topic 11: cognition and development

Question 1

outline the theory put forward by Piaget

Answer 1

‘theory of cognitive development’ based on schema

1. assimilation: child builds a theory
2. equilibrium: everything around them fits that theory
3. disequilibrium: something happens that doesn’t align with the theory
4. accommodation: schema changes to incorporate new thing/new schema are created

maturational model of child development, invariant

saw same age kids made same mistakes on intelligence tests and said kids think differently at different ages
said kids were born with the mechanisms in place to promote schema development

stages of intellectual development
1. sensorimotor (0-2)
2. pre operational (2-7)
3. concrete operational (7-11)
4. formal operational (11+)

Question 2

explain the sensorimotor stage of Piaget’s staged Theory of Cognitive Development

Answer 2

0-2
object permanence develops
evidence:
Piaget took a toy away from baby and saw when they tried to search for it
said object permanence developed at 8 months
other researchers disagreed because babies can’t rlly mobilise like that so recreated it just looking for babies to be surprised with toy disappearing
found object permanence at 1 month

Question 3

explain the pre-operational stage of Piaget’s staged Theory of Cognitive Development

Answer 3

2-7
egocentrism: 3 mountains task
child shown a landscape and asked to point to picture showing it from dolls POV

class inclusions: show 5 cows sitting and 4 cows standing
are there more cows sitting down or cows in these pictures? they’d say cows sitting down

conservation: basic maths understanding that quantity is constant even with object appearance changes
liquid conservation procedure: piaget found that placing containers side by side, with same height contents, kids said same but if poured into taller nd thinner that one would have more :o

Question 4

explain the concrete operational stage of Piaget’s staged Theory of Cognitive Development

Answer 4

7-11
piaget found that these kids can conserve and perform much better on egocentrism and class inclusion
but these kids now have better reasoning abilities, which piaget called ‘operations’
these are strictly concrete operations aka can only be applied to physical objects in the childs presence

Question 5

explain the formal operations stage of Piaget’s staged Theory of Cognitive Development

Answer 5

11+
able to use abstract thought and do logic problems
eg. follow a rule
bricks break glass so what happens if u hit a glass with a brick; it breaks

feathers break glass so what happens if u hit a glass with a feather, it breaks

Question 6

evaluate Piaget’s stages of intellectual development

Answer 6

– demand characteristics in conservation
Piaget would ask before and after the change, making the kids think that they were meant to think it changed, because why else ask?
McGarrigle and Donaldson set up a no. conservation exp. control: did the standard Piaget task where counters moved and most 4-6 year olds were wrong
repeated with a ‘naughty teddy’ who appeared and knocked counters closer, 62% number didnt change

– concerns on Piagets conclusions about class inclusion
piaget said that pre-operational kids couldnt understand class inclusion, but when Siegler and Svetina repeated this study they found the opposite
tested 100 5 year olds from Slovenia, who each undertook 10 class-inclusion tasks and then were given an explanation
in A: must be more animals than dogs becuase there were 9 animals but 6 dogs vs B: true explanation
group B’s scored improved

– Piaget’s egocentrism task lacked validity
Hughes used a model with 2 intersecting walls, 2 police and 1 boy, once familiarised, kids as little as 3.5 could put the boy where he wouldnt be seen by 1 officer 90% and 90% of 4 could do it with 2 officers

– Piagets theory doesnt align with autism
he believed that intellectual dev. was a single process and that all elements of cognition dev. at once (egoocentrism, language, reasoning)
bur research with kids with ASD shows these aspects may develop seperately; some are v egocentric but have normal reasoning and language vs others struggle with langaueg and egocentrism

— social and cultural

Question 7

outline Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development

Answer 7

he placed social interaction and language at the centre of development

proposed the child as apprentice who has to develop the tools of the culture

external speech leads to egocentric speech —> inner speech/thought

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) - conceptualises where a child currently stands in terms of their cognitive development and the ‘zones’ they must cross to reach the limits of their potential

said children needed a More Knowledgable Other (MKO) in the form of a tutor (parent, teacher, sibling) to guide and assist them alongside thrown discovery learning

evidence support from others:
studied 4-5yo’s who were tested on estimation abilities, 1/2 were alone and 1/2 worked with a 10yo(MKO)
group 2 was more successful

Question 8

outline scaffolding

Answer 8

Vygotsky said it was how you got across the the Zone of Proximal Development

it is helpful, structured interactions between an expert and a learner with the aim of helping the learner to reach a specific goal
support is removed gradually as the learners understanding is developed
modelling —> verbal instructions —> prompts —> gestures

a researcher said it should: engage learners interest, establish learners focus and get them started, ensure learner is motivated and encouraged to persevere

evidence
longitudinal study observing kids engaging in problem solving tasks with mothers
ages: 16mo, 2, 3.5, 4.5
result: as kids got older, mothers offered less interventions

Question 9

what did Vygotsky say about cultural variation and what evidence supports this

Answer 9

cultures can widely vary in the institutions and settings they offer to facilitate a child’s development and so when assessing development, cultural variation must be considered
eg. papua new guinea has a counting system from thumb to thumb across the back, up to 29
this can make adding and subtracting larger numbers difficult, limiting mathematical capabilities culturally

a researcher:
wanted to see if different cultures perceived picture differently
gave p’s in african tribes or pictures and asked questions about them

Question 10

outline Baillargeon’s work

Answer 10

she believed that children are born with an existing, primitive awareness of the world’s physical properties which she called a Physical Reasoning System (PRS)

she created the paradigm method of assessing a child’s understanding of an object’s physical properties: Violation Of Expectation (VOE)

1. infant is presented with a new stimulus which is shown until they have been habituated with the stimulus
2. infants are then shown 2 new stimuli, similar to the previous stimuli
   one is a possible event, one is an impossible event
   they found that infants looked at the impossible event for significantly longer

possible: 25.11s
impossible: 33.07s

Question 11

evaluate Baillargeon’s theory

Answer 11

– the PRS is consistent with what we know about other infant abilities
testing Baillargeon’s idea that there’s an innate PRS that dev. w/ age is v hard
but the PRS is consistent with other infant cognition research
eg. distance perception; infants use crude patterns to judge distsnce from an early age, but experience is needed to use subtle texture diff.

– infants can’t communicate
inferences have to be made about the explanation of the behaviour
surprise is being operationalised as the length of time the baby looks at the VOE for (bc of what we would do), but it could just be that they prefer the VOE etc.

– lack of cross-cultural evidence
Baillargeon did studies solely in America so we don’t know for sure whether or not it is universal

+ VOE is now a widely-used technique in research on object permanence/persistence which means that Baillargeon’s theory is reliable
+ double blind design
the observers didn’t know if the infant was reacting to the normal or VOE, so observer bias was prevented, increasing validity

Question 12

outline the theory out forward by Selman

Answer 12

perspective-taking: the ability to understand a social situation from the perspective of someone else

he argued that as general cognitive ability develops, the child is able to better understand the world around them

Question 13

outline Selman’s study and findings

Answer 13

studied 4,5+6yo, 20 of each and developed his theory
Holly gets hurt falling from a tree and promises her Dad she won’t climb trees, but then a friend’s kitten is stuck in a tree and only holly can climb the tree and save the kitten
He asked the kids: Should Holly climb the tree to save the kitten?

he later developed it further:
- interpersonal understanding (what he measured in his other research)
- interpersonal negotiation strategies
- awareness of personal meaning of relationships (social dev. needs you to reflect on social beh. in the context of life history and full rel. range)

Selman’s levels of perspective taking

0. socially egocentric (3-6)
   can’t differentiate between their emotions and others’
1. social information role-taking (6-8)
   kids can tell the diff. between POV’s, but can usually only see from one POV
2. self-reflective role-taking (8-10)
   kid can put themselves in another’s POV and fully appreciate it, but can only do 1 at a time
3. mutual role-taking (10-12)
   kid can integrate two POV’s simultaneously
4. social and conventional system role-taking (12-15)
   understand that understanding others’ POV’s isnt always enough to agree and so we need social convention

Question 14

evaluate Selman’s theory on perspective taking

Answer 14

+ it helps to understand atypical development seen in disorders like ADHD and autism as kids with these can struggle to another POV

+ practical applications
it can help with conflict resolution for kids; use perspective taking to reduce aggression by getting them to empathise with feelings and views of others

– it only focuses on the cognitive aspect of social cognition; other things like genetic, social and emotional factors can influence: like what abt empathy and emotion, he makes it all about understanding

– its difficult to operationalise variables like perspective-taking, social competence and empathy so the theory may not be v reliable

Question 15

outline Theory of Mind (ToM)

Answer 15

thought to be developed fully by age 3-4
understanding that people may have different thoughts, feeling, ideas or knowledge to ones own and understanding what could be in the mind of that person

Question 16

how was Theory of Mind (ToM) studied

Answer 16

false beliefs where someone has a false belief bc something changed and They don’t know; does the kid realise that

maxi left choc in blue but mum moves it to green
3 year olds said look in green vs 4 said blue

Sally Anne task
sally puts marble in basket, then anne moves it to the box when sally is gone
Baron-Cohen tested ToM in autistic and Down’s kids
autistic: verbal mental age 5.5yrs
Down’s: VMA 3yrs
typical: VMA 4.5yrs
asked name of each doll , where the marble actually is and where it was at the start: 100% accuracy from everyone

where would sally look?
Down’s 85%
typical 85%
autism 20%

Question 17

evaluate Theory of Mind as an explanation for social cognition

Answer 17

– validity issues: its hard to seperate ToM and perspective taking
ToM (ability to recognise mental states in others) and perspective-taking seem to be closely related cognitive abilities
many of measures for ToM could just be measuring perspective-taking
eg. responses to the Sally-Anne task could be just bc the kid took Sally’s persp. and although ToM distinguishes between autistic and not, persp. taking do the same
if same then it has limited usefulness

– low validity
Sally-Anne dolls aren’t alive and so can’t see, think etc. so false beliefs shouldn’t be attributed to dolls
+ but when replicated with actors, the results were the same
there are kids that aren’t able to do false belief tasks, but can still engage in imaginary play which need TOM to put themselves n another place and imagine their feeling, ideas and thoughts

+ major application is ASD understanding
widely agreed that autistic ppl have more difficulty than others on age-appr. ToM tests; the research has helped us see the diff exp. of neurotyp vs spectrum
– its only partial; ASD has other characteristics like cog. strengths, superior visual att. highly systematic reasoning,,, cant be easily explained by ToM

— no understanding on how it develops
some say it’s with age and is innate vs some say we internalise it after interactions —> can’t get treatments

Question 18

outline mirror neurones and how may they be involved in cognitive development

Answer 18

ASD broken mirror; kids imitate adult behaviour less with ASD

Rizzolotti et al. discovered them accidentally by fMRI studying brain activity of macaque monkeys
he found neurones in the motor cortex of monkeys activated just from watching a researcher crack open a nut themselves

theyre also involved in emotions; research has found that they can be activated when observing emotions in other people, found very slow communication between mirror neurones in autistic people

gallese and goldman suggested that mirror neurones dont just respond to observed actions, but to the intentions behind beh. they said that we simulate others actions in our motor system and experience their intentions via mirror neurones

some suggest theyre used with ToM and perpsective taking; if they fire in rsponse to other’s actions and intentions, it could give us a mechanism for experiencing and so, understanding others’ perspectives + emos

Ramachandran said mirror neurones are so imp. that they effectively shaped human evolution; humans have uniquely complex interactions, that need a brain system that allows understanding of intent, emo and persp. w/out this we couldnt live in large groups with complex social rules+roles in human culture

Question 19

evaluate mirror neurones and their link to social cognition (+ development)

Answer 19

– evidence for abnormal mirror neurone function is mixed
Hadijkhani reviewed evidence linking ASD with a lack of mirror neuron function and found some support
struct. brain scans have shown less average thickness of the pars opercularis when autistic and also less activity in mirror neurone areas
but theres a lack of consistency in replication and so, results are mixed
‘broken mirror theory’ has credibility bc of ASD signs and supposed role of mirror neurones, but theres a lack of reliable, supportive evidence

+ their role in social cognition development has been demonstrated using many well-controlled experiments
eg. Haan used EEG’s on autistic ppl and found unusually slow communication between mirror neurons

+ understanding their role in autism could help the development of interventions and strategies to help autistic people deal with the triad of impairments
– Hickock said that mirror neurones may not even exist, we know what they do but we cant identify any individual cells and point out how they differ from other neurones, but others like Mukamel do belive that there are isolated mirror neurones

– mirror neurone activity is being inferred
there’s no scientific way to currently isolate specific mirror neurones; fMRI scans show activity of oxygenated blood in the brain but what is causing that activity has not been proved conclusively
and its unethical to directly insert electrodes into the human brain and measure activty on a cellular level

Question 20

what is the triad of impairments

Answer 20

• communication
• social interaction
• imagination

Question 21

evaluate Vygotskys theory

Answer 21

+ it has had far-reaching influence on how kids learn in school; shown via teaching assistants and personalised learning programmes, designed to scaffold the kids learning and navigate their personal ZPD

+ considered the child using social and cultural contexts so his theory has good external validity

— individual differences
similar to piaget, vygotsky assumed that learning processes are largely the same in all kids but some kids learn better alone
personality and info processing style can largely influence what sort of activities and help works for different kids
some didn’t have better understanding of slope objects after discussion (Howe)

+ support for ZPD
told 4-5yr old kids to estimate no. sweets in a box, alone most failed, but the group with the help of an older child mostly succeeded
shows that kids can develop additional reasoning abilities when working with MKO and so, says ZPD is a valid concept

Question 22

evaluate Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

Answer 22

+ evidence to support children forming individual mental representations via discovery
said that kids with similar learning experiences will form quite diff. individual mental representation: Howe put kids 9-12 in groups of 4 to study and discuss movement of objects down a slope and after discussion they increase their K+U, But came to diff. conc and picked up diff. facts

+ educational applications
pre-piaget, classrooms had kids sitting silently and copying down notes vs now kids actively engage in tasks so that they can construct their own understandings

– Piaget might have underplayed the role of other people in learning
he didn’t say kids learnt best alone; he said adults and peers were imp. info sources in discovery learning but they weren’t the main focus of his theory and he focused on learning in terms of the individuals’ mind
vs Vygotsky who said it was a social process, if it is and language is imp. then piaget is invalidated

– he might of overplayed the importance of equilibration
Piaget saw learning as a very motivated process, where kids learn so they can equilibrate since disequilibrium is so unpleasant. but kids vary a lot in curiosity and Piaget studied mainly kids from his uni nurses and so it was a biased sample of clever middle-class children

Question 23

what is the difference between theory of mind, and perspective taking

Answer 23

ToM: the ability to not only understand that people have different beliefs, motivations, knowledge and moods but also understand how that affects their actions and behaviour and our own

Perspective taking: our ability to relate to others and perceive someone else’s thoughts, feelings, and motivations
it refers to our ability to empathise with others and see things from their perspective

ToM is a necessary component of perspective taking

Question 24

Piaget cognitive vs intellectual

Answer 24

cognitive: equilibrium
intellectual: ages, sensorimotor

Question 25

how is perspective taking studied

Answer 25

interpersonal dilemmas

Question 26

how is ToM studied

Answer 26

sally-anne
eyes
false belief

Question 27

outline Baillargeon’s explanation of early infant abilities

Answer 27

said that kids in the sensorimotor stage have a better understanding of the physical world than Piaget suggested because his methods caused him to underestimate abilities
VOE: showed short rabbit vs tall passing window, impossible had invisible tall
suggested an innate PRS which is the basic ability to process the concept of the physical world and the awareness gets more sophisticated and with age

Question 28

outline ‘other’ characteristics of autism

Answer 28

cognitive strengths
superior visual attention
highly systematic reasoning