Lifespan development 1 - prenatal & cognitive development (chapter 12)

Question 1

How can social development influence cognitive development?

Answer 1

Research conducted into types of attachment between infants and their caregivers. The striking message from this research is that different infants can demonstrate quite different kinds of relationships with parental caregivers. E.g. study by Mary Ainsworth - ‘Strange situation’ showed some infants with secure attachments with their parents (better able to use their parents as a secure base from which to explore their environment) and insecurely attached children (less likely to explore their environment in a productive way).
So here, we can see how social-emotional factors can have important influences on the kinds of behaviours which are likely to foster good cognitive development.

Question 2

What are the 2 main goals of developmental psychology?

Answer 2

1) to examine and describe biological, physical, psychological, social and behavioural changes that occur as we age
2) question is to ask what it us that causes or drives these changes

Question 3

What are 4 broad issues which arise in most developmental research?

Answer 3

1) Stability versus change
2) Continuity versus discontinuity
(The first 2 issues are concerned with describing developmental changes)
3) Nature and nurture
4) Critical and sensitive periods
(Issues 3 and 4 are concerned with identifying the factors which cause or drive developmental change)

Question 4

Describe issue 1 (of the 4) which arise in most developmental research —

Answer 4

Stability versus change
Do our characteristics remain consistent as we age? this is perhaps the simplest question we can ask in developmental psychology: is there any development?there is a tendency to consider most developmental changes to happen in the first years of life, with long periods of stability in adulthood. However, there are a great number of developmental changes that continue into adulthood and old age

Question 5

Describe issue 2 (of the 4) which arise in most developmental research —

Answer 5

Continuity versus discontinuity
Is development continuous and gradual or is it discontinuous, progressing through qualitatively distinct stages? Early developmental psychologists influenced by the behaviourist tradition considered development to unfold in a gradual, continuous way. However, Piaget proposed, in contrast to the behaviourist perspective, that cognitive development was best characterised as a progression of qualitatively distinct stages

Question 6

Describe issue 3 (of the 4) which arise in most developmental research —

Answer 6

Nature and nurture
To what extent is our development the product of heredity (nature) and the product of environment (nurture)? How do nature and nurture interact?Is specific environmental experience in the form of human interaction vital for typical development?
Most developmental psychologists would argue that both typical and atypical development are products of an interaction between both nature and nurture, but that the hard task is to determine how nature and nurture interact

Question 7

Describe issue 4 (of the 4) which arise in most developmental research —

Answer 7

Critical and sensitive periods
Are some experiences especially important at particular ages? A critical period is an age range during which certain experiences must occur for development to proceed normally or along a certain path. A sensitive period is an optimal age range for certain experiences, but if those experiences occur at another time, normal development is still possible.

Question 8

What is a critical period?

Answer 8

A critical period is an age range during which certain experiences must occur for development to proceed normally or along a certain path.

Question 9

What is a sensitive period?

Answer 9

A sensitive period is an optimal age range for certain experiences, but if those experiences occur at another time, normal development is still possible.

Question 10

What is a cross-sectional design? Give an advantage and disadvantage —

Answer 10

Compares people of different ages at the same point in time.
Data from many groups can be collected relatively quickly
Key drawback is that when we gather data from different age groups at around the same time, these different age groups will also have grown up in different historical periods - they are different cohorts as well as age groups

Question 11

What is a cohort?

Answer 11

A group of people who have shared the same historical events by virtue of their being the same age

Question 12

What is a cohort effect?

Answer 12

Differences in abilities or experiences of groups of people who were born at different points in history

Question 13

What is a longitudinal design? Give and advantage and disadvantage —

Answer 13

Repeatedly tests the same cohort as it grows older.
Ensures that everyone is exposed to the same historical time frame
Unfortunately, a longitudinal design can be time-consuming, and as years pass, our sample may shrink as people move, drop out or die

Question 14

What is a sequential design?

Answer 14

Combines the cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches.
For example, we could test 10- to 60-year-olds now, retest them every 10 years and then examine whether the various cohorts followed a similar developmental pattern.
This design is the most comprehensive but also the costliest and most time-consuming

Question 15

What is an advantage of longitudinal approaches over cross-sectional studies?

Answer 15

They allow us to examine further differences between individuals in terms of the way in which they develop (their individual ‘developmental trajectories’). Cross-sectional studies lose much of this information by examining the development of aggregated groups of people, rather than individuals

Question 16

What is a microgenetic design?

Answer 16

A longitudinal method which measures change across short time spans.
It considers individuals’ trajectories of development on a smaller scale than more traditional longitudinal methods (measuring across days and hours rather than months or years)

Question 17

What is the importance of microgenetic designs?

Answer 17

It allows researchers to observe developmental change in fine enough detail in order to see how developmental changes come about.

Question 18

What does prenatal development consist of?

Answer 18

3 stages spanning approximately 38 weeks or nine months

Question 19

What is the germinal stage?

Answer 19

Comprising of approximately the first 2 weeks of development, it begins when a sperm fertilises a female egg (ovum). This fertilised egg is called a zygote, and through repeated cell division it becomes a mass of cells that attaches to the mother’s uterus about 10 to 14 days after conception

Question 20

What point is the fertilisation of the egg?

Answer 20

The point at which a new person’s genetic make up is determined. Genes are contributed by both the sperm cell and the ovum, to make a new combination which will determine to a great extent how the new person will appear, behave and think

Question 21

What is the embryonic stage?

Answer 21

The next stage after the germinal stage.
The cell mass, now called an embryo, develops from the end of week 2 through to week 8 after conception. Two life-support structures, the placenta and umbilical cord, develop at the start of this stage.
Located on the uterine wall, the placenta contains membranes that allow nutrients to pass from the mother’s blood to the umbilical cord. In turn, the umbilical cord contains blood vessels that carry these nutrients and oxygen to the embryo and transport waste products back from the embryo to the mother. Supplied with nutrients, embryonic cells rapidly divide and become specialised. Bodily organs and systems begin to form, and by week 8 the heart of the inch long embryo is beating, the brain is forming and facial features such as eyes can be recognised

Question 22

What is the foetal stage?

Answer 22

Comes after the embryonic stage?
The foetus develops from week 9 after conception until birth. Muscles strengthen and other bodily systems develop. AT about 24 weeks the eyes open, and by 27 weeks (or, more recently with advances in medical care, several weeks younger) the foetus attains the age of viability: it is likely to survive outside the womb in case of premature birth

Question 23

What is a zygote?

Answer 23

Fertilised egg

Question 24

What is an embryo?

Answer 24

Develops from the end of week 2 through to week 8 after conception

Question 25

What is a foetus?

Answer 25

Develops from week 9 after conception until birth

Question 26

Why is prenatal development of the brain and nervous system important within developmental psychology?

Answer 26

All of the major subdivisions of the brain and nervous system are present by the end of the embryonic stage. Prenatal growth of neurons is very rapid, such that by the time off birth the newborn’s brain contains the majority of the neurons which will be eventually present in adulthood .

Question 27

How are genes important in development?

Answer 27

Genes provide the foundations for development - they make us human and determine the many characteristics which make us individual humans, different from one another.

Question 28

How does the contribution of the father’s sperm cell determine the sex of the baby?

Answer 28

A females’s egg and a male’s sperm cells both have half the normal number of chromosomes; each with 23. At conception, an egg and sperm unite to form the zygote, which now contains the full set of 23 pairs (46 chromosomes in total) found in other human cells. the twenty-third pair of chromosomes determines the baby’s sex. A genetic female’s 23rd pair contains 2 X chromosomes (XX), so called because of their shape. Because women carry only X chromosomes, the 23rd chromosome in an egg always is an X. A genetic male’s 23rd pair contains an X and a Y chromosome (XY). Thus, the 23rd chromosome in the sperm in an X in about half of the cases and a Y in the other half. The Y chromosome contains a specific gene TDF (testis determining factor) gene that triggers male sexual development. The union of an egg with a sperm cell having a Y chromosome results in XY combination and therefore a boy. A sperm containing an X chromosome produces an XX combination and therefore a girl

Question 29

What is the TDF gene?

Answer 29

Testis determining factor which is is found in the Y chromosome of a male. It triggers male sexual development

Question 30

How is it that genes provide us with particular characteristics?

Answer 30

in brief, genes in our DNA mean that particular kinds of chemicals called proteins are created. Proteins are the building blocks of human tissue. In the case of sex determination, at roughly 6-8 weeks after conception, the TDF gene causes the production of proteins which make up testes. Once formed, the testes secrete sex hormones called androgens that continue to direct a male pattern of organ development. If the TDF gene is not present, as happens when there is an XX combination in the 23rd chromosome pair, testes do not form and - in the absence of sufficient androgen activity during this prenatal critical period - an inherent female pattern of organ development ensues

Question 31

If all of the cells in our body have the same DNA and genes, how do they differ in what they become (e.g. a big toe cell or a neuron)?

Answer 31

The answer to this lies in what we know of as epigenetics, or the study of ho genes are expressed. Whether nor not genetic code in our DNA is expressed in a particular way depends on a large array of factors. The chemical environment in which a cell exists determines which genes are expressed and which lie dormant. This means that cells which have the same DNA can produce very different kinds of protein, and undertake very different tasks depending on where they develop in the body.

Question 32

What is the environment of a cell influenced by?

Answer 32

The environment of a cell is influenced not only by other genes, but other environmental facors such as temperature, and even electrical activity in the case of neurons.
Our environments and experiences even influence how the building blocks of our body and brains are assembled

Question 33

What is epigenetics?

Answer 33

The study of changes in gene expression due to environmental factors and independent of the DNA

Question 34

What are teratogens?

Answer 34

Agents that cause abnormal prenatal development

Question 35

What can teratogens be?

Answer 35

Chemicals from the environment, ingested by the mother either accidentally or otherwise, but they can also be diseases passed to the infant either dhring gestation or during birth, and they can also be chemicals produced naturally by the mother. The placenta prevents many dangerous substances from reaching the embryo and foetus, but some harmful chemicals and diseases can pass through

Question 36

What is foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)?

Answer 36

A disorder of the developing foetus caused by the ingestion of alcohol by the foetus’ mother during gestation. It is characterised by stunted growth, a number of physical and physiological abnormalities, and often, mental retardation.
Foetal alcohol syndrome children have facial abnormalities and small, malformed brains. Psychological symptoms include mental retardation, attentional and perceptual deficits, irritability and impulsivity. Other children exposed to alcohol in the womb may display milder forms of these deficits

Question 37

What us foetal alcohol spectrum disorders?

Answer 37

Given the wide distribution of severity of such problems, researchers have defined a continuum of maternal alcohol consumption related problems in the child as foetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD)
It is a group of abnormalities that results from varying kinds of prenatal exposure to alcohol

Question 38

What is the threshold level of alcohol exposure needed to produce FAS?

Answer 38

It is not known. About one-third to one-half of infants born to alcoholic mothers have FAS, but even social drinking or a single episode of binge drinking can increase the risk of prenatal damage and long-term cognitive impairment. Because no amount of alcohol exposure has been confirmed to be absolutely safe, pregnant women and this trying to become pregnant are best advised to completely avoid drinking alcohol.

Question 39

How is nicotine a teratogen?

Answer 39

Maternal smoking increases the risk of miscarriage premature to birth and low birth-weight. Owing to second hand smoke (‘passive smoking’), regular tobacco use by fathers has also been linked to low infant birth-weight and increased risk of respiratory infections.

Question 40

How can heroin/cocaine use by a mother affect the child (teratogen)?

Answer 40

Babies of pregnant mothers who regularly use heroin or cocaine are often born addicted and experience withdrawal symptoms after birth. Their cognitive functioning and ability to regulate their arousal and attention may also be impaired

Question 41

How are stress hormones naturally produced by the mother and disease teratogens?

Answer 41

Prolonged maternal stress is associated with increased risk of premature birth.
An example of a disease which is a particular risk factor for the developing infant is rubella. If the mother contracts rubella it can cause blindness, deafness, heart defects and mental retardation in the infant, especially when the embryo’s eyes, ears, heart and central nervous system are beginning to form early in pregnancy.

Question 42

How can sexually transmitted diseases affect the foetus?

Answer 42

They can pass from mother to foetus and produce brain damage, blindness and deafness depending on the disease. Among pregnant women with untreated syphilis, about 25% of foetuses are born dead. Likewise, without treatment during pregnancy pr delivery by Caesarean section at birth, about 25% of foetuses born to mothers with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are also infected

Question 43

What is important to remember about teratogens?

Answer 43

They do not exert the same effects throughout development. For instance, the developing child is especially vulnerable to the effects of teratogens during the embryonic stage as it is a period in which there is a great deal of change and growth. Where changes are occurring there is a great likelihood that external influences can give rise to atypical development. In fact, different organs or groups of organs in the body vary with regard to the periods of development in which they are vulnerable to teratogenic influence. For instance, whereas the heart is most vulnerable during the embryonic stage, the genitals are more vulnerable during the latter part of the embryonic stage, and the foetal stage. The nervous system and brain have probably the most extended period of vulnerability to teratogens, spanning both the embryonic and foetal periods

Question 44

What reflexes are neonates born with?

Answer 44

They are equipped with a number of reflexes, automatic, inborn behaviours that occur in response to specific stimuli. Some have obvious adaptive significance.
Stroke a baby’s cheek, and he will turn his head towards the location in which he was touched and open his mouth - the rooting reflex.
When something is placed in an infant’s mouth, she will suck on it - the sucking reflex.
Together, these reflexes increase the infant’s ability to feed. Breathing is another example of a reflex which helps the infant to survive.

Question 45

How do newborns learn?

Answer 45

We cannot have an innate reflex for every action we need in order to interact successfully with our environment. We need learning mechanisms in order to change and adapt our behaviours to new stimuli in the environment.
Newborns learn in several ways. One important way in which they learn is through habituation; they decrease their responses to repetitive, non-threatening stimuli. Habituation is useful as it helps us orient away from the old and towards new information.
Newborns can also acquire classically conditioned responses. After a tone (CS) is repeatedly paired with a gentle puff of air to the eye (UCS), they will develop a conditioned eye-blink response to the tone alone.
Through operant conditioning, newborns learn that they can make things happen. For example 3-day-old infants learn to such a plastic nipple with a certain pattern of bursts to activate a tape-recording of their mother’s voice

Question 46

What is the visual preference technique?

Answer 46

Just after birth, newborns’ eye movements are not well coordinated, and this fact among others led early developmental psychologists to assume that we are blind in the first weeks of life. However, Fantz conducted a pioneering study which demonstrated that this assumption was wrong. Fantz developed a preferential looking procedure to study infants’ visual preferences. He placed infants on their backs, showed them 2 or more stimuli at the same time, and observed their eyes to record how long they looked at each stimulus. Infants preferred complex patterns such as realistic or scrambled drawing of a human face to simple patterns and solid colours. the mere fact that very young babies preferred some stimuli over others indicates that they are able to make perceptual discriminations between such stimuli

Question 47

What is a problem with the visual preference procedure?

Answer 47

If babies have no preference for one stimulus over another then we will not be able to tell whether they can discriminate between them or not.

Question 48

What did Fantz do to get over the problem identified with the visual preference procedure?

Answer 48

He pioneered another method for examining infants’ perceptual abilities - the visual habituation technique

Question 49

What is the visual habituation technique?

Answer 49

It makes use of the fact that after a period of exposure to visual stimuli, infants begin to habituate to them - they look at them less than they did initially. Correspondingly, when we present infants with stimuli to which they have been habituated and stimuli which are novel, they demonstrate a strong visual preference for the novel stimulus (a ‘novelty preference’). Thus, we can use habituation to determine whether infants can discriminate between visual stimuli. If they show a novelty preference when presented with pairs of novel and familiar stimuli then we can conclude that they are able to discriminate between those stimuli. Using this technique, Slater gas shown that newborn infants are able to make a wide variety of perceptual discriminations between different visual stimuli

Question 50

What are the complications with the visual preference and visual habituation techniques?

Answer 50

One particular problem lies in what we can conclude from a perceptual discrimination. Take, for instance, Slater et al.’s (1983) demonstration of form discrimination. Do newborn infants discriminate between these stimuli in the same way we might - by comparing the configural shapes of the stimuli? From this evidence alone we cannot be sure. It is possible that the infants are focusing on some much more basic perceptual cues, such as the orientation of component lines. For example, they might discriminate the triangle from the other shapes by simply registering that it contains a diagonally oriented line

Question 51

How are the senses taste, smell, touch and hearing at birth?

Answer 51

Newborns’ facial responses tell us that they have a reasonable well-developed sense of taste e.g. sweet, sour or bitter substances.
Newborns also orient to touch, and can discriminate between different parts of their bodies being touched.
they also distinguish between different odours - if exposed to pads taken from bras of several nursing mothers, week-old infants will orient towards the scent of their own mother’s pad.
Newborns can hear fairly well. They prefer human voices to other sounds and can distinguish their mother’s voice from female strangers. Indeed, newborns seem to prefer sounds that become familiar to them in their last weeks of foetal development.

Question 52

Can newborns recognise faces?

Answer 52

The newborn infant is able to respond to a range of aspects of their social environment. An important aspect of this is recognising people who are likely to be a parent or caregiver. Despite Fantz’s demonstration of a face preference in young infants, controversy remained concerning whether this visual preference represented an ability to discriminate faces from other stimuli in the environment. One interpretation is that the infants looked longer at schematic faces because of the symmetry of the features. Another interpretation was that the infants preferred the faces as they were more complex than other patterns. They could also prefer these figures for both reasons

Question 53

What does the ability of recognising faces mean in terms of development? Pioneering research —

Answer 53

Do the infants have an innate ability to recognise faces over other stimuli or are they simply attending to a stimulus which they have learned about in the first days and weeks of life?
Johnson, of the Uni of London, and colleagues made use of a straightforward adaptation of the visual preference technique - preferential tracking, in which is measured infants’ preferential tendencies to follow a stimulus with their eyes as it is moved through their visual field. In order to examine wether preferences were innate, they tested infants no older than 1 hour old and 3 stimuli were presented to them (a face-like pattern, a pattern in which facial features were symmetrical but scrambled, and a blank pattern)
They found that the infants tracked the face-configured stimuli further into the periphery than the other stimuli. They also tracked the scrambled stimuli further than the blank.
The results demonstrate that infants can discriminate between faces ad other stimuli in their environment, and that they prefer to orient towards faces over other stimuli, even when the other stimuli are of equal complexity.

Question 54

What is perceptual development of the domain of vision like in early infancy?

Answer 54

Though newborns show surprising competence, some very important developments in perceptual abilities take place in the first year of life across all sensory modalities.
In the domain of vision, developments are particularly striking in the way infants make shape discriminations. Cohen and Younger conducted an habituation-novelty study which demonstrated that infants start off by making shape discriminations on the basis of orientation rather than the relationships between parts of a visual pattern. They found that 1.5-month-olds discriminate between objects on the basis of the orientations of their component lines and not their configural shape. On the other hand, 3.5-month-olds discriminated on the basis of configural shape rather than orientation

Question 55

What is perceptual development of the auditory domain like in early infancy?

Answer 55

Some of the most significant developments are in infants’ abilities to discriminate between phonemes, the sounds of which speed is composed. Werker and Tees investigated this ability in infants ranging from 6 to 12 months of age with English-speaking parents. They found that the youngest infants were just as competent as the older infants at discriminating speech sounds in English. They also found that when tested on non-native speech sounds, the youngest 6 to 8 month-old infants performed better than the older 10 to 12 month olds. This indicates that perceptual development can sometimes follow a process known as perceptual narrowing, in which infants lose the ability to make discriminations which they do not need across the first year of life

Question 56

What is perceptual development of touch localisation like in early infancy?

Answer 56

bremner, Mareschal, Lloyd-fox and Spence investigated developments in the ability to localise touch. They found that infants get better at keeping track of tactile locations as they get older - they get better at keeping track of where their limbs are. Interestingly, movement of the limbs across the midline increases between 6 and 10 months also. Perhaps it is this experience which enables the infants to respond correctly across both arm postures

Question 57

Describe, in brief, the newborn’s sensory capabilities, perceptual preferences, reflexes and ability to learn —

Answer 57

Human infants arrive into the world with a range of perceptual skills already available to them across several sensory modalities. This suggests a significant role for genetic factors in our perceptual abilities. Nonetheless, there are a number of ways in which perceptual skills are honed across the first months of life. Infants have to learn to adapt the structure of their perceptual environment. They also have to cope with challenged presented by their increasing motor abilities

Question 58

How do our bodies and movement (motor) skills develop rapidly during infancy and childhood?

Answer 58

On average, by our first birthday our body weight triples and our height increases by 50%. Developmental researchers have focused a great deal on how infants and children master certain motor skills. The ages at which babies achieve certain ‘motor milestones’ (like grasping an object or walking for the first time) have been used to measure their developmental progress and identify children who re developmentally delayed. However, it is important to remember that babies are different and it must be clear that there is no one particular developmental road to walking e.g. shuffling, roll, bum-shuffle etc.

Question 59

By what 2 direction trajectories are physical and motor development categorised by?

Answer 59

The cephalocaudal trajectory is the tendency for development to proceed in a head-to-foot direction. E.g. the head of the foetus is disproportionally large because physical growth concentrates first on the head. In terms of motor skill development, an infant will master the ability to maintain postural balance of the head on the neck, before he or she can sit up or stand.
The proximodistal trajectory states that development begins along the innermost parts of the body and continues towards the outermost parts. Thus, a foetus’ arms develop before the hands and fingers. Likewise, infants’ arm movements develop before their ability to manipulate objects with their fingers

Question 60

What is the cephalocaudal trajectory?

Answer 60

The cephalocaudal trajectory is the tendency for development to proceed in a head-to-foot direction

Question 61

What is the proximodistal trajectory?

Answer 61

The proximodistal trajectory states that development begins along the innermost parts of the body and continues towards the outermost parts

Question 62

How does newly developed motor abilities play important roles in development in other domains?

Answer 62

The ability to crawl, for instance, brings new and more varied experiences with the environment. There are now numerous observations demonstrating how emerging abilities to move around the environment , such as the onset of crawling and walking lead to changes in infants’ perceptions and understanding of the world and their emotional reactions to it

Question 63

What organ develops most dramatically when young?

Answer 63

The brain. At birth, the newborn’s brain is far from mature and has reached only about 25% of its eventual adult weight. By age 6 months, however, the brain reached 50% of its adult weight.
Neural networks that form the basis for psychological functioning develop rapidly. It is interesting to note that the main changes in the brain following birth are not in the growth of new neurons (most neuronal cell birth has taken place by the time the baby is born). However, new connections between cells (synapses) continue to form well into post-natal life, and unnecessary synapses are also pruned back and lost. Further changes include myelination, a process in which the neurons become more efficient conductors because of greater insulation by fatty myelin sheaths.
Rapid brain growth during infancy and childhood slows in later childhood. Yet, although 5-year-olds’ brains have reached almost 90% of their adult size, brain maturation continues

Question 64

What are the first brain areas to mature fully?

Answer 64

They lie deep within the brain and regulate basic survival functions sch as heartbeat and breathing.

Question 65

What areas of the brain are among the last to mature?

Answer 65

The frontal lobe which is vital to our highest-level cognitive functions

Question 66

How does the environment influence physical development?

Answer 66

Diet is an obvious example. Chronic, severe malnutrition not only stunts general growth and brain development but also is a major source of infant death worldwide.
Babies thrive in an enriched environment - one in which the infant has the opportunity to interact with others and to manipulate suitable toys and other objects. Newborn rats (pups) raised in an enriched environment develop heavier brains, larger neurons, more synaptic connections and greater amounts of brain neurotransmitters that enhance learning.
Physical touch, too, affecrs growth in infancy. Depriving well-nourished rat pups of normal physical contacts with their mothers stunts their development, whereas vigorously stroking the pups with a brush helps restore normal growth. Similarly, massaging premature and full-term human infants accelerated their weight gain and neurological development

Question 67

How can experience influence basic motor skill development?

Answer 67

Infants of the South American Ache tribe typically do not begin to walk until they are almost 2, about a year later than the average Western infant. The Ache people roam the dense rain forests of eastern Paraguay foraging for food. For safety, mothers keep their children in direct physical contact almost constantly until the age of 3, providing them little opportunity to move about. Experience also affects various types of complex movement skills that toddlers and children acquire

Question 68

How does physical growth reinforce 3 points which apply across the realm of human development?

Answer 68

1) Biology sets limits on environmental influences: E.g. because the frontal areas of the brain (which subserve abilities like behavioural inhibition and planning) are particularly late to mature, self-control has a particularly slow development across childhood.
2) Environmental influences can be powerful: Nurturing environments foster physical and psychological growth, and impoverished environments can stunt growth.
3) Biological and environmental factors interact: Enriched environments enhance brain development. In turn, brain development facilitates our ability to learn and benefit from environmental experiences

Question 69

What are schemas (or schemata)?

Answer 69

Are organised patterns of though and action. Think of a schema as a mental framework that guides our interaction with the world. For example, infants are born with a sucking reflex that provides a primitive schema for interacting with physical objects. In other words, sucking is a basic way in which the infant ‘knows’ the world When a child says ‘doggie’ to describe a family pet, this word reflects a schema - a concept that the child is using to understand this particular experience

Question 70

What are the 2 key processes involved with cognitive development?

Answer 70

Assimilation: The process by which new experiences are incorporated into existing schemas
Accommodation: The process by which new experiences cause existing schemas to change
Accommodation is brought about by the child through actively assimilating the environment into their schemas.

Question 71

What is assimilation?

Answer 71

The process by which new experiences are incorporated into existing schemas.
When a young child encounters a new object, they will try to suck it. The infant tries to fit this new experience into a schema that they already have: objects are suckable. Similarly, a child who sees a squirrel for the first time may exclaim ‘Cat!’. The child tries to make sense of this new experience by applying their familiar schema to the furry, four legged object

Question 72

What is accommodation?

Answer 72

The process by which new experiences cause existing schemas to change.
As the infant tries to suck different objects, they will eventually encounter some that are too big or taste bad. Similarly, the child who calls a squirrel a cat may discover that this ‘cat’ exhibits some behaviours not found in cats (like eating nuts). This imbalance, or disequilibrium, between existing schemas and new experiences ultimately forces those schemas to change. Thus the infant’s suckability schema will become more complex: some objects are suckable, some are not.
This accommodation is brought about by the child through actively assimilating the environment into their schemas.

Question 73

What does cognitive growth involve?

Answer 73

A give and take between trying to understand new experiences in terms of what we already know (assimilation) and having to modify our thinking when new experiences do not fit into our current schemas (accommodation).
Piaget charted 4 major stages of cognitive growth from birth through to adolescence.

Question 74

What are the 4 major stages of cognitive growth from birth through to adolescence as charted by Piaget? (Stage + Age + Major characteristics)

Answer 74

Sensorimotor: Birth to 2
- Infant understand world through sensory and motor experiences
- Achieves object permanence
- Exhibits emergence of symbolic thought
Pre-operational: 2 to 7
- Child uses symbolic thinking in the forms of words and images to represent objects and experiences
- Symbolic thinking enables child to engage in pretend play
- Thinking displays egocentrism, irreversibility and centration
Concrete operational: 7 to 12
- Child can think logically about concrete events
- Grasps concepts of conservation and serial ordering
Formal operational: 12 on
- Adolescent can think more logically, abstractly and flexibly
- Can form hypotheses and systematically test them

Question 75

What is the sensorimotor stage?

Answer 75

Infants understand their world primarily through sensory experiences and physical (motor) interactions with objects.
From birth to age 2.
Reflexes are infants’ earliest schemas and as infants mature, they begin to explore their surroundings and realise that they can bang spoons, take objects apart and make things happen.
Piaget argues that once objects are ‘out of sight’ young infants do not understand their continued existence. But around the age of 8 months, the infant will search for and retrieve the toy, now grasping the concept of object permanence - the understand that an object continues to exist in a particular place even when it is no longer visible.
Infants begin to acquire language after age 1, and towards the end of the sensorimotor period, they increasingly use words to represent objects, needs and actions. Thus, in the space of 2 years, infants grow into independent thinkers who form simple concepts, solve some problems and communicate their thoughts

Question 76

What is the concept of object permanence?

Answer 76

The understand that an object continues to exist in a particular place even when it is no longer visible

Question 77

What is the preoperational stage?

Answer 77

The stage in which children represent the world symbolically through words and mental images but do not yet understand basic mental operations or rules.
Entered at about age 2.
Rapid language development helps children label objects and represent simple concepts, such as that two objects can be the ‘same’ or ‘different’. Children can think about the past and future and can better anticipate the consequences of their actions. Symbolic thinking enables them to engage in make-believe, or pretend, play.
Despite these advances, children’s cognitive abilities have major limitations. According to Piaget, the pre-operational child does not understand conservation, the principle that basic properties of objects, such as their volume, mass or quantity, stay the same even though their outward appearance may change. E.g. pouring liquid from a taller, slimmer beaker than a smaller, wider one. The child’s thinking at this age displays irreversibility: it is difficult for them to reverse an action mentally. You may recognise that one beaker’s width and why the beaker looks to have different volume, but the children exhibit centration, focusing (centring) on only one aspect of the situation, such as the height of the liquid.
Pre-operational children often display animism, attributing lifelike qualities to physical objects and natural events. their thinking reflects egocentrism, difficulty in viewing the world from someone else’s perspective. At this stage, not their ‘selfishness’, but their belief that people perceive things the same as them

Question 78

What is the concept of conservation?

Answer 78

The principle that basic properties of objects, such as their volume, mass or quantity, stay the same even though their outward appearance may change.

Question 79

What is irreversibility?

Answer 79

It is difficult for them to reverse an action mentally.

Question 80

What is centration?

Answer 80

Focusing (centring) on only one aspect of the situation, such as the height of the liquid

Question 81

What is animism?

Answer 81

Attributing lifelike qualities to physical objects and natural events

Question 82

What is egocentrism?

Answer 82

Difficulty in viewing the world from someone else’s perspective

Question 83

What is the concrete operational stage?

Answer 83

Can perform basic mental operations concerning problems that involve tangible (i.e. concrete) objects and situations.
From ages 7 to 12
They now grasp the concept of reversibility, display less centration and easily solve conversation problems that baffled them as pre-schoolers.
When concrete operational children confront problems that are hypothetical or require abstract reasoning, however, they often have difficulty or show rigid types of thinking. To demonstrate this, ask a few 9-year-olds ‘if you could have a third eye, where on your body would you put it?’ Then ask them to explain their reasons. Schaffer reports that they typically draw a face with a row of 3 eyes across it. their thinking is concrete, bound by the reality that eyes appear on the face, and their justifications often are unsophisticated (e.g. so I could see you better’). Many find the task silly because ‘Nobody has 3 eyes’.

Question 84

What is the formal operational stage?

Answer 84

Individuals are able to think logically and systematically about both concrete and abstract problems, form hypotheses and test them in a thoughtful way.
Begins aged 11 to 12 and increases through adolescence.
Children entering the stage of formal operations begin to think more flexibly when tackling hypothetical problems, such as brain-teasers, and may actually enjoy these kinds of challenges. For instance, Schaffer reports that 11 to 12-year-olds provide more creative answers and justifications in the third eye problem than 9-year-old concrete thinkers. One child placed the eye in the palm of his hand to ‘see around corners’, another placed it on top of his head so he could revolve the eye to look in all directions. Formal operational children often enjoy these tasks and ask for more.
More recently, Piaget’s argument that there is a qualitative shift into formal operation thinking has been challenged. Although most researchers are happy to accept that hypothetical thinking increases at this age, but most would not like to support the idea that there is a sudden shift after which children and adolescents suddenly think in a formal operational way. In fact, some now argue that the origins of hypothetical reasoning occur much earlier in life, and perhaps even in infancy

Question 85

What general findings do tests of Piaget’s theory yield?

Answer 85

1) The general cognitive abilities associated with Piaget’s four stages occur in the same order across cultures
2) Children acquire many cognitive skills and concepts at an earlier age than Piaget believed. Even 3.5 to 4.5 month-olds appear to have a basic grasp of object permanence when they are tested on special tasks that only require them to look at events rather than physically search for a hidden object. Also, simple modifications to Piaget’s tests of older children’s ability reveals logical abilities beyond the stae of development attributed to them by Piaget’s theory.
3) Cognitive development within each stage seems to proceed inconsistently. A child may perform at the pre-operational level on most tasks yet solve some tasks at a concrete operational level. This challenges the idea that stage-wise development is domain general
4) Culture influences cognitive development. Piaget’s Western perspective equated cognitive development with scientific-logical thinking, but ‘many cultures…’ consider cognitive development to be more relational, involving the thinking skills and processes to engage in successful interpersonal contexts’
5) Cognitive development is more complex and variable than Piaget proposed. Although all children progress from simpler to more sophisticated thinking, they do not all necessarily follow the same developmental path

Question 86

What is the violation-of-expectation experiment?

Answer 86

Because infants cannot express their knowledge in words, developmental psychologists have created some ingenious approaches - such as the violation-of-expectation experiment - to examine infants’ understanding of basic concepts. This approach assesses infants’ cognitive abilities by taking measures of their attention, in this case, the time they spend looking at a stimulus.
In these experiments, researchers start with the hypothesis that young infants possess a certain concept - an expectation - about how the world works. Infants would pay more attention to something that violates their world just as you would stare at a dropped pencil that suddenly stopped in mid-air.
These experiments suggest that infants possess basic concepts about the physical properties of objects, such that they continue to exist when out of sight, much earlier than is claimed by Piaget.

Question 87

What controversy surrounds the violation-of-expectation experiment/approach?

Answer 87

Researchers are making large inferences about what must be going on inside the infant’s head, on the basis of where their eyes. Indeed, there are some concerns that infants look longer at the ‘impossible’ outcomes because they appear more novel or in some cases more familiar, or because of a simple perceptual preference which has got nothing to do with the way the infant thinks about the physical event it has witnessed.
Even so, the weight of evidence in favour of early cognitive abilities is mounting, suggesting that even 2-month-olds understand more about how the physical world operates than was thought possible 2 decades ago.

Question 88

What is a social criticism of Piaget’s research?

Answer 88

That his studies of children’s development did not consider the social context in which the children were developing. A number of researchers in particular Margaret Donaldson, challenged his arguments and findings on these grounds

Question 89

What is a criticism of the tasks within Piaget’s studies?

Answer 89

McGarrigle and Donaldson argue that the tasks often lead children into making incorrect responses. Take conservation, for example. In the number conservation task the experimenter spreads out one row of counters and asks the child which has more. It is possible that 4-year-old children may be able to conserve number, but their ability may be masked by their immature understanding of the language which the experimenter is using, and a desire to respond in the way they think the experimenter wants them to. they tested this through changing the way the transformation was made, reasoning that if the transformation was made accidentally then the child would ignore the child would ignore the transformation and their true conservation abilities would be revealed. They found that 4-year-old children responded more accurately, suggesting that pre-operational children do have conservation abilities, but that the social contexts of Piaget’s original experiments were leading them into responding inaccurately.

Question 90

Why has Piaget’s conservation experiment remained controversial?

Answer 90

Some other researchers have pointed out that rather than helping children respond on the basis of what they know, the naughty teddy may actually be distracting children from the transformation so that they did not notice the change in one of the rows. Nonetheless, McGarrigle and Donaldson’s point is well taken. The social context of the experiments must be taken into account if we are to know what we are measuring when we place children in an experimental situation. Piaget certainly thought that the conservation experiment measures cognitive abilities, whereas McGarrigle and Donaldson argue that it measures children’s sensitivities to the social cues which the experimenter makes. It is thus vitally important for developmental psychologists to consider the ways in which children of different ages may interpret social cues in the context of an experiment

Question 91

What is Vygotsky’s approach to development?

Answer 91

Social factors. An approach to developmental psychology in which social context is considered at the core of development. Contrary to Piaget’s much more individualistic approach to explaining development, Vygotsky argued that development is driven by the interplay of biological development and sociocultural input. This interplay is very nicely captured in his concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD): the difference between what a child can do independently and what the child can do with assistance from adults or more advanced peers

Question 92

What is the concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD)?

Answer 92

The difference between what a child can do independently and what the child can do with assistance from adults or more advanced peers

Question 93

Why is the zone of proximal development (ZPD) important?

Answer 93

For one thing, it helps us recognise what children will be able to understand with help. If we consider cognitive development in a social context, this may be as important a measure of ability as a measure which examines what children can do on their own. Humans, especially children, usually attempt to solve problems with the collaboration of others. Secondly, the ZPD tells us what children may soon be able to do on their own, pointing us towards the appropriate direction to take when attempting to move a child’s cognitive development forward.
The ZPD has become an important consideration in educational methods.

Question 94

What is the limit of zone of proximal development (ZPD)?

Answer 94

It is clear that if parents talk to their young children as if they were intellectual equals, they might quickly confuse them.

Question 95

What did Vygotsky emphasise about the ‘tools’ which society give children to aid or contextualise their development?

Answer 95

One of the key tools is language. He noted that once language has progressed from being a simple means for communicating needs, young children often begin talking to themselves when undertaking tasks. He argued that this was a progression towards using language to structure their thought, and regulate the way they were going their task. He argued that by speaking to themselves in this way, children are able to monitor their success and failure, and direct themselves towards new goals. By the age of 7, these monologues become less apparent, but Vygotsky argues that they do not stop but rather become internalised as ‘inner speech’.
This emphasis on language as structuring cognition is alien to Piaget’s approach. Apart from early in his career, Piaget rarely mentioned language and viewed it as being largely being determined by an underlying cognitive ability. He put the use of monologues down to the egocentrism of children.

Question 96

In contrast to theories of cognitive development which argue for stage-wise shifts in ability, how do many other researchers view cognitive development?

Answer 96

As a continuous, gradual processing which the same set of information-processing abilities become more efficient over time. E.g. we might think that young children fail to solve Piaget’s tasks, not because they do not understand their logic, but rather because they are unable to hold enough pieces of information in memory simultaneously, or because they use different kinds of attentional (information-search) strategies than older children and adults.
Despite the rise in information-processing approaches to cognitive development, the discontinuity versus continuity debate is still far from resolved. Some psychologists propose that it involves both e.g. memory capabilities change qualitatively between infancy and age 7 but then undergo only gradual quantitative improvements through adolescence (Gathercole, 1998).

Question 97

What are the most important developments in information-processing abilities and strategies which take place during childhood?

Answer 97

• Information-search strategies
• Processing speed, attention and response inhibition
• Working memory and long-term memory
• Memory, language and metacognition

Question 98

What are information-search strategies?

Answer 98

Like a spot the difference. This task is easy for you but not for young children. Vurpillot (1968) recorded the eye movements of 3 to 10-year-olds during tasks like this. Preschoolers often failed to compare each window in the house on the right, but older children methodically scanned the houses, looking from window to window. In short, older children are better able to search systematically for relevant information

Question 99

What is processing speed, attention and response inhibition?

Answer 99

As Kail’s (1991) review of 72 studies shows, the speed with which children process information becomes faster with age. Processing speed improves continuously and that the relatively rapid rate of change, between ages 8 and about 12, slows during adolescence. Children’s attention span and ability to inhibit impulsive responses to distracting stimuli also improve with age. When performing tasks, older children are better able to focus their attention on relevant details and ignore irrelevant information

Question 100

What is working memory and long-term memory?

Answer 100

Our ability to retain information in the short and long term is vital to our ability to function in everyday life. Children’s working memory improves with age. If you read older children a list of words or numbers or sentences of increasing length, they will be able to store more of that information in working memory and repeat it to you than will younger children. older children can also retain and manipulate visuospatial information in working memory more effectively than younger children. E.g. they can perform mental-rotation tasks more easily than younger children.
older children are also more likely than younger children to use strategies to improve memory. More effective rehearsal helps older children to temporarily hold information in working memory for a greater period of time and to process information into long-term memory. Given their more advanced brain maturation, years of additional schooling and other life experiences, older children also can call upon a larger library of information stored in long-term memory when they need to solve problems or perform tasks

Question 101

What is memory, language and metacognition?

Answer 101

It certainly seems that children get better at remembering information as they grow older. From a biological perspective this can be explained by the increased myelination of neurons in the brain, a process which continues into adolescence. However, there are at least 2 other factors at play. Language helps children to structure their thoughts and also bestows verbal labels, and use of such verbal labels has been associated with better long-term retention of information. Another factor which drives memory development is the emergence of an ability to reflect on one’s own cognitive processes. Compared with younger children, older children can better judge how well they understand material for a test - they have better metamemory. In turn, this helps them decide whether they need to study more or ask for help.
An ability to reflect on the effectiveness of one’s own cognitive processes is clearly contingent on knowledge of one’s own thoughts - metacognition.

Question 102

What is metacognition?

Answer 102

An ability to reflect on cognitive processes such as memory

Question 103

What ways can we evaluate understanding mental states?

Answer 103

• Theory of mind and metacognition
• Understanding others’ false belief
• Understanding other people’s dispositions

Question 104

What is theory of mind (definition)?

Answer 104

A person’s beliefs about the ‘mind’ and the ability to understand mental states

Question 105

What is theory of mind and metacognition?

Answer 105

The term theory of mind refers to a person’s beliefs about the ‘mind’ and the ability to understand mental states; an understanding of others’ metal states and one’s own mental state. Gopnik and Astington (1988) present evidence that an ability to accurately remember and report one’s own state of mind develops between 3 and 4 years. The task which they devised to assess this ability was called the ‘Smarties’ task. An experimenter shows a child a box of smarties and asks them what they think is in the box, both 3 to 4 year olds guess smarties and when the experimenter opens the box to reveal pencils, they often express dismay. The test of metacognition comes in the next questions, however, when the experimenter asks the children ‘what did you think was in the box when i first showed it to you?;. At this point 4 year olds will typically answer correctly with smarties, but 3 year olds will often fail to reflect on their past state of mind and answer ‘pencils’

Question 106

What is understanding others’ false beliefs?

Answer 106

Most 2 and 3 year olds are unable to recognise that someone may not have the information they do. However, 4-year-olds, at some level, comprehend that someone’s mental state - their ‘mind’ - is different from theirs (Angela & chocolate bars).
Interestingly, research has shown that the presence of older siblings in the home environment can speed children’s progression from success to failure on false belief tasks.
Recent findings suggest that theory of mind may emerge even earlier. Onishi and Baillargeon, using the violation-of-expectation paradigm have shown that pre-linguistic 15-month-old infants appear surprised when someone searches successfully for an object when they should have had a false belief (because they were unable to see where an object was finally hidden). Such observations have fuelled speculation that we mat be genetically endowed with neural machinery dedicated to telling us about other people’s minds. Nevertheless, many researchers still believe than developments in conceptual understanding of mental states underpin the shift from failure to success in the false belief task

Question 107

What questions have emerged about false belief tasks?

Answer 107

There have been some questions raised about the false belief task. One important question concerns whether the change in children’s success at this task is due to developments in understanding other people’s minds or whether there is some other artefact driving success, such as children’s understanding of the question. Lying and deception also provide evidence of theory of mind. they imply an ability to recognise that one person can have information which another does not and therefore that we can influence what other people think by withholding the truth. Research finds that theory of mind evidenced in attempts at deception emerge earlier than is suggested by Wimmer and Perner’s false belief task. Most 3-year-olds are capable of trying to deceive someone else and recognise the difference between providing someone with false information in the form of a lie and false information due to an innocent mistake. perhaps lying and deception are better measures of theory of mind than false belief tasks

Question 108

What is understanding other people’s dispositions?

Answer 108

A more recent research focus has been on attempting to determine how infants and children come to understand other people’s roles and dispositions.It has been shown that children are more likely to learn a name given by the more truthful person. So young children not only notice whether people are telling the truth, but then use that information to decide who to base their trust on.
Hamlin, Wynn and Bloom (2007) examined the precursors to these kinds of social evaluations in pre-verbal infants. Interested in whether infants can discriminate helpers from hinderers, they showed infants a display involving an animated red circle who was trying to climb a hill (but failing). Infants then saw another shape helping the red circle by pushing it up (the yellow triangle). In another display, they saw a blue square pushing it back down the hill. The infants were then asked to pick between the yellow triangle and blue square and both age groups of children preferred to reach for the helper (with more recent research showing 3-month focus on the helper over hinderer).
However, researchers have questioned whether the infants’ behaviours really reflect these kinds of evaluations or more low level preferences

Question 109

What is adolescence?

Answer 109

The lengthy transition from childhood to adulthood

Question 110

What is puberty?

Answer 110

A period of rapid maturation in which the person becomes capable of sexual reproduction.

Question 111

How are adolescence and puberty difference?

Answer 111

These developmental periods overlap, but puberty is a biologically defined period, whereas adolescence is a more socially defined period.
However, this is not to say that these periods are unrelated. Adolescence is ushered in and out by changes in thinking, interests, social circumstances, and parental and societal expectations, but puberty may be an important factor in these changes. In research studies, 12 to 18-year-olds - give or take a year at each end - are typically considered to be adolescents, but it is essential to keep in mind that the transition into, through and out of adolescence may be gradual.

Question 112

When is young adulthood?

Answer 112

Approximately 20 to 40 years of age

Question 113

When is middle adulthood?

Answer 113

Roughly forties through to early sixties

Question 114

When is late adulthood?

Answer 114

Approximately 65+

Question 115

What does puberty do during adolescence?

Answer 115

It ushers in important bodily change as the brain’s hypothalamus signals the pituitary gland to increase its hormonal secretions. Pituitary hormones stimulate other glands, speeding up maturation of the primary sex characteristics (the sex organs involved in reproduction). Hormonal changes also produce secondary sex characteristics (non-reproductive physical features such as breasts in girls and facial hair in boys)

Question 116

What is the pubertal landmark in girls?

Answer 116

Menarche, the first menstrual flow.

Considerable variation occurs among people and cultures.

Question 117

What is the pubertal landmark in boys?

Answer 117

The production of sperm and the first ejaculation (spermache)
Considerable variation occurs among people and cultures.

Question 118

How do the physical changes of puberty have psychological consequences?

Answer 118

For one thing, hormones that steer puberty also can affect mood and behaviour. Reactions to puberty are also influences by whether is occurs early or late. Overall, early maturation tends to be associated with fewer negative outcomes for boys than for girls. Early-maturing boys are somewhat at heightened risk of engaging in delinquent behaviour and using drugs. However, the physical strength and size that they acquire often contribute to a positive body image, success in athletics and popularity among peers.
In contrast, although some early-maturing girls welcome their changes appearance, the more weight gain that comes with puberty results in a negative body image for others. Moreover, early maturation often exposes girls to greater social and sexual pressures from boys. Thus, compared with girls who mature later, early maturing girls typically feel more self conscious about their bodies and are more likely to eventually develop eating disorders, problems in school major depression and anxiety.

Question 119

What changes occur in the adolescent brain?

Answer 119

Compared with infancy and early childhood, overall brain growth slows from late childhood to adolescence. Still, ‘the adolescent brain is a brain in flux’, increasing the myelination of neuron, establishing neural connections while at the same time pruning away and losing a massive number of the over-abundant synaptic connections formed during earlier years of explosive brain growth. This insulating and streamlining of neural networks permits more efficient communication between brain regions

Question 120

What neural restructuring takes place in the adolescent brain?

Answer 120

Neural restructuring in especially prominent in the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system, regions that play a key role in planning and coordinating behaviours that satisfy motivational goals and emotional urges. Moreover, restructuring within the prefrontal cortex includes an upsurge in activity of dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in regulating emotional arousal, pleasure and reward, and learning. Psychologists are actively exploring how these brain changes provide a biological basis for the increase in drug use, risk taking, sensation seeking and aggression displayed by many adolescents.

Question 121

Where is peak physical and perceptual functioning reached?

Answer 121

In young adulthood. The legs, arms and other body parts typically reach maximum muscle strength at age 25 to 30. Vision, hearing, reaction time and coordination peak in the early mid-twenties

Question 122

What happens with physical development in middle adulthood?

Answer 122

Although many physical capacities decline in the mid-thirties, the changes are not noticeable until years later. After age 40, muscles become weaker and less flexible, particularly in people with sedentary habits. Basal metabolism, the rate at which the resting body converts food into energy, also slows, resulting in the tendency to gain weight. Middle age is also the time when many people find their visual acuity declining, especially for close viewing. Women’s fertility, which begins to decrease in early adulthood, now drops dramatically as the ovaries produce less oestrogen; this process culminates in menopause, the cessation of menstruation, which occurs on average around age 50. male fertility often persists throughout lifespan, although it tends to decline after middle age. Despite these declines, many middle-aged adults remain in excellent health and are vigorously active.

Question 123

What is basal metabolism?

Answer 123

The rate at which the resting body converts food into energy

Question 124

What is menopause?

Answer 124

The cessation of menstruation, which occurs on average around age 50.

Question 125

What happens with physical development in late adulthood?

Answer 125

By late adulthood, physical changes become more pronounced. By age 70, bones become more brittle and hardened ligaments make movements stiffer and slower. But with regular exercise and good nutrition, and barring major disease, many adults maintain physical vigour and an active lifestyle well into old age

Question 126

What happens within the adult brain?

Answer 126

During the earliest years of adulthood, the brain’s neural networks generally continue to become more efficiently integrated. But like other parts of the body, the brain declines later in adulthood. In longitudinal study, Resnik, Pham, Kraut, Zonderman and Davatzikos (2003) used magnetic resonance imaging to measure the loss of brain tissue among 92 men and women over a 4-year period. The pps were 59 to 85 years old and none of them exhibited abnormal cognitive impairments. On average, they lost tissue at a rate of 5.4% per year in the brain regions studied, with the frontal and parietal lobes showing the greatest loss. Pps who were very healthy experienced less tissue loss than those who experienced medical problems but this tissue loss is still normal as the brain ages.
More recent investigations of the ageing brain have focused on the effects of this kind of tissue loss on how the brain functions, with findings showing that declines in grey matter are associated with changes in the way brain regions communicate. As we get older we start using our brains in different ways

Question 127

What cognitive changes take place during adolescence regarding egocentrism?

Answer 127

Teenagers spend a lot of time thinking about themselves and their social circumstances. Such thinking, argues Elkind (1967), often reflects adolescent egocentrism, a self-absorbed and distorted view of one’s uniqueness and importance. Elkind proposes that adolescent egocentrism had 2 main parts. First, adolescents often overestimate the uniqueness of their feelings and experiences, which he calls the personal fable. Second, many adolescents feel that they are always ‘on stage’ and that ‘everybody’s going to notice’ how they look and what they do. He calls this oversensitivity to social evaluation the imaginary audience.

Question 128

What is adolescent egocentrism?

Answer 128

A self-absorbed and distorted view of one’s uniqueness and importance

Question 129

What is likely of adolescents who think more egocentrically?

Answer 129

They are somewhat more likely to engage in risky behaviours, due perhaps in part to a sense of invulnerability. At the same time, it is not clear that this self-consciousness truly reflects a thinking bias. Some theorists view teenagers’ greater self-reflection as a natural outgrowth o the search for individuality and realistic social consequences that teenagers face. They also suggest that young adults, overall, can be just as self absorbed as adolescents.

Question 130

What does recent research suggest about adolescent difficulties with their social environment?

Answer 130

A number of recent studies have indicated that social cognitive abilities continue to develop across adolescence and into adulthood. The ability to recognise facial emotions continues to develop through adolescence. Researchers have also observed protracted improvements across adolescence in the ability to reason about mental states (assessed through more complex versions of the mental state tasks). Because adolescent children complain less about taking part in studies of brain function, we are quickly acquiring evidence concerning the changes in the brain networks which underlie thee social cognitive skills in adolescence. There are changes in the brain networks which respond to faces as we get older. Interestingly, these changes continue well into adolescence

Question 131

How do abstract reasoning abilities increase substantially during adolescence?

Answer 131

Adolescents can more easily contemplate hypothetical issues, ranging from scientific problems to questions about social justice and the meaning of life. They reason more flexibly than children and use both the deductive and inductive problem-solving methods.
Continued improvements in information-processing capacities help abstract thinking to develop and foster better performance across a wide range of tasks. Although advancing more slowly than during childhood, the speed with which adolescents process information quickens, their working memory becomes more efficient, and they become better able to ignore distracting information, suppress irrelevant responses and stay focused on the task at hand. In one recent study, information-processing speed and visuospatial working-memory abilities began to approach adult-like levels by middle adolescence, and the ability to suppress task-irrelevant responses did so by late adolescence

Question 132

What changes with information processing in adulthood?

Answer 132

In general, information-processing abilities decline during adulthood, but the age at which they begin to decline can vary substantially. For example, perceptual speed (reaction time) begins to decline steadily in early adulthood, by some estimates as soon as one’s early twenties. As adults grow older, it takes them longer to visually identify and evaluate stimuli, such as when looking at two patterns of lines and deciding whether they are the same. But loss of perceptual speed may be the only part of the reason that older adults perform more slowly on such tasks. By late adulthood, people may process such information more conservatively, essentially trading off slower response times to gain greater accuracy in their judgements

Question 133

How does memory for factual information change in adulthood?

Answer 133

It declines. With increasing age, adults generally find it harder to remember new series of numbers, names and faces of new people, and map directions. On some tasks, such as recalling lists of unrelated words, performance worsens somewhat by the late 30s and then steadily declines after 50. Certain types of verbal memory, however, decline more slowly with age. Thus, the ability immediately to repeat meaningful sentences decreases more slowly than the ability to repeat single, unrelated words. Even in late adulthood, healthy adults so well in recognising familiar stimuli from long ago, such as the faces of high school flatmates

Question 134

What are the effects of ageing on prospective memory?

Answer 134

(prospective memory: The ability to remember to perform some action in the future) The effects are less clear. By late adulthood, people generally display poorer prospective memory than young adults in time-based laboratory tasks (e.g. remembering to push a button ever 15 mins). On event-based tasks (e.g. remembering to push a button when a light comes on), age differences are less consistent. Moreover, when tested outside the laboratory, older adults may perform as well as young adults, even when the tasks (e.g. simulated pill-taking) are time based. However, when older people remember that they are supposed to execute a task and something temporarily delays them from performing it, they will be less likely to remember to perform the task immediately after the delay ends.

Question 135

How do intellectual abilities change in adulthood?

Answer 135

The conclusion from early research seemed clear: after age 30, adults were over the hull. When IQ scores of different age groups were compared in cross-sectional studies, a noticeable decline began between ages 30 and 40.

Question 136

What is fluid intelligence?

Answer 136

Reflects the ability to perform mental operations (e.g. abstract and logical reasoning, solving spatial problems

Question 137

What is crystallised intelligence?

Answer 137

Reflects he accumulation of verbal skills and factual knowledge

Question 138

What has cross-sectional typically found about fluid and crystallised intelligence?

Answer 138

Typically found that fluid intelligence begins to decline steadily in early adulthood, whereas crystallised intelligence peaks during middle adulthood and then declines in late adulthood.
The older adults may have had less exposure to scientific problem-solving in school or jobs that required less use of abstract intellectual skills. Such factors could have depressed their scores artificially
Both the cross-sectional and longitudinal data, together with findings from other studies, indicate that fluid intellectual abilities typically begin to decline at an earlier age than crystallised intelligence

Question 139

Is the decline of cognitive abilities that accompanies ageing inevitable?

Answer 139

It seems not. We now know that there are a number of things we can do to stave off cognitive decline in later life. Studies on the effects of physical exercise show consistently large positive influences on cognitive performance in a wide range of different mental tasks. A good diet also plays an important role in slowing down cognitive decline, with some arguing in particular that the ‘Mediterranean diet’ (which consists of high plant intake and relatively low meat intake) results in better cognitive outcomes

Question 140

What is the ‘mental exercise hypothesis’?

Answer 140

To begin, consider that cognitive declines start to occur at different ages and rates for different people. For example, Schaie measired 5 major cognitive abilities. He found that people who have retained their levels of cognitive functioning for a longer time tended to have above-average education, were engaged in cognitively stimulating jobs and personal activities (e.g. reading, travelling), and married a spouse with greater intellectual abilities than their own. This and similar findings from other studies are consistent with the mental exercise hypothesis. However, we have to be careful when we infer cause and effect, as it could have been that retaining mental ability led the participants to stay in their jobs, and married to their more intellectually stimulating partners, and not the other way around

Question 141

Can older adults’ mental abilities be improved?

Answer 141

Yes, through providing them with cognitively stimulating experiences. In one study of 70 to 91-year-olds, pps’ performance at tasks requiring reasoning, visual attention and perceptual-motor speed improved significantly after 6 one-hour exposures to those tasks. In another study, Schaie and his co-workers found that 65 to 95-year-old adults’ spatial and reasoning abilities could be improved by teaching them strategies for performing such tasks. For many adults, this training restored their performance to the level it had been 14 years earlier. Moreover, compared with adults who did not receive training, the trained adults were on average still performing better 14 years later. Even playing video games that require fast reaction times seems to boost 70 and 80-year-olds’ cognitive abilities

Question 142

What can be concluded about mental exercise and the cognitive declines of ageing?

Answer 142

We can conclude that training confers a boot on abilities, but it is still possible that cognitive skills continue to decline just as fast. Critically examining other types of research as well, Salthouse (2006) believes that at present the mental exercise hypothesis is more a reflection of optimistic hope - a desire to feel that we can control how we age - than reality. Still, he recommends that we should seek out cognitively stimulating activities because they can still be enjoyable and because ‘there is no evidence that it has any harmful effects’. To this we add that even if research has not yet reliably shown that mental exercise changes rates of cognitive decline, the well-established finding that it can boost people’s absolute levels of cognitive skills is no trivial matter

Question 143

As we become older, do we become wiser?

Answer 143

Wisdom includes knowledge about human nature and social relationships, strategies for making decisions and handling conflict and an ability to manage uncertainty. To study the growth of wisdom, psychologists present people of different ages with hypothetical social problems or situations and ask them to provide solutions. Experts blind to the participants’ ages then use specific criteria to judge the wisdom of the participants’ answers.
Some findings suggest that wisdom rises steadily from age 13 to 25 and then remains relatively stable through to age 75. other studies, however, have found that adults in their seventies offer wiser solutions than young adults on some tasks.
To take a conservative position, it may be that from adolescence through to one’s mid-seventies, ‘older but wiser’ applies only up to a point, beyond which ‘older but just as wise’ is more appropriate as to stereotype them as ‘senile’

Question 144

What is dementia?

Answer 144

The gradual loss of cognitive abilities that accompanies abnormal brain deterioration and interferes with daily functioning. In people with dementia, an abnormal progressive degeneration of brain tissue occurs as a result of disease or injury

Question 145

What is senile dementia?

Answer 145

Dementia that begins after age 65

Question 146

What is Alzheimer’s disease (AD)?

Answer 146

A type of dementia which accounts for about 2/3 of senile dementia cases. Overall, about 5-7% of adults aged 65 years and older have AD, but this percentage increases substantially with age

Question 147

What are common causes of senile dementia?

Answer 147

AD, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s diease and Creutzfeldt-Jaokb disease, and complications from high blood pressure and stroke may also be causes

Question 148

What is one of the fist symptoms of dementia to appear?

Answer 148

Impaired memory, particularly for recent events.
Poor judgement, language problems and disorientation may appear gradually or sporadically, and people who develop dementia typically have episodes of distress because they feel confused. They behaviour may bcome uninhibited, they may lose the ability to perform familiar tasks, and they may experience significant physical decline in addition to cognitive impairments.

Question 149

What can being a caregiver for a spouse of elderly parent with dementia do? What do those with dementia usually display?

Answer 149

It is often a stressful and psychologically painful experience. More than half of the people diagnosed with senile dementia show combinations of depression, anxiet, agitation, paranoid reactions and disordered thinking that may resemble schizophrenia. Ultimately, they may not be able to walk, talk or recognise close friends and family members

Question 150

What is found in adults over the age of 65 who do not suffer from dementia?

Answer 150

20-25% do have mild cognitive impairment. Combining cases of mild impairment and dementia, some experts estimate that 79% of 65 to 74-year-olds and 45% of people age 85 and older remain ‘cognitively normal’. These statistics make is clear that even well into old age, cognitive impairment is not inevitable