Psych 354 Midterm Flashcards
Three categories of epistemology
Empiricism- learning through experience
Nativism- born with knowledge inside us (adaptation, evolution)
Constructivism- knowledge doesn’t pre exist, we must create it with activity
Name some of the challenges of developmental research
- consent
- limited attention span
- generalizing; sociocultural
- researcher bias
- kids act diff in a lab
- deprivation
- kids behaving diff depending on the person
What is “physics envy”?
Biology wishing to be as mathematical and straight forward as physics
What does phylogenic and ontogenic mean?
Phylogenetic= evolutionary Ontogenic= developmental
Three components of conceptual analysis
1) clarifying grammar and meaning of concepts
2) exposing a limitation or problem in the model
3) revealing unacknowledged assumptions
What is nominal fallacy?
Thinking you’ve explained a concept by identifying it
Imprinting
Developing attachment thru natural social interaction
What are metatheoretical assumptions?
Unacknowledged philosophical assumptions upon which theories are based
Two “world views” of metatheoretical assumption?
1- individualistic (split; individual minds)
2- relational (systems; social processes)
Probabilistic VS predetermined epigenisis
Predetermined is that genetic information creates the path of development, where probabilistic means that genetic info and the environment work together and effect each other
Talk about Piaget and his work
First psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development; detailed observational studies of children, he developed simple/clever tests to check abilities
He always felt misunderstood; considered himself a genetic epistemologist not a developmental psychologist
Describes Piaget’s theory of stages
Sensorimotor- infants gain knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects
Pre operational- learn through pretend play and have difficulties with logic and perspective
Concrete operational- better at logic but struggle with abstract thinking, and ideas are very rigid
Formal operational- more logic, deductive reasoning, understanding abstract ideas
Piaget’s theory of equilibration
A child balancing between assimilation (putting new knowledge into existing schemas) and accommodation (changing old schemes) to allow them to go forward in the stages
What are the 4 factors of development that Piaget found most important?
1- maturation (biological)
2- experience (physical knowledge and properties of objects)
3- social experience
4- equilibration
Describe Piaget’s constructivism
Developing knowledge thru action (not innate or copied!!!)
Children are active in constructing new knowledge not passive
Six substages of Piaget’s sensorimotor development
Stage 1- reflexes (0-1 mos)
Stage 2- primary circular reactions (1-4 mos)
Stage 3- secondary circular reactions (4-8 mos)
Stage 4- coordinating schemes (8-12 mos)
Stage 5- third circular reactions (12-18 mos)
Stage 6- mental combos (18-24 mos)
A not B error test
Kids check the place where they put an object, not where they see someone else move it because of their incomplete understanding of object permanence. Overcome when child can resist the urge to repeat their action.
3 words that describe Piaget’s theories
Constructivist, structuralist, formalist
Describe Baillargeon’s critique of Piaget’s objective permanence theory
Thought that Piaget underestimated children; they can do better with a simpler test. Used looking time paradigm and found signs of object permanence at 3.5 mos instead of 10 mos.
Describe pre-operational thought
Can represent absent objects (not tied to here and now) and can use symbols
Describe concrete operational thought
Pass conservation tests but constricted to reasoning about actual objects
Baillargeon’s Drawbridge methodology
Hypothesis that infant will be surprised by the “impossible” event and look longer at it
Critique of Drawbridge methodology
Interpretation of looking time- just shows that babies notice a difference
Tests perceptual abilities, not conceptual
Habituation shouldn’t be necessary
Rich interpretations
Criticism of Piaget
Horizontal decalage=inconsistency in stages of reasoning (ex: conservation of substance, weight and volume all at diff ages) and it shouldn’t be like that because it’s the same concept though Piaget claims this is EXPECTED
What are procedural decalages in Piaget’s theories and how to avoid them
Inconsistency in reasoning on diff versions of the same task
Advice: tasks should be simplified to eliminate performance factors so competence can be measured more accurately
Describe the difference between formalist and functionalist. Which was Piaget?
Piaget was a formalist.
Formalist=descriptive stages, approx age, experience dependant
Functionalist= also a cognitivist, discontinuous development but consistency with jumps in between
Describe Vygotsky’s theories of child development
Focus on SOCIAL factors of development (contrasts with individualistic approaches); co-constructivism instead of constructivism of Piaget, The Genetic (Developmental) Method and Sociogenesis
Describe the genetic (developmental) method and it’s 3 domains
1- evolutionary (phylogenetic): the evolution of the human species, necessary but not sufficient
2- sociocultural history: development of cultural practices like literacy
3- ontogenetic individual development
Describe elementary vs higher mental functions (Vygotsky)
Elementary mental functions: come from natural or evolutionary line of development
Higher mental functions: come from historical or cultural line of development
Internalization (Vygotsky)
It’s not a transferral of external activity to a pre-existing/internal plane of consciousness, it’s the process of forming the internal plane
Thinking constituted socially, not just social influence on thinking like the social learning theory
Zone of proximal development (Vygotsky)
Difference between actual (what a child can do by themselves) development and potential (what they can do with help of an adult or advanced peer) development
Scaffolding (Vygotsky)
Help tailored to the child’s individual needs
What are the three types of egocentric speech? (Vygotsky)
1- repetition (repeating for fun)
2- monologue (talking to themselves, usually in short broken sentences)
3- collective monologue (between a few people, close to each other and speaking about what they are doing but not necessary in conversation)
What is the developmental sequence of speech?
1- social speech
2- egocentric/private speech
3- inner speech/verbal thought
What is the function of speech other than communication? (Vygotsky)
Regulating others and self
How did Piaget feel about Vygotsky’s hypothesis about egocentric speech?
Piaget agreed, saying that egocentric speech is the starting point in development of inner speech
Problems with Vygotsky’s ideas?
Viewing other cultures as inferior (but not for racial reasons) EUROCENTRISM
Didn’t really mention evolution or the natural line of development
Early social understanding: what are the two types of interactions?
Dyadic interaction- between parent and baby or baby and object
Triadic interaction- between self, other and the world; shared engagement
What is social referencing?
A baby looks at other peoples reaction to guide their own response
Describe joint attention
First- gaze following
After- pointing (to ask for something, to direct attention, to inform, to ask questions)
Two parts=initiating joint attention by pointing/showing and responding to joint attention (following gaze or point)
Why is joint attention important?
- required for LANGUAGE and CULTURE (social and language learning)
- DIVIDING LINE between humans and APES
- could diagnose AUTISM later
Define joint attention
Two people experiencing the same thing at the same time and knowing together that they are doing this (tomasello)
Issues with “gaze following”
- hard to interpret
- we don’t know if it’s just simultaneous looking or on-looking
- shared by many other species
Do chimps point?
Tomasello orginally said no but he now admits that they can learn to point in captivity (but it’s not the same as human pointing because lack of shared intentionality)
Two lines of development in shared intentionality
1- general primate line (cognitive capacities)
2- human unique line (motivation to share psychological states)
Describe the rich/lean debate in infant pointing
Lean interpretation= BEHAVIOURAL understanding; infants do it before they understand it
Rich interpretations= MENTALISTIC understanding, infants can understand others as agents of intention
Describe Tomasello’s Insight Model
Infants recognize that others have minds and point to manipulate their mental states Nativistic explanation (innate)=rich
Problems with lean accounts (of pointing)
not enough social experience to grasp the concept of the individual mind yet
Problems with rich accounts (of pointing)
- analogical argument
- neonatal imitation (only tongue protrusion reliably matched)
- presupposes self/other distinction
Profs issue with all the pointing theories?
How do infants know that pointing is the action to direct attention ???
What is the main period of interest for infant pointing?
8-13 mos
What are the four theories for how pointing develops and who created them?
Tomasello- pointing is social to begin with
Carpendale- pointing starts for Individual purposes but becomes social over time
Vygotsky- unsuccessful grasping
Buttersworth- species typical gesture (but communicative use depends on social context and pointing can be accomplished by other actions depending on the culture)
Tomasello believed pointing is social to begin with. What are the 2 ways that pointing develops in his opinion?
1- ontogenetic ritualization (social shaping like the arms up gesture to be picked up)
2- understanding others as intentional agents
Tomasello’s account of pointing individualistic or social?
Individualistic- they have to experience mental states first before they can use their experience to stimulate mental states of others
Describe simulation
Adults can reflect on our own experience and reason by analogy (although it might not be our typical way of understanding others, developmental outcome)
2 philosophical assumptions of starting point of the mind (carpendale)
1- individualistic approach (child applies self-knowledge to others to bridge the gap between them and them self)
2- relational approach (social process of interactivity is the starting point and they slowly learn how to differentiate the social environment and the physical environment)
Measurement model vs membership model (chapman)
Measurement model=indicator that best measures the underlying competence
Membership model=understanding as a skill, many indicators, gradual process that leads to complete understanding
How should development of pointing be studied?
Tomasello, etc only studied infants who already point
Need to study infants before pointing
Use multiple methods
Quick/rare instances of pointing are important
Disadvantage of cross-sectional designs across large samples
Eliminates noise, but noise could actually be important developmental info
Advantages of diary studies
1- gives info about developmental pathways
2- possible to observe rare situations or transitional moments that could give info about course of development
3- info about parent kid interaction
Carpendale’s beliefs on pointing
1- first, non communicative gesture
2- infants learn how others respond to their pointing
3- infants master the social uses of pointing
Tomasello’s view on carpendale’s idea of pointing
He says Carp’s view is individualistic (kid points for his own reasons) but he is misunderstanding bc carp believes the PROCESS is SOCIAL
What are the three essential characteristics of speech?
1- reference
2- displacement (referring to something present or not present)
3- creativity/productivity (coming up with new words/combos, not just repetition)
Describe vervet monkey speech
They have alarm calls for diff animals
Describe ground squirrel speech
They have alarm calls like the vervet monkeys and they also can distinguish between individual humans and squirrels
Describe bee speech
Round dance- dancing in circles to give instructions on how to get to sources close to the hive
Waggle dance- same but for far sources (distance in relation to the sun)
What was chomsky’s opinion on animals having language
Only humans have language even though humans and chimps share most of their DNA
Describe the 1st round in the “chimp language wars”
1st- young orangutan named Viki, only leaned 4 words
2nd- kelloggs raised a chimp named gua with their son (no speech production but comprehension similar to the baby’s)
3rd- gardeners raised washoe like a baby, could do 350 signs, used creative combos for words he didn’t know
4th- koko the gorilla, sign language, knew 1000 signs and understood 2000, creative combos
5th- terrace raised nim chimsky, clever hans effect
What are the three criticisms of Nim Chimsky’s speech? (Terrace)
1- only did requests
2- not spontaneous and very imitative
3- very redundant (repeated same thing many times until he got what he wanted)
2nd round of the chimp language wars
Focus was on COMPREHENSION and PRODUCTION thru symbols called LEXIGRAMS
Kanzi the Bonobo
Describe the experiment done on Kanzi and the 2 year old child
Compared the child and the bonobo on their understanding of 660 new sentences to them
Gave them commands
Kanzi did better than Ali
Can’t be imitation because there’s nothing to imitate
CONCLUSION: Present day apes have capacity for a simple language system which means our common ancestors were capable of symbolic communication
What are Noam Chomsky’s and Steven Pinker’s critical responses to Kanzi’s language abilities?
Chomsky: biological miracle that a species wouldn’t use a useful ability that they have until a researcher taught them…
Pinker: Kanzi’s language abilities are just slightly better than his common cousins so not impressive
How do chimps and bonobos communicate in the wild?
Tomasello says their language is dyadic not Triadic (just between them and another) and it’s learned thru ritualization (social shaping) not imitating
Why is semantics and syntax not enough to understand/produce language?
You need pragmatics to understand hidden meanings (sarcasm, irony, etc)
What is the message/code model and it’s problems?
Speaker encodes a message and the listener decodes it
Problems: we speak in directly, and non literally (sarcasm metaphor irony)
What is the Augustinian view of language and meaning? (Aka common sense view)
Word has a meaning, meaning correlated with the word, meaning is the object for which the word stands
Child can think in the language of thought before she learns to talk
What is the Augustinian view of language learning?
Associative learning account
- child sees adult naming objects and moving towards them
- child realizes that certain objects are signified by a certain sound
- child uses words to express desires
Problems with the Augustinian view of language
Words as names for things/labels
That’s only part of a language, how about words that aren’t associated with objects like hello?
Same word can mean diff things
What’s Wittgenstein’s theory of language acquisition?
Doesn’t have one; merely challenges the Augustinian account by asserting a diff view of meaning in language
Language learning (in Wittgenstein’s opinion?)
Based on learning natural “language games”
Words are like tools and have diff uses
Indexicality
Pointing to something with meaning assumed
