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UMass Dev Psych > Memory + Conceptual Development > Flashcards

Memory + Conceptual Development Flashcards

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1
Q

Concepts

A

General ideas that organize objects, events, qualities, or relations on the basis of some similarity
- infinite ways in which an object or even can be similar (shape, material, function, etc)
- help us understand the world and act effectively in it by allowing us to generalize from prior experience

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2
Q

N&N + Concepts

A

children’s concepts reflect the interaction between their specific experiences and their biological predispositions to process info in particular ways

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3
Q

Active Child + Concepts

A

from infancy onward, many of children’s concepts reflect their active attempts to make sense of the world

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4
Q

How Change Occurs + Concepts

A

Researchers who study conceptual dev attempt to understand not only what concepts children form but also the processes by which they form them

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5
Q

Sociocultural Context + Concepts

A

The concepts we form are influenced by the society we live in

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6
Q

Nativists + Concepts

A

Believe that an innate understanding of basic concepts plays a central role in development
- Infants are born w/ some sense of fundamental concepts (time, space, number, causality, + human mind) or w/ specialized learning mechanisms that allow them to acquire a rudimentary understanding of these concepts quickly
- NURTURE helps move this along but NATURE forms this

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7
Q

Empiricists + Concepts

A

Nature endows infants w/ only general learning mechanisms (ability to perceive, attend, associate, generalize, + remember)
- Rapid and universal formation of fundamental concepts arises from infants’ massive exposure to experiences that are relevant to these concepts

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8
Q

How children divide innumerable objects

A

3 categories: inanimate objects, people, and other animals
- forming these broad divisions is important because different types of concepts apply to different types of objects (+ draw inferences)

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9
Q

Category hierarchies

A

A category that is organized by the set-subset relations (EX: animal/dog/poodle)
- they get finer and finer

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10
Q

Quinn and Eimas (1996)

A
  • Found that when 3-4 mos were shown pics of cats, they habituated to the general category of cats (they looked at novel cat pics less and less)
  • But when shown a dog, lion, or other animal, they dishabituated (looking time increased)
  • THUS, they knew all the cats were a part of the same category but the new animal wasn’t
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11
Q

Behl-Chadha (1996)

A

Found that 6mos habituated after repeatedly being shown pics of different mammals (dogs, zebra, elephants, etc) and then dishabituated when shown a pic of a bird or fish
- infants perceived similarities among the mammals that led to their loss of interest and perceived differences between mammals and the bird/fish

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12
Q

Perceptual categorization

A

The grouping together of objects that have somewhat similar appearances
- infants often categorize largely based on specific parts of an object rather than on the object as a whole!

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13
Q

At what age do children categorize objects based on their overall shape?

A

During their 2nd year, children categorize objects on the basis of their overall shape

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13
Q

Subordinate Level

A

The most specific level within a category hierarchy (EX: poodle in animal/dog/poodle)

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14
Q

Superordinate Level

A

The general level within a category hierarchy (EX: animal in animal/dog/poodle)
- fewer consistent characteristics

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15
Q

Basic Level

A

The middle level and often the first learned within a category hierarchy (EX: the dog in animal/dog/poodle)
- has consistent characteristics

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16
Q

How do children go on to form superordinate and subordinate categories?

A

Parents and others use the child’s basic level categorization as a foundation for explaining more specific and general categories/characteristics.
EX: furniture –> includes chairs, tables, etc, and are in a home
EX: beluga is a kind of whale

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17
Q

Contact in supporting a box

A
  • at 5mo, infants appreciate the relevance of the type of contact involved in supporting a box
  • for moving and stationary objects
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18
Q

Understanding of casual relations

A
  • 5mo look longer at an object that travels more slowly as it rolls down a slope than at one that picks up speed as it descends
  • development of casual relations continues after infancy = children actively seek knowledge about causes + helps in the formation of categories
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19
Q

Impact of cause-and-effect relationships

A
  • helps children learn and remember
    EX: wugs vs gillies and how the children who were given the “why” of the characteristics of these creatures helped them remember them and they could categorize them
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20
Q

Naive psychology

A

a commonsense level of understanding of other people and oneself
(desire, belief, and action)

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21
Q

Emergence of self-consciousness

A
  • infants seem to be born with an implicit self-consciousness = a rudimentary understanding that they are separate from other people and can act in ways that accomplish their goals
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22
Q

Understanding other people

A
  • imitate other people and form emotional bonds with others encourages ppl to engage with infants, thus creating more opportunities for the infants to acquire psychological understanding = these interactions help infants learn about ppl in general and differences between individuals
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23
Q

Hinderer vs Helper

A
  • infants shown a cartoon of a ball trying to get to the top of a hill with a cube and pyramid
  • Infants looked longer when the ball approached the cube that had hindered its progress, indicating not only their understanding of the intentions of the objects but also their surprise that the ball seemed to prefer the “hinderer” to the “helper”
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24
Q

Understanding individual differences between ppl

A
  • infants more likely to choose food offered by a speaker of their language than another language
  • also more likely to hold a toy that was held by someone who speaks their language
  • will take a cracker by a nice puppet rather than 2 crackers by a mean puppet
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25
Q

Development of a theory of mind

A

children build on their early-emerging psychological understanding to develop an understanding of differences and similarities between their own and other people’s thinking

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26
Q

theory of mind

A

an organized understanding of how mental processes (intentions, desires, beliefs, etc) influence behavior
- important = understanding the connection between other ppl’s desires and their actions emerges by the end of the 1st year

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27
Q

False-belief problems

A

tasks that test a child’s understanding that other people will act in accord w/ their own beliefs even when the child knows that those beliefs are incorrect
- EX: smarties box with pencils inside (younger kids will think other kids will say there’s pencils in it, but older kids say others will think smarties are inside)

28
Q

Theory of Mind Module (TOMM)

A

a hypothesized brain mechanism devoted to understanding other human beings
- advocates argue that among typical children exposed to a typical env, the TOMM matures over the first 5 yrs, producing a sophisticated understanding of ppl’s minds (nature)
- Others argue against TOMM and think learning from experience w/ physical situations + other ppl is better for development of TOMM (nurture)

29
Q

Children w/ ASD

A
  • has difficulty managing false-belief problems
  • deficits in planning, adapting to changing situations, TOM, and controlling working memory
30
Q

The connection between general info-processing skills and understanding ppl’s minds

A

Emphasize the growth of general info-processing skills as essential to understanding other ppl’s minds
= Children’s understanding of false-belief problems is substantially correlated with their ability to reason about complex counterfactual statements + their ability to inhibit their own behavioral propensities

31
Q

Play

A
  • how children learn about other ppl’s thinking
  • refers to activities that are pursued for their own sake, w/ no motivation other than enjoyment
    (EX: banging spoons on tables, throwing food on ground repeatedly)
32
Q

Pretend Play

A

make-believe activities in which children create new symbolic relations, acting as if they were ina situation different from their actual one
- emerges between 12+18 mos

33
Q

Object Substitution

A

A form of pretense in which an object is used as something other than itself
EX: using a broom to represent a horse

34
Q

Sociodramatic Play

A

Activities in which children enact miniature dramas w/ others, such as “mother comforting baby” or “doctor helping sick patient”
- parent or older sibling can scaffold the play to be more enriching and complex

35
Q

Importance of Pretend Play

A

Expands child’s understanding of the social world
- social pretend play is strongly related to understanding other ppl’s thinking compared to nonsocial play
- preschoolers learn from watching others play

36
Q

Interest in Living Things

A

-Begins because they see living things around them and name them (dog, cat, bird)
- By 4-5 yrs, they start to gain knowledge of growth, healing, illness, etc
- However, they fail to understand the reasons for the creation of things (nonliving vs living) as well as what’s living vs not living

37
Q

Distinguishing living from nonliving things

A

9mo pay more attention to rabbits than inanimate objects
- within their first year, start to distinguish between living and nonliving things + react to them
- around 5-6 yrs, kids deny that people are animals
- kids who grow up in rural areas realize plants are living things at younger ages than kids from cities or the suburbs

38
Q

Understanding Biological Processes (Inheritance)

A
  • 3-4 yr olds know that physical characteristics tend to be passed down from parent to offspring
  • older preschoolers also know that certain aspects of dev. are determined by hereditary rather than environment
39
Q

Essentialism

A

The view that living things have an essence inside them that makes them what they are

40
Q

Growth, illness, and healing

A
  • preschoolers realize that growth is a product of internal processes + growth of living things proceeds in one direction (small to large)
  • aware of how illness operates and germs
  • know that plants and animals have internal processes that often allow them to regain prior states or attributes (a tomato plant that’s scratched can heal, cutting hair of pet will grow back)
41
Q

Nativitis view of acquiring biological knowledge

A
  1. during earlier periods of our evolution, it was crucial for human survival that children learn about animals and plants
  2. children throughout the world are fascinated by plants and animals and learn about them quickly
  3. children throughout the world organize info about plants and animals in very similar ways (i.e. growth, reproduction, inheritance, illness, + healing)
42
Q

Empiricists’ Views on Acquiring Biological Knowledge

A
  • children learn through parents, teachers, and personal observations/culture
  • Parents reading to kids about plants leads the kids to ask questions about their function and properties
43
Q

Casuality

A
  • David Hume thought casual connections unite discrete events into coherent wholes
  • Children rely heavily on their understanding of casual mechanisms to infer why physical and psychological events occur
    EX: taking apart toys
  • Nativists think infants have an innate casual module that allows them to extract casual relations from the events they observe
  • Empiricists think infants’ casual understanding arises from their observations of events in the environment + of their actions
44
Q

Casual Reasoning in Infancy

A
  • by 6mo, infants perceive casual connections among some physical events
  • Experiment of “blicket detector” where 19+24mos had the box play music with A and B cups attached. A cup removed and box stopped playing music, so older kids believed that B cup was responsible for music, whereas 19mos thought cup A determined the music
45
Q

Casual Reasoning in Preschoolers

A
  • they seem to expect that if a variable causes an effect, it should do so consistently
  • When inconsistency occurs, they believe an invisible variable causes the effect
46
Q

Magic + Imaginative Thinking

A
  • Their sense of magic and reality are more intertwined than adults
  • Once they learn more about real causes, though, the more children know about the true causes of events
  • Social influence as well that diminishes one’s belief in magic
47
Q

Space (Nativist)

A

Argue that children possess an innate module that is specialized for representing and learning about space and that processes spatial info separately from other types of info

48
Q

Representing space relative to oneself

A

From early infancy, children code the locations of objs in relation to their own bodies

49
Q

Space (empiricists)

A

Argue that children acquire spatial representations through the same type of learning mechanisms and experiences as those that produce cognitive growth in general
- that children adaptively combine numerous types of spatial and nonspatial info to reach their goals w/ experience being a driving force

50
Q

Egocentric spatial representation

A

the locations of objects are coded relative to the infants’ position at the time of the coding
- isn’t absolute

51
Q

Self locomotion

A
  • major factor in helping infants acquire a sense of space independent of their own location
  • crawling infants have more memory for the locations of objects on the object permanence task compared to infants w/o locomotor experience
  • enhances older children’s spatial coding
  • kids who play with puzzles between their 1st and 4th bday were more successful on spatial info tasks
52
Q

Representing spatial relations in the external environment

A
  • for infants to use landmarks to code the location of objects, they must be very OBVIOUS in the environment and must be located right next to the hidden object
  • children have trouble forming a spatial representation when they move around in an environment w/o distinctive landmarks
53
Q

Vision + Spatial Learning (Blindness)

A
  • the assumption that spatial learning is associated with vision
  • spatial representations, however, can be based on senses other than vision
  • blind kids are still good at sensing space without ever seeing the world
54
Q

Time

A

Basic sense of time involves knowledge of temporal order (knowing what happened first, then next etc)
- infants know the order in which events occur from as early as the capability can be effectively measured
EX: 3mo given a series of pics first on their left, then right, then left again, etc, + w/in 20 seconds, they looked at each side that the pic was on even before the pic was presented = this looking pattern indicated that 3mo detected the repetitive order of events over time and used the info to form expectations

55
Q

At what age does a child’s sense of future time develop?

A

Between 5 and 6, which is probably influenced by their experience in kindergarten classrooms where the cycle of seasons, holidays, and daily routines are emphasized

56
Q

Illusions of Time

A

When 8 yr olds attention is focused on the passage of time, they perceive the duration as longer than the same interval when they are not anticipating a prize
- when they have little to do, they perceive the duration as longer than when they are very busy

57
Q

Reasoning about Time

A
  • During middle childhood, children become increasingly proficient at reasoning about time
  • they’re able to infer that if two events started at the same time, but one event ended later than the other, then the event that ended later lasted longer
58
Q

Numbers (Nativists)

A
  • argue that children are born with a core concept of numbers that includes special mechanisms for representing and learning about the relative numbers of objects in sets, counting, and +/-
59
Q

What brain areas are involved in numbers?

A

The intraparietal sulcus and other specific brain regions are heavily involved in representing numerical magnitudes
- specific neurons respond most strongly when particular numbers of objects are displayed

60
Q

Numbers (Empiricists)

A
  • argue that children learn about numbers through the same types of experiences and learning mechanisms that help them acquire other concepts
  • also that infants’ numerical competence is not as great as nativists claim
61
Q

Numerical equality

A

The idea that all sets of N objects have something in common
- newborns have a sense of this in a nonlinguistic sense

62
Q

Discrimination among numbers

A
  • this becomes increasingly more precise during the first year and beyond
  • by 6mos, infants discriminate between sets with 2:1 ratios but they can’t between sets of 3:2 ratios
63
Q

Infant Arithmetic

A
  • can perform approximate arithmetic on these representations
  • 4-5mos dishabituate when it appears (through trickery) that adding 1 or 2 objects to an initial set of 1 or 2 objs has produced more or fewer objs than the correct number
64
Q

Experiment w/ doll for Infant Arithmetic

A
  • 5mo sees a doll on a stage, and a screen comes up to hide the doll from the infant.
  • The infant sees a second doll being placed behind the screen, and the same hand emerges from behind the screen without the doll, thus seeming to have left the 2nd doll with the first.
  • Screen drops down and reveals either one or two dolls
  • Most 5mos look longer when there is only 1 doll, suggesting they expected 2
65
Q

Counting

A
  • many children begin to count verbally at 2yrs old, but their initial understanding of what they’re doing is limited
  • Learning the meaning of the counting words at first occurs number by number
  • toddlers assoc. the word “one” with 1 object, which continues each month later for the other numbers = they mean different quantities
66
Q

5 principles underlying counting

A
  1. one-one correspondence = each obj must be labeled by a single number word
  2. stable order = the numbers should always be recieted in the same order
  3. cardinality = the number of objs in the set correspond to the last number stated
  4. order irrelevance = objs can be counted left to right, right to left, or in any other order
  5. abstraction = any set of discrete objs or events can be counted
67
Q

Piaget’s assumptions about infants

A
  • thought infants possess only a general, undifferentiated concept of magnitude, and lack specific concepts of space, time, and number
  • research now has shown that infants CAN distinguish among size, duration, and number
68
Q

Lourenco and Longo (2010) experiment

A
  • 9mos have a general sense of magnitude that extends to space, time, and number
  • found that infants dishabituated when the decoration that had accompanied the larger size stimulus now accompanied the stimulus that was smaller on another dimension, but NOT when the decoration accompanied the stimulus that was larger on that other dimension

UMass Dev Psych (6 decks)

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