
  
  • Why is that ability important?
  • Memory structure - why is it NOT a reason?

Answer 6

Autobiographical mem

• Studies of episodic mem involve
  
  • Expose child to stimulus -> test them later
  • (ex. expose them to habitual/novel events; ask them to recite them back)
  • Kids remember both well
  • 4-8 yo – huge jump on what they can remember
• Autobiographical mem: special type of episodic mem that happened to you
• When do we 1^st acquire autobio mem?
  
  • Infantile amnesia: can’t remember things b4 3 yo
  • Trick qs
  • Although we don’t have good memories, we still autobio mem earlier than 3 yo
  • Study: Expose bb to stimulus, ask them to come back; they still remember it
    
    • NOTE: there are also exceptions
• Why does infantile amnesia happen?
  
  • Reasons: lack of language abilities
    
    • Language is a tool for us to encode memories
    • Bb don’t know language yet, so they can’t encode memories as well as adults
  • Self awareness
    
    • Bb don’t have self-awareness, they encode things differently
    • As dev, they are aware of themselves and other’s experience differ from theirs
    • So as we are older, we encode memories as a personal narrative
  • NOT memory structure
    
    • Bb do encode, and can recall memories
    • They used a less efficient strategy
    • Issue: as adult, we have trouble recalling those memories

Question 7

• why does LTM dev w/ age? - main reason
  
  • 3 reasons for the main reason
    
    • paper mail analogy
    • child chess expert example
    • reason for faster processing speed
  • 2 tasks that test STM
  • Process of sentence span task
  • STM and age relationship

Answer 7

Why does LTM dev w/ age?

• Reason 1: changes in STM
  
  • We get better at recalling memories; STM stores maybe helping out LTM
  • 1 Recall: strategies
    
    • More efficient strategies -> better encoding for LT
    • Analogy:
      
      • Bunch of paper mail
      • We want to organize it so we can use it later
      • Strategy 1: shove everything in a drawer -> won’t be able to find it
      • Strategy 2: put the mail in organized fashion -> easier to find later on
  • 2 Kids content knowledge dev
    
    • more content knowledge → Better at selecting what info is important (filter noise)
    • Ex. content knowledge in chess helps organize positions of chess faster
  • 3 Processing speed dev
    
    • Due to more myelination → Stronger synaptic connections & (Hebb’s law) – use more, stronger connection
• Evidence for reason 1
  
  • Sentence span and digit span tasks
    
    • test children STM
  • Sample: mem dev – sentence span
    
    • Present sentence
      
      • The rabbit was ready to leave his nest and he saw a fox approach
      • It is supposed to be like summer
      • I went to China to learn Mandarin
    • Recall final word of each sentence you read
      
      • Ans: approach, summer, Mandarin
• Your WM goes down as you age, but you learn more strategies
• This makes up for it

Question 8

• mem span/WM dev trend
• Schneider et al 2009 – longitudinal study, word span task
  
  • Methods
  • Hypothesis
  • Results
    
    • overal trend
    • age specific trend
    • Issue w/ study
  • Conclusion
• Schneider et al 2009 – longitudinal study; digit span task
  
  • Results: # of words each age gp remembers
    
    • 2 yo
    • 5 yo
    • 7 yo
    • 9 yo
    • adult
  • Overall trend
• WM span characteristic
• Schneider et al 2009 - novice adult chess player vs child expert chess player
  
  • Results:
    
    • digit span task
    • chess piece task
• 3 main factors that influence STM
• STM processing speed trend w/ age
• 2 main reasons
• info processing theory explanation

Answer 8

Memory dev

• Memory span/WM dev as a fx of age (as children)
• Progression is not linear
• Schneider et al 2009 – longitudinal study, word span task
  
  • Y-axis: total # words remembered
  • x-axis: W = waves -> ignore it; Look at the “Ages”
  • Method
    
    • Have 2 gps per age gp
    • H: do kids older in their age gp do better than younger in age gp?
      
      • Aug kids = 2010-2011
      • Sept kids = 2011-2012
  • Results
    
    • Overall increase in WM
    • Sig jump 7-8
    • Sig Jump 10-18
    • Issue: didn’t test every yr, tested in arbitrary # yrs
  • Thus WM dev across childhood, sig jump in 7-8 yo and 10-18 yo

Digit-span task

• Schneider et al 2009 – longitudinal study; digit span task
• According to Schneider, how many digits is the typical 9-year-old able to recall?
  
  • Ans: 6 digits
• 2 yo: remember 2 items
• 5 yo: 4 items
• 7 yo: 5 items
• 9 yo: 6 items
• Adults: 7 items
• # s you can remember for digit span task increase w/ age for children up till 18
• Then not much after that

STM capacity

• Advances in STM appear to be domain specific
  
  • More knowledge a child has about a domain, better STM
    
    • They are better to cut out noise and remember relevant info
• Ex. Schneider
  
  • Child chess experts vs adult chess novices
  • 1 Digit span task: child don’t have the same WM adult vs chess novices
    
    • -> adults are better
  • 2 Chess board arrangement task
    
    • Child expert remembers locations of chess pieces better than adult novices
    • Even though adults have better STM than kids, kids to better
    • IOW: experience w/ chess helps child utilize info more efficiently
• IOW: mem dev is influenced by many factors
  
  • Age, knowledge in the domain, language (a strategy to retrieve info)

Question 9

Schneder cont 4

• mem span task
• 3 main characteristics of WM
• Baddeley model of WM - 3 subcomponents
  
  • When is the basic structure present?
• How to test WM - 2 steps
• 2 factors that cause differences in WMC
  
  • Reason
  • 2 reasons that increase processing speed
• • Strategies
• sort-recall tasks
• Production deficiency
  
  • 3 main reasons
    
    • Dual task procedure
      
      • Results
    • Metamem
• 2 types of metacog knowledge
  
  • fx
  • 5 main findings
  • How to acquire more prior knowledge - 3 ways

Answer 9

The role of basic capacities and WM

• mem span tasks: ppl repeat in order a series of rapidly presented items (ex. digits, words)
• 1. Age diff in mem span are stable
     * Study showed
     
     • 2 yo: 2 items
     • 5 yo: 4 items
     • 7 yo: 5 items
     • 9 yo: 6 items
     • Adult: 7 items
       * Longitudinal study tested age 4-23
     • There is cont span increase until age 18, no increase after
• 2. Memory span is the same regardless of type of info
• 3. Background knowledge about the stimuli affects memory span and Info processing speed
     * Study: Look at memory span of child chess experts and adult chess novices
• • Dev of WM
• Baddeley model of WM - 3 subcomponents
  
  • 1. Central executive: Attentional control system, coordinate WM activities
  • 2. Visuospatial sketchpad
       * Process and retain visual and spatial info
       * Hold verbal info stored as an image
  • 3. articulatory/phonological loop
       * Temp store; maintains and process verbal and acoustic info (1-2 s)
       * Decays fast; verbal info needs to be rehearsed by sub-vocal articulation
  • Basic structure of this WM model is present at 6 yo
• • WM tests are similar to memory-span tasks
    
    • 1 Ppl remember a series of items in exact order
    • 2 But there is another task: ppl transform info in the STS
• Factors that influence WMC
  
  • 1. culture
       * # words differ in length in diff languages: Chinese # words are shorter than Eng # words, Welsh #s are longer than Eng
       * Chinese children have longer digit span > US > Welsh
  • 2. faster info processing speed → higher WMC
       * This speed increase in early age and plateau
       * Due to maturational and knowledge factors
       
       • 1 Mature - synaptic pruning
       • 2 knowledge: span of apprehension increased w/ age
         
         • Span of apprehension: amount of info that ppl can attend to at a single time/ # of items ppl can keep in mind at a time
• • Strategies
    
    • Method: sort-recall tasks
      
      • 1. Children are given a list of items that can be categorized (ex. dairy, vegetables)
      • 2. recall the items later on
• production deficiencies: fail to transfer acquired strategy to a new situation
• • 1. insufficient mental capacity
       
       • Rs: dual task procedures
         
         • Children perform 2 tasks separately and together
         • Result: young children need more mental effort than older ones to learn and use mem strategies
           
           • 2. Background knowledge
       • Rich knowledge -> faster at processing domain-related info -> less mental energy used to execute a strategy using this info
         * 3. use strategies: younger → don’t use them
         * 4. Lack metamemory
       • Metamem: knowledge about memory processes and contents
       • They don’t learn about mem, but have tasks that need memory strategies
• metacog: 2 broad categories
  
  • 1. Declarative metacog knowledge: Explicit knowledge
       * Ex. person variables (ex. age, IQ), task characteristics/difficulty, strategy knowledge
  • 2. Procedural metacog knowledge: implicit; self-monitor/regulating when solving mem problems
• 5 main findings
  
  • 1. declarative metacog knowledge increase w/ age
       * many ppl know little mem strategies
  • 2. Procedural metacog knowledge
       * Older
       
       • better at predicting performance
       • better at monitoring their progress in memory task
  • 3. Spend less time solving problems
  • 4. better meta-memory → better memory behavior
  • 5. prior knowledge
       * more prior knowledge
       
       • → recall more, efficient use of strategy
       • Expert-novice paradigm
• How to acquire rich knowledge
  
  • Cog abilities/ mem capacity
  • Interest and motivation
  • more practice

Question 10

STM

• strategies
• “potentially conscious”
• 2 situations we use strategies
  
  • how does it work in each situation?
• 3 main strategies
• utilization deficiency
• 4 stages of strategy dev
  
  • less than 5 yo
  • After kindergarten
  • late elementary school
  • After that

Answer 10

Dev of STM: strategies

• Strategies: mental/ b activities that achieve cog purposes and are effort consuming potentially conscious and controllable
• “Potentially conscious”: Strategies are employed somewhat unconsciously, w/o us paying a lot of attention to it
• When we use strategies
  
  • Time of encoding (ex. put mail in drawer in organize way)
    
    • 1 These strategies manipulate info in STM -> put in LTM
  • Time of recall
    
    • 2 During retrieval, need to use STM to recall the strategy you used
• Example of strategies: rehearsal, grouping, sorting (ex. alphabetize)
• utilization deficiency (UD): younger children need more time b4 executing it efficiently
• 1 Children younger than 5 don’t appear to use any explicit strategies
• 2 After kindergarten, children are instructed to use specific strategies, and can use them successfully
  
  • Struggle to transfer them
• 3 Most strategy dev happen in later elementary school
  
  • Occur very fast
  • Can transfer them
  • diff ages for diff children
• 4 then they use multiple strategies -> increase effectiveness of memory

Question 11

Goswami summary

• Schneider (ch 13)
  
  • implicit vs explicit mem dev
  • 2 factors that affect autobiographical mem
  • 2 factors that affect WM
• Kaslowski and Masnick (ch 14)
  
  • 3 factors that dev causal reasoning
  • What are some models inaccurate?
  • What is mechanism info?
  • What is explanation

Answer 11

• Schneider (ch 13)
  
  • brain systems for implicit mem are fully dev in early life
  • Those in explicit mem system cont to dev
  • social interactions and LT knowledge affect what is encoded for the experience in autobiography mem
  • Memory span is influenced by strategies and prior knowledge
• Kaslowski and Masnick (ch 14)
  
  • causal reasoning dev is influenced by background knowledge, explanation, and mechanism info
  • Some models are inaccurate as they do not include background knowledge as a variable
  • Mech info: When there are anomalies and “mech info” that suggest they are responsible, we modify the causal theories to fit them
  • Explanation: evaluating how causally consistent it is w/ what we know

Question 12

Goswami summary cont 2

• Main factor that assist inductive and deductive reasoning
• 2 pathways background knowledge influence reasoning
• Relationships b/w inhibition and reasoning - Exception

Answer 12

• Goswami (ch 15)
  
  • Child’s stored real-world knowledge assists inductive and deductive reasoning
  • inhibition and successful reasoning
    
    • the ability to inhibit irrelevant/competing knowledge helps us get to a successful solution for a problem
    • Exception: Sometimes, children are successful in reasoning tasks b/c they have limited real-world knowledge and less irrelevant/competing knowledge to inhibit
  • Background knowledge affect WMC, which in turn affects inductive and deductive reasoning
  • The amount of background knowledge influences
    
    • ability to inhibit info → reasoning
    • WMC → reasoning

Question 13

Goswami summary cont 3

• Nucci and Gingo (ch 16)
  
  • Past belief on moral reasoning development
  • Current view
  • Age and moral reasoning
    
    • 2 main effects
  • Which 2 brain areas are activated in moral reasoning
• Liben and Christensen (ch 17) – spatial dev
  
  • classical empiricism
  • biological approach
    
    • Which brain part represent space
    • Which hormone help this process
  • Current view on how does spatial dev happen
  • 3 types of space children investigate in
  • How do they learn about the spatial env?
  • Age and spatial dev relationship
    
    • Reason
  • What does learning about “representational space” takes more time to dev?
  • When does representational space begin to dev
  • 3 main tech that influence how we understand space

Answer 13

• Nucci and Gingo (ch 16)
  
  • Past belief: moral reasoning develops through universal stages
  • Rs: moral concepts varies among cultures, contexts (supportive vs abusive fam), and social rules
  • Age underpins moral dev
  • 1 Older children understand more complex morals (ex. reciprocity = fairness)
  • 2 As in inductive and deductive reasoning, lack of real-world knowledge can help moral judgements
    
    • Ex. 8 yo: it is wrong to keep money that is unknowingly dropped by someone else
    • Ex. 16 yo: the situation is complex; he/she is obligated to return the money only when there is a bystander
  • Rs: reasoning and emotions activate diff areas of the brain; both are used in making decisions
  • • Liben and Christensen (ch 17) – spatial dev
  • Classical empiricism: we learn about the space around us
  • Biological approach: we have innate knowledge on space
    
    • Ex. dorsal visual stream established spatial location
    • Ex. role of testosterone
  • Current view: Both perspectives contribute to dev
  • Children dev an understanding of space by investigating
    
    • Env space (the space we live and move about)
    • Representational space (referents for space: maps, models)
    • Perceptual space: we get spatial info from our senses (hearing and touch, see)
      
      • This info helps us understand where objects are in relation to ourselves
  • Action is important for spatial dev: Ex. crawling, climbing, walking
  • As kid grow older, children’s env/home ranges expand a lot
    
    • Kid who have more personal control over their travel in their env have more spatial knowledge about these env
  • Knowledge and understanding of “representational space” (ex. maps) dev slower
    
    • This is b/c many conventions of representational space needs to be learnt
    • Ex. red lines on map = roads
    • 3 yo can demonstrate basic map skills
  • recent technology dev that affect “the dev of knowledge about space”
    
    • Ex. google earth
    • Ex. satellite navigation systems
    • Ex. tech that can transform experiments on spatial understanding
      
      • i.e. VR – computer-generated spaces that feel 3D

Question 14

Goswami summary cont 4

• Wilkening and Cacchione (Ch 18)
  
  • What is our intuitive knowledge based on
  • Why to we have wrong intuitions?
  • How do we correct them?
  • 2 theories on how intuitive knowledge dev in children
  • Main point on children’s intuitive knowledge
• Kuhn (Ch 19) - Dev of scientific thinking
  
  • Kuhn’s view on how children make sense of their experience
  • Conceptual change
  • Children’s initial process in scientific inquiry - 2 steps
• Snowling and Gobel (Ch 20)
  
  • What is are brain designed for?
  • What is it not designed for?
  • Phonological awareness skills
  • What does it help us do?
  • developmental dyslexia
    
    • % ppl are affected
    • What is the cause?
  • 3 overlapping reading systems
  • Neuronal recycling
    
    • 2 examples

Answer 14

• Wilkening and Cacchione (Ch 18) - intuitive knowledge
  
  • Children’s intuitive physical knowledge depends on their experience
  • Some perceptual experience produces wrong intuitions
    
    • Ex. Earth looks flat
  • We need formal instruction in physics to correct these wrong intuitions
  • Inhibition helps develop intuitive knowledge
  • 2 guesses on how to dev intuitive knowledge
    
    • 1 Children dev scientific theories; when there is contradictory evidence → revise their theory
    • 2. Children’s intuitive knowledge is based on their “fragmented” experience (they didn’t get the whole picture)
  • We know there is a lot of variation in children’s intuitive knowledge
  • need more rs
• Kuhn (Ch 19) - Dev of scientific thinking
  
  • Kuhn thinks children construct implicit scientific theories from their early years to make sense of their experiences
  • Conceptual change: children revise their theories when there is new evidence
  • The prototype of Scientific inquiry:
    
    • 1 Gather background knowledge (ex. causal v); understand it
    • 2 selects a method to investigate and identify which are causal vs not
• Snowling and Gobel (Ch 20)
  
  • Nowadays, most info comes in written form (ex. info on Internet)
    
    • Our brain is not designed for reading
    • Our brain is designed to process spoken language
  • Phonological awareness skills: understand sound patterns and structure of spoken language
    
    • Phonological awareness skill help us learn the alphabet
  • Atypical dev of reading skills/ developmental dyslexia
    
    • Affect 7% of children
    • Cause is impairment in phonological processing
• Rs data shows there are 3 overlapping reading systems
  
  • 1. Responsive to low-level visual features of words
  • 2. Responsive to phonology and orthography-phonology mappings
  • 3. For semantics
       * Neuronal recycling: the brain areas recruited for reading have other functions that may be evolutionarily older (ex. object recognition)
       
       • Ex. used in deductive reasoning system (esp WM, declarative mem)

Question 15

Goswami summary cont 5

• Bryant and Nunes (Ch 21)
  
  • What makes math innate for us?
  • Why do we teach students counting tho?
  • 2 types of math knowledge that is learnt
  • Math operations
    
    • what do 3 yo understand?
    • what do 5 yo understand?
    • what do children understand later?
• Zelazo and Muller (Ch 22) - EF
  
  • EF purpose
  • Problem solving aspects - 2 aspects
  • Other aspects EF rely on - 4 aspects
  • When does EF dev
  • EF and PFC misconception
  • 2 parts of EF
    
    • fx
• Dodd and Crosbie (Ch 23) - communication disorder
  
  • communication disorders
  • % of children affected
  • treatment
  • 2 ways the relationship b/w cog and language is complex
• Baron-Cohen (ch 24) – autism
  
  • Triad of impairments in autism
  • empathizing-systemizing (E-S) theory of autism
  • 3 main abilities in empathizing
  • 2 things that dev empathizing behavior?
  • What is autism ppl’s superior skill?
    
    • Definition
    • 2 systems in the skill
    • 4 major roots of the skill
    • Benefit from this skill
  • Gender difference
    
    • Explanation
• Summary
  
  • 2 main things that contribute to age-related change
  • Early rs view vs current rs view on development
  • 4 reasons why conceptual dev is gradual

Answer 15

• Bryant and Nunes (Ch 21)
  
  • Math is innate
    
    • we have analogue system: # of items influences amount of neural activity
    • Counting is somewhat innate
      
      • Need to teach children math as counting system is partly intuitive and partly human invention
• Some math knowledge is learnt
  
  • 1 cardinal vs original #s
    
    • Piaget: math is learnt via experience
      
      • Ex. 1 yo understand Cardinal (how many) and ordinal (order) #s
  • 2 arithmetic operations is learnt (Ex. +, - , x, ÷)
    
    • 3 yo: understand addition
    • 5 yo understand Additive reasoning & One-to-many correspondence
      
      • Additive reasoning = inverse relationship w/ add & subtract
      • One-to-many (ex. x = 1, y = +/- 1)
    • Later: Multiplicative reasoning needs formal teaching, more time
• x
• Zelazo and Muller (Ch 22)
  
  • Exec fx goal: solve problems
    
    • problem solving aspects: goal selection, planning
    • It relies on other processes: inhibitory control, WM, reflection, complex rules
  • EF continues to dev in adolescence and early adulthood
  • EF is highly influenced by PFC; Exec fx is NOT = to PFC fx
  • There are 2 parts of EF
    
    • Affective/Hot EF: used for problems that have high affective involvement
      
      • Ex. social problems, evaluating the emotional significance of the stimuli
    • Cognitive/Cool EF: evoked by abstract and decontextualized (isolated) problems
• Dodd and Crosbie (Ch 23)
  
  • communication disorders - language use is socially inappropriate
    
    • 15% of children fail to reach language milestones at the appropriate ages
    • Get language therapy
  • Many causes
  • Language dev and cog dev are related in a complex way
    
    • Some children w/ cog impairments have good language skills
      
      • Ex. speak 16 languages
    • Some children w/ poor language skills have preserved cog skills
      
      • But the “preserved” skills are not intact
• x
• Baron-Cohen (ch 24) – autism
  
  • Triad of impairments in autism: atypical social dev, atypical dev of communication, repetitive b/narrow and obsessive interests
  • empathizing-systemizing (E-S) theory of autism: the main impairment among the Autism’s “triad” of impairments is in the E-S system
    
    • IOW: a deficit in empathizing
  • Empathizing includes the abilities
    
    • to make sense of others’ b
    • to predict what they might do next and how they may feel
    • to adjust out b accordingly
    • IOW: minded others and respond accordingly
  • What developed empathizing behavior?
    
    • Roots: joint attention, pretend play
  • autism ppl have superior systemizing skills
    
    • Systemizing: analyse or construct systems
      
      • Ex. mechanical systems – video recorders
      • Ex. Abstract systems – grammar in language
    • roots of systemizing lie in
      
      • The dev of physical knowledge
      • The dev of causal and logical reasoning
      • The dev of scientific thinking
      • EF
  • Pros: develop superior engineering and math skills
    
    • Systemizing skills are better in males; empathizing skills are better in F
    • Explanation: “extreme male brain” theory of autism
• • WM capacity, inhibitory processes can explain age-related changes
• Early rs: support “universal laws of cog dev”
• Current rs: social/context info & background knowledge influence dev
• conceptual dev is gradual not radical
  
  • Neural networks: hv more connections and pruning
  • Children seek knowledge themselves
  • Teachers scaffold them
  • Children accumulate more knowledge via language

Question 16

Schneider

• Age range of early childhood
• 3 lines of rs to study early childhood
  
  • memory experiments w/ adults was driven by
• Brunswik et al 1932
  
  • Examine STM
  • 6 methods
  • Results
    
    • age trends

Answer 16

• this article look at early and late childhood (i.e age 3-12)

Early investigations of memory dev/ historical dev

• 3 lines of rs on children’s mem
  
  • 1. Case studies & systematic observation of mem dev in early childhood
  • 2. Memory experiments w/ adults
       * see if findings from adult pop can be generalized to children
       * 1 policy driven (new policy on co-ed)
       
       • They tested common beliefs
         
         • Ex. Since children practice their memory skills in school daily, they are better at remembering verbal material than adults
         • Ex. boys have better memory than girls
  • 3. children and adults’ testimonial competence
       * Ppl were sceptical on child witness testimony
       * Ppl in Germany and France were interested in children’s eyewitness memory competencies
• Brunswik et al 1932
  
  • Examine STM
  • Methods
    
    • Present STM and LTM tasks to 700 participants (6-18 yo)
      
      • Used nonsense and meaningful words colors, #s, and poems
      • Also had non-verbal memory tasks – mem for motor actions and correct sequence
  • Results
    
    • STM
      
      • 6—11 yo: shows linear steep rise
      • 12-18 yo (pre/early adolescence): shows plateau

Question 17

• Schneider cont 2
• 2 major diff b/w Modern vs historical rs on memory
  
  • b4 vs now rs goals
  • b4 vs now theoretical framework
    
    • b4: 1 framework
    • now: 2 frameworks
      
      • computer metaphor
      • multi-store
• 2 types of LTM
  
  • fx
  • explicit mem: 2 subtypes
    
    • fx
  • Can they operate together
• implicit mem
  
  • When is it present?
  • How does it dev?
  • 2 ways it is tested??
  • • perceptual priming task
      * 2 step process
      * results
      * repetition priming
      * Age differences
      
      • conceptual priming method
        
        • 2 steps
        • Results - 2 main ones
• MP
• implicit vs explicit mem

Answer 17

Current trends in rs on mem dev

• Modern vs historical rs on memory
  
  • # 1 Rs goal
    • B4: describe dev differences in memory
    • Now: identify underlying mechanism of change
  • # 2 theorical framework
    • B4: influenced by theory models from information processing
    • Now: Influenced by computer metaphor & multi-store model
      
      • Compute metaphor
        
        • Hardware: the capacity of memory systems, and speed that info is processed
        • Software: use of strategies
      • multi-store model
        
        • There is a sensory register, ST store, and LT store
• 2 types of LTM
  
  • Explicit/declarative: conscious recollection (ex. names, date, events)
    
    • 2 types: episodic, semantic
    • Episodic: events and experiences that are consciously retrieved
    • Semantic: knowledge of language, rules, and concepts
  • Implicit/procedural: non-conscious abilities
    
    • Capacity to learn habits, skills, and some classical conditioning
• LTM and STM operate in //

The dev of implicit memory

• Implicit mem: memory w/o awareness
• rs: implicit mem is present from the start of life and does not change over time
• Perceptual priming task, conceptual priming task
• Perceptual priming task Methods
  
  • 1. Picture identification task
       * used fragmented pictures, and need ppl to identify them (ex. dog)
  • 2. Children are given degraded pics of previously seen vs unseen objects
  • Results – repetition priming
    
    • Children can identify fragmented pictures of previously seen pics faster than
    • No age differences: perceptual priming effects are similar across older and younger ppl
• • conceptual priming (another type)
• Schumann-Hengsteler 1995
  
  • Conceptual priming method
  • 1. Provide ppl w/ a list of category names
  • 2. Ask them to produce first examples of the categories that come to mind
  • Finding:
    
    • presenting a category exemplar increases the chance that word is being named as a category example
    • Age differences = none
• • It seems that brain systems for perceptual and conceptual priming are fully dev in early life
• This is very different from the explicit memory system

Question 18

Schneider cont 3

• Explicit mem: episodic, autobiographical, eyewitness mem (specific episodic mem)
• Episodic mem
  
  • 2 types of events we remember
  • How to we organize recurring events?
  • Nelson et al - familiar events
    
    • Method
    • Result
  • Bauer et al 2000 - mem recall in preverbal children
    
    • Method
    • Results
      
      • 1 yo - how long they can retain info
      • 3 yo - how long they can retain info
  • Fibvush and Fromhoff 1988 - novel events
    
    • Method
    • Result
  • Relationship b/w episodic mem and age
  • Munich longitudinal study - compare mem for recurring vs novel events
    
    • method
    • 2 main results
• Autobiographical mem
  
  • When do we have the hardware?
  • Infantile amnesia
  • 2 explanations
  • 2 aspects of autobiographical mem
  • 2 ways that can influence autobiographical m and lead to errors
• Eyewitness mem
  
  • Major focus is?
  • Methods in most studies: 2 steps
  • Amount of info & accuracy
    
    • relationship b/w age and amount of info recalled
      
      • when does the most improvement happen
      • When does children’s free recall memory = adult lv
    • relationship b/w age and accuracy
    • What type of info recall shows no age diferences
    • 3 ways to improve accuracy
  • Suggestibility
    
    • 2 Effects of misleading qs
    • Which age group is most suggestible
  • relationship b/w time and memory accuracy
  • Fuzzy trance theory
  • 2 types of events that has more accurate memory
• Overall
  
  • When does it improves the most?
  • 4 main changes that contribute to memory performance

Answer 18

The dev of episodic memory

• Episodic memory requires conscious awareness
• 2 types of mem: novel events, and recurring events
• Rs showed that children and adults organize memory for recurring events in “scripts” or general event representations
• • Nelson et al
    
    • Method: Asked children to tell them what happens during such familiar events (ex. bday parties, grocery shopping)
    • Results: They remember the general events in an organized way
• Bauer et al 2000
  
  • preverbal children show LT ordered recall for events
  • Method: showed action sequences to 1-3 yo → asked to recall
  • Results:
    
    • 80% of 1 yo can retain the sequence for 1 mo
    • 3 yo retain memories for 6+ mo
• Fibvush and Fromhoff 1988
  
  • Showed children can remember novel and unusual events for a long time
  • Method
    
    • 1. Interviewed 2-3 yo about novel events that happened in the recent past (ex. visit Disneyworld)
  • Results:
    
    • They remember them for a very long time
• Ability to remember specific events for a long time develop over time
  
  • You can remember more # of events
  • Memories are more robust
• x
• Munich longitudinal study
  
  • compared children’s memory for script-based vs unfamiliar info
  • Methods: Showed children several narratives about more familiar vs novel events (ex. bday party, move to another town)
  • Results
    
    • Older children recall more
    • Progresses in similar pace
      
      • Ex. 4 yo remembers 20% → 5 yo: 30% (diff = 10%)
      • Ex. 8 yo recall 50% → 9 yo: 60% (diff = 10%)

Autobiographical mem

• Hardware for autobiographical mem is present at birth
• We can’t recall info early in life b/c infantile amnesia
  
  • Infantile amnesia: adult can’t recall events that happened to them (b4 3 yo)
• Explanation 1:
  
  • Cog self allows to organize new experiences as personal
  • Cog self emerges around 3 yo, so autobiographical mem emerges around that time
• Explanation 2:
  
  • Lack strategies/language to organize the memory
• Auto m - 2 aspects
  
  • original experience and interpretations of the events
• It can be influenced
  
  • when retrieved
  • social interactions
• → mem error

Eyewitness mem

• It emphasizes the accuracy, not the amount of info recalled in an event
• In most studies:
  
  • 1. children witness staged events or recordings/ recollect traumatic exp (ex. visit to doc/dentist)
  • 2. Then, in the interview, they are asked general and specific qs
• Amount of info & accuracy
  
  • older children recall more info, better free recall
    
    • improves most b/w age 4 and 7
    • Elementary school children free recall memory is comparable to adults
  • No age difference in accuracy
  • No age differences for important or personally meaningful
  • Strategies to improve accuracy
    
    • give more specific cues (but this also increases errors)
    • Better accuracy when given incentives and allowed to say idk
    • Better interview techniques: Establish good rapport, use neutral tone, avoid social demand characteristics and leading qs
• Suggestibility
  
  • When ppl are asked misleading qs after event,
    
    • they report inaccurate fact
    • This can change their memory
  • Preschool children are most prone to suggestion compared to school children and adults
• How long do witness memories last
  
  • In general, the longer delay (esp over 1 mo), the lower accuracy
  • Maybe explained by fuzzy trace theory
    
    • Fuzzy trace theory: verbatim (precise) traces deteriorate more rapidly than the gist/fuzzy traces
  • Memory on stressful and traumatic memories are more accurate
• x
• Summary
  
  • improves b/w 6-12 yo (~ elementary school)
  • Dev changes that contribute to mem performance
    
    • Basic capacity
    • Memory strategies
    • Metacog knowledge
    • Domain knowledge

Question 19

Steinberg

• 3 aspects that develop at diff rates during adolescence
• When does brain maturation occur
• When do the major changes happen
  
  • 3 areas are dev the most
• maturation timeline
  
  • early adol: what happens
  • mid adol: what happens
  • late adol: what happens
  • Implication
• Cog dev
  
  • Which brain areas mature
  • 3 ways it matures
  • 6 main abilities that dev during early adol
• Iowa gambling task
  
  • Methods
  • Results
    
    • health adults
    • impaired adults
    • age relationship
      *

Answer 19

Introduction

• During adolescence, there are gaps in emotion, cog, and behavior
• brain maturation continue through adolescence
• In the 20s, many changes in brain
  
  • esp areas for inhibition, eval risk and reward, reg emo and b
• Maturation timeline
  
  • 1. Early adol: puberty increase emo arousal, sensation seeking, reward orientation
  • 2. Middle adol: more vulnerable to risk-taking, problems related to regulation
  • 3. Late adol: maturing FL help regulation
  • IOW: adol struggle to regulate emo and b, → for risk-taking

Cog dev in adol

• Comparative nroanatomy: compare related primate species
  
  • Help us understand humans better
  • Cog dev happens b/c PFC dev
    
    • more connectivity
    • more myelination
    • more synaptic pruning
• In early adol, ppl sig improve in reasoning, info processing (efficiency and capacity), expertise/knowledge, EF, WM, eval risk vs reward
• Iowa Gambling task
• 1. Ppl draw care from 1 of 4 decks
     * Each card shows how much is won and lost
     * Drawing from Deck A/B -> net loss over time
     * Drawing from deck C/D -> net gains over time
     
     • Deck A: high reward + occasional very high losses
     • Deck B: high reward + frequent modest losses
     • Deck C: low rewards + frequent small losses
     • Deck D: low rewards + occasional modest losses
• Results: health adults
  
  • Start drawing randomly from decks
  • Then increase pulls from “good” decks; decrease pulls from “bad” decks
• Exception
  
  • Patients w/ lesion to ventromedial PFC, ppl w/ substance abuse problems, ppl have who report high lv of risk taking in daily life
  • They draw from “bad” decks persistnelty despite the net losses
• Study examines age differences in Iowa gambling task
  
  • 4 age gps: 6-9 yo, 10-12 yo, 13-15 yo, 18-25 yo
  • Results: youngest drew equally from good and bad decks
  • 2 middle groups show improvement
    
    • In final trial they draw from good decks around 60% of the time
  • Young adults draw from good deck 75% of the time; they shift to good decks way earlier

Question 20

Steinberg cont 2

• Adol make more risk decisions
  
  • Study
  • Hypothesis
  • Methods
    
    • 2 conditions
  • Results
• Adol an adults’ reasoning are influenced by 4 things
  
  • relationship b/w personal matter and reasoning skills
  • relationship b/w agreeing w/ argument and reasoning skills
• Puberty affect 4 aspects
• 2 key characteristics of adol decision making
  
  • old vs new H
  • “cold/hot” cog process framework
    
    • hot
    • cold
  • Emotion affect decision making - 3 steps
• Adol and EF relationship
  
  • major cons

Answer 20

Cog dev in context

• adol are sig more likely to make risky decisions that adults
• Study
• Hypothesis: adults and 16+ adol have same risk taking tendencies; but adol are likely to be influenced by peers
• Methods
  
  • Ppl played a computer game
    
    • They can take driving risks (cont drive when traffic light turn yellow)
      
      • They earn more points
  • Ppl randomly assigned to 1 of 2 condition
    
    • A: play game along
    • B: play w/ 2 friends who were watching and gave advice
  • Results: Adolescent, youth, adult show same degree of risk-taking when alone
  • Adol and youth took more risk when peers are present
• Adol’s reasoning, like adults, are influenced by intelligence, desires, motives, and interests
  
  • Adol moral reasoning and b sucks when issue is a personal choice (ex. personal drug use)
  • Adol are more likely to accept faulty reasoning/evidence if they agree w/ the argument
• x
• Affect and cog
• Puberty →
  
  • more aroused (ex. sex)
  • emotions
    
    • influences cog processes (inhibition, b and emo reg); vv
  • motivation → more sensation seeking
    
    • Increase reproduce hormones & sensitivity to social status is linked to puberty
    • Some theories suggest adol increase risk taking to enhance social standing
  • humane face-processing → worsen
• x
• Decision making and risk taking
• adol do not eval risks
• adol are driven by feelings and social influence
  
  • Old H: they don’t know the risks
  • Current rs: adol engage in risky b despite knowing the risks
  • “cold/hot” cog process framework
    
    • Cold = low emo/arousal
    • Hot = strong feelings/ high arousal
  • Emotion affect decision making
    
    • puberty → more drives, feelings → more affective influences on b, make more unconscious “gut-feeling” decisions
• x
• Adol has lots of emo; but EF not gully dev
• Ef fully dev later
  
  • → at risk for psychopathology
    
    • Ex. no control in arousal, feelings, etc