W13 Cognitive Development Flashcards
What is a concept?
The mental representation we form of categories
What is a fuzzy category?
A fuzzy category is one that has unclear boundaries that can shift over time.
How are categories formed?
First it must be clear on how it is classified.
Second those features must be jointly sufficient for membership.
What is the most typical member of a category called?
A category prototype.
What is the source of typicality?
A) have the features that are frequent in the category.
B) Do not have features frequent in other categories.
What is a basic level of categorization?
Basic level of categorization is the simplest way of classifying.
What is the category hierarchy?
Superordinate, basic and subordinate.
What is prototype theory?
People have a summary representation of the category, a mental description meant to apply to the category.
What is exemplar theory?
A theory that means you have an example of something in a category, which you compare to identifies where others stand.
What is the knowledge approach?
The knowledge approach is comparing prior knowledge to similar concepts.
Psychological essentialism
The belief that members of a category have an unseen property that causes them to be in the category and to have the properties associated with it.
What is cognitive development?
Cognitive development refers to the improvement of thinking.
What are the different theories of cognitive development?
Sociocultural theories, information processing theories, Piaget’s theory
What are sociocultural theories?
Emphasizes how other people and the attitudes, values, and beliefs of the surrounding culture influence children’s development.
What is Piaget’s theory?
Theory that development occurs through a sequence of discontinuous stages: the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages.
What is information processing theories?
Theories that focus on describing the cognitive processes that underlie thinking at one age and cognitive growth over time.
Outline the stages of Piaget’s theory
Sensorimotor stage: Infants learning through their environment and perception.
Preoperational stage: Children engage in language development but struggle with logical reasoning.
Concrete operational stage: Elementary-age children begin to understand concrete concepts and improve problem-solving abilities.
Formal operational stage: Adolescents and adults develop abstract thinking.
How does nature and nurture work together to produce cognitive development?
Interactions and attention and care.
Interactions: Children’s genes mean different treatment from other people.
Attention and care: more attractiveness and easygoingness mean more care.
What is discontinuous development?
Discontinuous development is when learning happens in distinct stages and changes will happen following the stages. This involves qualitative changes
What is phonemic awareness and give an example
Awareness of component sound within words. Teaching these skills lead to better readers years later. For example, Mathematical board games like chutes and ladders given to children improve mathematical knowledge.
What is continuous development?
Continuous development is when learning gradually unfolds over time. This involves quantitative changes (gradual, incremental change)
What is autism?
Autism is defined by profound difficulties in social interactions and communication combined with repetitive or restricted interests, cognitions and behaviors.
What is the social brain?
Activated during social interactions.
What are symptoms of autism?
Difficulties in social functioning like eye contact, and complex behaviors like navigating the give and take of a group conversation for individuals of all functioning levels.
What is the function of the amygdala?
The amygdala helps us to recognize the emotional states of others and to experience and regulate our own emotions.
What does the social brain consist of?
Amygdala, the orbital frontal cortex (OFC), fusiform gyrus (FG) and the posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) region.
What is the function of the OFC?
The OFC supports the ‘reward’ feelings we have when we are around other people.
What is the function of the FG?
The FG detects faces and supports facial recognition.
What is the function of the posterior STS region?
The posterior STS region recognizes biological motions like eye, hand and other body movements, and helps us to interpret and predict the actions and intentions of others.
What are some brain measuring devices?
fMRI and ERP
Functions of the fMRI and ERP
fMRI provides information about where brain activity occurs (excellent spatial), ERP specifies when brain activity occurs (excellent temporal)
How early are the signs of autism prevalent?
Autistic children tend to show decreased attention and decreased recognition to faces because of decreased activity in the FG.
