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PSC 140 > Theories of Cognitive Development > Flashcards

Theories of Cognitive Development Flashcards

1
Q

How does Piaget’s theory characterize cognitive development? In this theory, how is the distinction between continuity vs. discontinuity characterized?

A
  • learning is an active process of construction rather than a passive assimilation of info or rote memorization
  • mechanisms of change are continuous, but thought undergoes qualitative change (discontinuity)
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2
Q

assimilation

A

using or transforming the environment so that it. can be placed in preexisting cognitive structures

-taking info that is compatible with what one already knows

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3
Q

accommodation

A

adjusting cognitive structures in order to accept something from the environment

-changing existing knowledge based on new knowledge

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4
Q

adaptation involves two sub-processes

A
  • adaptation

- accommodation

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5
Q

equilibrium

A

the process by which children reorganize their schemes and, in the process, move to the next developmental stage

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6
Q

Piaget’s 4 stages of development?

A
  1. sensorimotor
  2. preoperational
  3. concrete operational
  4. formal operational
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7
Q

Sensorimotor Stage

A
  • birth to 2
  • infants progresses from simple reflex actions in response to environment which result in wider variety of responses to the outside world and gradually become symbolic processing
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8
Q

What is the major achievement of the sensorimotor stage?

A

symbolic representation …infants have purely mental representations

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9
Q

∗What is object permanence and how does it inform development?

A

The understanding, acquired in infancy, that objects exist independently of oneself

-infants do not have full understanding of object permanence

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10
Q

What is the A-not B error?

A

babies reach for an object at the first location A, not the second location B

-shows infants’ limited understanding go objects

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11
Q

When do infants begin to use symbols?*

A

18 months

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12
Q

Preoperational Stage

A
  • 2 to 7

- children first use symbols to represent objects and events

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13
Q

What are the major achievements during the preoperational stage?

A

development of language, numbers, pretend play

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14
Q

What are the limitations in thinking during the preoperational stage?

A

egocentrism, animism, centration

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15
Q

What are conservation tasks? Why can a child in the preoperational stage not pass it?

A

preoperational children believe that the tall, thin glass has more liquid, an error reflecting the centered thought that is common in children at this stage

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16
Q

What are the primary achievements of the Concrete Operations Stage?

A
  • mental operations (operational thought): + & - reversibly, logical, engage in deductive reasoning about familiar and concrete things
  • conservation
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17
Q

What is acquired that would allow children in the concrete operational stage to pass the conservation task? What is the primary limitation of this stage?

A
  • children are able to reverse their thinking (reversible mental operations)
  • limitation: can’t think abstractly and hypothetically
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18
Q

What is the final achievement of the Formal Operations stage

A

abstract operational thought: think hypothetically and reason deductively

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19
Q

What are the primary criticisms of Piaget’s theory?

A
  • underestimated young children’s abilities
  • overestimated adolescent’s competence
  • children’s thinking more variable than described
  • neglected role of social world
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20
Q

What factors did Piaget fail to consider?

A
  • theory is vague concerning mechanisms of change
  • does not account for variability in children’s performance
  • undervalues the influence of the sociocultural environment on cognitive development
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21
Q

How does Vygotsky’s theory characterize cognitive development?

A
  • cognitive development occurs in and is influenced by a socio-cultural context
  • most of children’s cognitive skills evolve from social interactions with parents, teachers, etc.
  • children are products of their culture
22
Q

What is the focus of a socio-cultural perspective?

A

cultural influences

23
Q

intersubjectivity

A

mutual, shared understanding among people who are participating in an activity together

24
Q

zone of proximal development …how does it relate to Piaget’s principles?

A

the difference btw what children can do with assistance and what they can do alone

25
Q

scaffolding

A

a teaching style in which adults adjust the amount of assistance that they offer, based on the learner’s needs

26
Q

What have cross-cultural studies taught us about parents’ scaffolding?*How does it relate to Piaget’s principles?

A

-parents worldwide try to simplify learning tasks for their children, but they methods they use to scaffold learning vary across cultures

27
Q

private speech

A

comments that are not intended for other bu that help children regulate their own behavior

28
Q

What is the role of language in Vygotsky’s theory? What is the development of language usage according to Vygotsky?

A

language is an intermediate step toward self-regulation of cognitive skills

29
Q

guided participation

A

structured interactions between a child and another more knowledgable person; they are thought to promote cognitive growth

30
Q

How does Information-Processing Theory characterize cognitive development?

A

a view that human cognition consists of mental hardware and mental software

  • components of cognition are the same across the life span
  • continuous development, no aged defined stages
  • increases in efficiency of the system
31
Q

What is the flow of information processing based on this model?

A

sensory information (large capacity, very brief) —>

working memory (limited capacity, rehearsal important) —->

long term memory ( unlimited capacity, permanent, access & retrieval important) =

= central executive (directs all activity, monitors all activity)

32
Q

What changes during childhood? (name each of the relevant factors and explain how an increase in eachof them would produce a change in information processing)

A
  • working memory capacity
  • speed of processing
  • increased process automaticity
  • more effective executive functioning
  • strategies
33
Q

Is development continuous or discontinuous based on the Information-processing theory?

A

continuous

34
Q

executive function…how do we test it

A
  • inhibitory control (dimensional card sorting task)
  • shifting (flexibility)
  • updating (working memory)
35
Q

How do core-knowledge theories characterize cognitive development?

A

infants are born with rudimentary knowledge of the world that is elaborated based on children’s experiences

-primitive knowledge preserved through evolution

36
Q

What do babies have naïve theories about?

A

physics, biology, psychology

37
Q

What do babies know about properties of objects, according to core-knowledge theorists? (remember the experiments discussed in class such as drawbridge experiment and solid/liquid experimentin the textbook). Are there alternative explanations?

A
  • that objects move continuously on a path, not magically moving from one spot to another
  • objects are solid
  • that objects cannot “pass through” each other
  • that one object must contact another to cause movement
  • objects exist independently
38
Q

What do babies know about biological principles and living objects?*

A
  • movement
  • growth
  • internal parts
  • inheritance
  • illness
  • healing
39
Q

essentialism

A

the belief that all living things have an underlying essence that cannot be seen but that gives a living thing its identity

40
Q

teleological explanation

A

belief that living things and parts of living things exist for a purpose

41
Q

How do children understand people?

A

j

42
Q

Do infants have the capacity to understand intentions? Describe Woodward’s experiment that examined this.What could be an alternative explanation and how did they modify the experiment to test it? What did they find?

A
  • babies behave is way that is consistent with an early discrimination of goals/ intentions
  • babies pay attention to goal violations
  • babies look longer at the new goal (reach for the new toy) regardless of location
  • only if the agent is human
43
Q

Do children respond to others’ desires? What is the developmental progress of children’s understandingof others’ desires?

A
  • desires are mental states motivated by … physiological states, emotions
  • connections btw desire and action
44
Q

theory of mind

A
  • 2 to 5
  • an intuitive understanding of the connections among thoughts, beliefs, intentions, and behavior

-develops rapidly in the preschool years

45
Q

when and how does theory of mind develop?

A

people can have different desires

  • people can have different beliefs
  • different experiences can lead to different states of knowledge
  • behavior is based on a person’s beliefs about events and situations, even when those beliefs are wrong
  • people may feel one emotion but show another
46
Q

false belief task…how is it used to examine theory of mind ?

A

reveals children’s understanding that another person’s actions are often based on their beliefs, even when those beliefs are wrong

47
Q

approaches differ in?

A
  • the role of innate structures and what those innate structures are
  • whether development is driven by general purpose mechanisms or domain-specific mechanisms
  • continuity vs discontinuity
48
Q

core-knowledge theories (different from other theories by..

A

competence is evolutionarily relevant domains

49
Q

egocentrism

A

refers to young children’s difficulty in seeing the world from another’s viewpoint

50
Q

animism

A

children sometimes credit inanimate objects with life and lifelike properties

51
Q

centration

A

focusing attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others (narrow thought)

PSC 140 (17 decks)

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