Psychology Cognition and Development

Question 1

What are mirror neurons?

Answer 1

Neurons that activate in the brain when we observe something such as an action and we imagine imitating it.

Question 2

Who accidentally discovered mirror neurons?

Answer 2

Rizzolatti et al - Studying brain and neural activity of monkeys. They found that in the cortex of a monkey there was neuron activity for doing an action even though the monkey wasnt doing the action but was rather observing and imitating another monkey performing that same action.

Question 3

What is Imitation?

Answer 3

Imitation is where we are able to develop our social cognition by observing the actions of others and learning how to perform that task. Lhermite et al found that Yawning caused imitation in others to yawn aswell.

Question 4

What is needed to imitate behaviour?

Answer 4

Intention and ability to carry out the behaviour.

Question 5

What is perspective taking and Theory Of Mind in how it links to mirror neurons?

Answer 5

Gallese and Goldman found that Mirror neurons are part of our mind reading ability such as theory of mind. Mirror neurons are the mechanism for understanding another persons perspective and it shows how we develop cognitively such as building empathy

Question 6

How are mirror neurons unique in humans?

Answer 6

We have the most cognitively advanced mirror neurons.

Question 7

A03 EVALUATION FOR MIRROR NEURONS?

Answer 7

Research support for mirror neurons found in epilepsy patients brain activity
Gender differences - research shows women have stronger and more responsive mirror neurons
Research shows that autism causes an inhibited mirror neuron system
Mirror neurons are not as complex and are as a result of experience
nature nurture

Question 8

What is Selmans theory in perspective taking?

Answer 8

Researched childrens reasoning in certain tasks by observing how they answer perspective taking questions. Perspective taking is how we view ourselves in another persons life and being able to understand why they may be different.

Question 9

What are the stages of Selmans theory?

Answer 9

• Undifferentiated Perspective taking (3-6Yr) Can understand other perspectives however is mostly governed by their own
• Social informational perspective taking (6-8Yr) Aware of other perspectives but assumes others have different information
• Self reflective perspective taking (8-10Yr) Can view thoughts and feelings from other perspectives and realising others can do the same
• Mutual Perspective Taking (10-12Yr) Can imagine a situation involving 2 people and view it as if you are a 3rd person
• Societal Perspective Taking (12-15Yr) Decisions are made with reference to other situations

Question 10

AO3 FOR SELMANS THEORY IN SOCIAL COGNITION

Answer 10

Research support for stages - Selmans own research found boys got progressively smarter in their perspective taking and social cognition

Research support for the role of experience - Fitzgerald and white found that children grew in social cognition when they were asked to take another persons perspective which included social experience

Better to suggest a correlation rather than a cause - social experiences are the cause of better perspective taking

Real world application - Selmans theory has applications to mental health therapies and is used in schools to aid development

Question 11

What is Theory Of Mind?

Answer 11

The ability that we have to mind read and understand what other people are thinking. This is seen in toddlers with intentional reasoning and can be tested using the eyes task

Question 12

How did Meltzoff measure basic ToM in toddlers?

Answer 12

If adults tried to place beads in a jar but failed the toddlers were able to use ToM to finish the action the adult was trying to finish. This shows basic ToM in young children

Question 13

What is the false belief task seen by Perner to test basic ToM?

Answer 13

Children were told a story where Maxi left something in a blue cupboard and later it was placed by maxis mother in a green cupboard.

The 3 year olds thought Maxi would look for the chocolate in the green cupboard (lacks advanced ToM)
4 year olds were able to identify where Maxi would look for the chocolate in the blue cupboard (shows development of advanced ToM)

Question 14

What is the Sally Anne Study?

Answer 14

Introduced by Simon Baron Cohen (Borat’s cousin) which involved 2 dolls which would be a story of where Sally would look for her marble when it is moved by Anne from the basket to the box. If children chose the incorrect answer it would indicate lack of ToM and if it was answered correctly it would indicate advanced ToM

Question 15

How is ToM tested in adults and older children (Eyes Task)?

Answer 15

Baron Cohen developed a more challenging ToM task to adults where adults had to read emotions around the area of the eyes. Baron Cohen found that adults with aspergers syndrome struggled with the eyes task

Question 16

What is Autism and what are the symptoms?

Answer 16

Autism is a disorder that affects perspective taking and ToM. This affects how they are able to evaluate actions, emotions of others, world perception, friendships, change and complex meanings and behaviour.

Question 17

What is the evaluation for ToM?

Answer 17

Low validity of false belief tasks as the studies may be too complicated and children may struggle with false belief tasks.

Hard to distinguish ToM from perspective taking - Measures of ToM may be alternative explanations to perspective taking which limits validity

Partial explanation for ASD - ToM research has helped us understand how autistic people may experience the world including the advantages and disadvantages (CAN LINK TO REAL LIFE APPLICATION)

Ethical Issues of studying children and socially sensitive for those with autism
Matched pairs design ensured individual differences did not affect the study

No clear evidence of how ToM develops
Low validity of eyes task

Question 18

What are Schemas?

Answer 18

Mental framework on different aspects of the world

Question 19

What is assimilation?

Answer 19

Applying Schemas to other situations

Question 20

What is Accomodation?

Answer 20

Adapting to a new situation by rapidly changing your schema

Question 21

What is equilibration?

Answer 21

Mental state of calm due to an existing schema in a new situation

Question 22

What is disequilibrium?

Answer 22

Stress due to lack of schema in new situation

Question 23

What are the stages of intellectual development shown by Piaget?

Answer 23

Sensorimotor Stage 0-2 Yrs - Object permanence where you know an object exists without seeing it is developed within this stage

Pre operational 2-7 Yrs - Development of egocentrism (understanding different POV, class inclusion (categorisation) and conservation (understanding objects are the same even if they look different)

Concrete Operational 7-11 Yrs - Improvement in reasoning abilities however still cant understand abstract ideas

Formal Operations 11+ - formal reasoning

Question 24

What are the key studies associated with Piaget stages of intellectual development?

Answer 24

3 mountains study (Egocentrism) where 7-8 Yr olds were able to understand the dolls perspective when looking at a certain angle from the mountain compared to under 4 Yr olds who could not understand this

Beaker/Counter study (conservation) Beaker had different appearances but same amount of water whilst the counters were the same but different shapes. Concrete operational children were able to understand it was the same despite the appearance.

Cats/dogs/farm animals (class inclusion)

Question 25

A03 Evaluation for Piaget?

Answer 25

Cultural Bias (Western)
Small Sample (hard to generalise)
Piaget is supporting his own theory and using desirable PPTs
individual differences of children where some may have higher abilities
population validity
ecological validity
experiment is controlled and reliable (No EV and is repeatable)
Investigator effects
Observer Bias
Ignores the nurture side of development

Question 26

What is Scaffolding?

Answer 26

Help and guidance provided by another more knowledgeable person to improve a childs cognitive abilities

Question 27

What is ZPD?

Answer 27

Zone of Proximal development - What we can do with the help of a more knowledgable adult to be able to perform a task without any assistance.

Question 28

What is Inner Speech?

Answer 28

Children use the environment and interactions to develop inner speech to solve problems

Question 29

Vygotsky Theory AO3?

Answer 29

Demonstrates importance of interaction in learning
Real life application which leads to increased knowledge in children due to adopting Vygotskys theory in teaching
Doesnt focus on developments in stages

Question 30

What are the stages of Scaffolding?

Answer 30

Recruitment - Engaging with the child
Reduction of degrees of freedom - focusing child on how to solve the task
direction maintenance - encourage child in order to help them stay motivated
Making critical features - highlighting more important parts of the task
Demonstration - Showing a child how to do the task

Question 31

Vygotsky Study Support

Answer 31

Support for scaffolding - Connor and Croos found that children aged 16 months to 54 months found that mothers gave less intervention and more hints as the child would gain experience and offered help when needed more than constantly.

Support for ZPD - Roazzi and Bryant found that 4-5 Yr olds estimated sweets in a box with an older child. Any child that worked alone found it harder to make an estimation compared to when they had an older child with them.

Question 32

Vygotsky Theory A03

Answer 32

Lacks cultural bias
Focused on Nurture
Research support for zpd and scaffolding

Question 33

What is Baillargeons explanation of early infant abilities?

Answer 33

Babies may not be able to learn or do certain things as they are not physically capable e.g. they may understand object permanence its just that they do not have the physical capacity for understanding object permanence.

Question 34

What is violation of expectation (VOE) and what is the research

Answer 34

Method in which infants were able to understand an object can not move past an occupied space
Baillargeon found that infants spent longer time looking at an impossible event (object through occupied space) due to expectations on behaviour of physical objects (could also use the tall rabbit in the window study)

Question 35

What is Baillargeons theory of infant physical reasoning?

Answer 35

Humans are born with a basic understanding of the physical world which becomes more sophisticated through experience such as how an object keeps its structure through object persistence. Then children start to understand occlusion as part of object permanence.

Question 36

AO3 supporting evidence for Baillargeon?

Answer 36

Rolling carrot task - tall and short carrot rolled past a screened window
Drawbridge experiment - drawbridge blocked or not blocked which created the impossible event

Question 37

A03 Eval for Baillargeon?

Answer 37

Used opportunity sampling which was convenient but not reliable
lab experiments which meant it was controlled however it lacked validity
used observations by using a video camera to record (inter observer reliability)
Ethical issues (informed consent/deception
Hard to guess infant behaviour
Takes nature approach (doesn’t focus on environment)