Week 5 Flashcards
Piagets general Assumptions
- Stage theory of development
- Domain-general mechanism
- Children as active agents
- Constructivist approach
Stage Theroy
Cognition develops through a series of distinct stages
-stages are invariant (same stages for all), universally experiences (everyone goes through all 4)
-children may go through stages at different speeds
Domain general
All cognitive abilities are linked
Children as Active Agents
-Children constantly seek out stimulation in their environment
-children are curious and responsible for their own development
Constructivist Approach
-Learn through construction to create whole action
-Children discover all knowledge of the world through their own actions
Assimilation
New experiences are readily incorporated into a child’s existing theories
-Specific to general
Accommodation
New experiences modify a childs theories
-General to specific
Schemas
Cognitive structures that help to organize information
-assimilation and accommodation happens continuously to build the most useful set of schemas for interacting with the world
What are the 4 stages of development according to Piaget
- Sensorimotor (0-2 years)
- Preoperational (2-7 years)
- Concrete Operational (7-11 years)
- Formal Operational (11-adulthood)
Sensorimotor Stage
-Infants learn through motor and sensory actions
-Inability to differentiate self from the world
-6 substages, characterized by increased intentionality, object knowledge and symbolic representation
Developments during the sensorimotor stage
FIRST MONTH
-limited to reflexes
AROUND 8 MONTHS
-First evidence of goal-directed behavior
-Understanding of cause-and effect
-Object permanence
BETWEEN 18-24 MONTHS
-new behaviors without trail-and-error
-Understanding you are different from others
-Symbolic representation
-Deferred imitation
Preoperational stage
-Defined largely by what children can’t do
-difficulty mentally manipulating items they see in the real world
-Fail to understand reversibility and conservation
-egocentrism
Concrete Operational
-Defined by ability to solve various conservation and reversibility tasks
-less influenced by outside appearance
Formal operational
- Reason abstractly
- Heightened metacognition (eg. Diaries)
3.Generate ideas about things they have never before experienced
Limitations with Piaget’s Theory
-Underestimates infant’s abilities
-vague processes
-variability in performance not accounted for
-undervalues influence of sociocultural environment on cognitive development
Intersubjectivity
-shared understanding among participants in an activity
-learning happens through shared activities
-Social to internal
Guided participation
Cognitive growth results from children’s involvement in structured activities with others who are more skilled than they are
Zone of Proximal Development
-Difference between what a child can do alone and what he/she can do with the help of someone who is more capable
Scaffolding
Experts who are sensitive to the abilities of the child respond contingently to the child’s reactions in the learning situation
Information-Processing Theories
-Human Cognition consists of mental hardware and software
Sensory Memory
-Raw, unanalyzed information held briefly
-Attention filters what information to pass on to working memory
Working Memory
Ongoing cognitive activity
-necessary for switching tasks
Long-term memory
-limitless permanent store of knowledge
-Similar experiences can update memories so not like permanent video record of your experiences but rather a way to re-activate neural networks involved in the original encoding
-recognition may be easier then retrieval with no cues
Central Executive function
Inhibiting inappropriate behavior, switching tasks, updating working memory contents
What does improvement in executive function allow for
-better use of strategies
-faster processing
-better attention
-better inhibitory control
-more cognitive flexibility
Changes in speed of procressing
-young children require more time to complete cognitive tasks
-increased speed with aging due to increased myelination and pruning
How does attention change with age
Increase attention span and increased selective attention
Inhibition
the ability to prevent a cognitive or behavioral response
What are some tasks that assess inhibitory control
-day/night
-simon says
-gift delay (marshmallow task)
Cognitive flexabiltiy
ability to shift between sets of rules or tasks
-children often perseverate on a single action
