Week 6 Lecture Flashcards
What is theory of mind?
Ability to reflect on own thoughts and reasise they’re not necessarily the same and others’.
What did Piaget believe about theory of mind?
That it didn’t emerge until 8 years old.
What does more recent research uncover that Piaget thought differently on?
That it develops much earlier .
What does the theory of mind begin with?
Joint attention and social referencing
What was one study used to measure if theory of mind has developed?
Brocolli and goldfish crackers. Researcher makes obvious that they like broccoli and doesn’t like crackers. Then pushes them toward the child and says “give me some”. If the child has a theory of mind, they’ll give the researcher what they enjoyed and not what the child likes.
What did the theory of mind task with the broccoli and goldfish reveal about 14 months old and 18 months old?
14 months gave the researcher what they personally liked, while 18 months had developed theory of mind and gave the experimenter the broccoli.
What is understanding false belief?
Ability to understand that someone else may have a false belief: a key development in understanding other minds
What does the ability to reason about a false belief reflect?
The emergence of a representational theory of mind
What is a representational theory of mind?
The understanding that the mind is a representation device and may misrepresent
Is a representational theory of mind the same or difference across culture?
It is stable across all cultures
Do 3 year olds have false belief?
NO
At what age to children tend to develop an understanding of false belief?
Around 4
How can we test an understanding of false belief?
The Sally Anne task - where will Sally look for her ball?
What is one exception to why some people can develop completely properly yet not understand the theory of false belief?
Autistic kids - struggle to understand that children don’t think the same as you do
What age does Piaget’s formal operations stage start?
around 11-12 years old
What happens in the formal operational stage?
mental actions on ideas. More hypothetical, abstract thought. Can mentally manipulate internal representation
At what age does hypothetico-deductive reasoning start (as in formal operations stage)?
around 13 years old
What happens when you develop hypothetico deductive reasoning (in Piaget’s formal operational stage)?
start to make systematically test observation based hypotheses
What is one way to test hypothetico deductive reasoning (In Piaget’s formal operational stage)?
Using the pendulum/strong problem
What is propositional reasoning (in Piaget’s formal operational stage)?
Proposition is presented as being true.
need to make logical inference that the concluding statement is therefore also true.
Can concrete operational children accept an untrue proposition?
No they can’t. they won’t accept a “logical” made up proposition.
Describe the gradual processes forming in the typical order in the formal operational stage:
- first: simple abstract and hypothetical problem solving skills
- Second (some years later): ability to systematically devise and test variables
What are some positive outcomes in developing the formal operational stage?
- thinking critically and scientifically
- gain own sense of identity
- understand others better
- assimilate cultural knowledge and values
What are some negative outcomes in developing formal operation thinking?
- question authority
- ability to imagine alternatives
- don’t see practical barriers to the perfect world
- simple solutions for complex problems
What are the two forms of adolescent of egocentrism (in formal operational stage)
- Imaginary audience
2. personal fable
Why is there a sense of egocentrism in adolescents?
because they have an enhanced ability to reflect ton own and others’ thoughts
What does an ‘imaginary audience’ mean? (formal operational stage)
differentiating too little between own thought and those of hypothesised audience (everyone is looking at my massive forehead)
What does ‘personal fable’ mean? (formal operational stage)
differentiating too much between own self and others (no one would possibly be able to understand how terrible I feel)
What is one thing that the development of formal operations depends on?
It depends on socio-cultural context as much as on assimilation/accomodation
What is the main implication of Piagets theory to do with competence vs. performance?
Piaget might have underestimated what infants do, and overestimate what teenagers do.
Adolescents seem convinced that there’s a logical answer to every question, while adults:
better able to answer more complex questions with more flexibility.
What is relativistic thinking, that emerges in adults past the formal operation stage?
Knowledge depends on context and the person’s own subjective perspective.
What is dialectic thinking, that adults seem to have and adolescents don’t?
Detecting and reconciling inconsistencies/recognises that problems are multifaceted. Recognise parts that don’t make sense at first.
What are 2 broad types of views of cognitive development, which are alternative to Piaget’s?
- Domain general approaches
2. Domain specific approaches
What is a domain-general approach to cognitive development?
Development is driven by underlying changes in nature of children’s cognition. (stage based versions referred to as neopiagetian theories).
What are domain-specific approaches to cognitive development?
Different mechanisms assumed to drive development in different domains of knowledge.
What are neo-piagetian approaches to cognitive development?
More modern views that still assume children go through stage-like development. Transition through stages driven by fundamental changes in structure of cognition.
What are 3 examples of neo-piagetian approaches to cognitive learning?
- cognitive capacity model
- processing efficiency theory
- cognitive complexity theory
What was Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory?
Children’s cognitive development progresses within their zone of proximal development.
What is social scaffolding (in Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory)
Believed that active participation in small group problem solving benefits learning.
What is one of Vygotsky’s teaching methods, reciprocal teaching?
teacher models role of expert, child plays role of teacher helps children to learn.
What is the core knowledge, domain specific approach of cognitive learning?
Children develop specialised ways of learning about specific domains. Children have naive theories, then gradually replace with more complex theories.
What is the information processing approach of cognitive development (the most recent?)
How is human cognition seen in this approach?
Child seen to process stimuli.
Seen as a complex system of storage and retrieval, with process including attention, encoding, memory and thinking.
What is development seen as in the information processing approach?
Seen as continuous
Current researchers have moving away from a ——- like view of cognitive development
stage like
What is attention?
The ability to focus on the most relevant stimuli in the environment
When does attention improve markedly?
During middle childhood, and especially during adolescence
What is selective attention?
When you can pay attention to certain stimuli that you need to
What is sustained attention?
Remaining attentive for a longer period of time
What is divided attention?
Going from one thing to the other
What are some cultural difference in childhood attention?
After about the age 6, American children are better at focusing on one task, while Japanese children are better at focusing on multiple tasks.
What can habituation tell us about infant memory?
newborns can remember a stimulus for only a few seconds
What can habituation tell us about memory at 3 months old?
3 month old can remember moving images up to three month
What can habituation tell us about 5 month olds?
5 year olds can remember faces even after only 5-10 seconds of exposure
How can we test habituation at infancy?
Through operant conditioning - tying a string to infants legs which is attached to a mobile.
Using the operant conditioning, habituation task where string is ties to an infants leg, what have we discovered about memory in 2 months old, 3 months old and 6 months old?
- two months old can remember for three days
- three months old can remember for 8 days
- six months old can remember for three weeks
What is an influence in memory in the infant operant conditioning string task?
context dependence - the colour of the cloth helps them to remember
Infants can form memories, but they must be:
nonverbal. It’s not yet understood if memory improves because of word development.
What are memory strategies?
Techniques for improving storage and retrieval.
When are memory strategies used more, ad what strategies can be used?
Used more during middle strategies. Techniques include:
- rehearsal
- organisation
- elaboration
What memory strategies do children experiment with?
mnemonic strategies
Can younger children use memory strategies?
Yes, younger than 5-6 years can, but they don’t think to do so
What is constructive memroy?
we use our knowledge to encode and retrieve complex information
Constructive memory can be either positive or problematic. Why is this?
- Better memory for domains where we’re expert
2. we can form incorrect memories
What is metamemory?
knowledge about you own memory in general
What is a characteristic of metamemory?
improves remarkably with age
What does adaptive behaviour look like in adaptive memory?
Those who overestimate their own memory are more motivated to improve, and do improve more than those who don’t
What happens in your short term memory during adolescence?
significant increase in short term (working) memory occurs during adolescence
What evidence demonstrates that short term memory significantly improves during adolescence?
in a digit span task
As we age, what are the two major intellectual categories that we examine to determine how memory is going?
- cognitive mechanics (content free)
2. cognitive pragmatics (knowledge rich)
What are cognitive mechanics?
basic memory processes that decline in late adulthood
What are cognitive pragmatics?
needed to solve intellectual problems with sulture based knowledge and skills (wisdom), need cultural knowledge
What are the age affects of congitive pragmatics?
Usually remains fairly stable during adulthood and late adulthood, declines at a fairly older age
What did Baltes’ use to assess wisdom (using cognitive pragmatics)
- factual knowledge
- procedural knowledge
- lifespan contextualism
- relativism
- uncertainty
What is cognitive plasticity?
ability of other neurons to take over that functions of lost/damaged neurons
What is the effect of brain training in later adults?
observable up to 5 years later, but little evidence of improvement transfer outside tasks
What is the best type of brain plasticity enrichment in older adults?
ones that involve movement
What happens in brain mass during adulthood?
Gradually decreases
What is a fact about 80 year old brains?
They generally weight 18% less than a 30 year old brain (more physical, the less this occurs)
During adulthood, what happens in intelligence
fluid intelligence steadily decreases while there is an increase in crystallised intelligence
What happens to dendritic branches as we get older?
They shorten
What are some age related changes in the brain as we get older?
- less blood flow to brain (blockage, rupture or death of neurons)
- neurotransmitters change
- organic brain syndromes
What is one of the leading forms of dementia in adults?
multi-infarct dementia, account for 10-20% of organic brain syndrome in adults
What are some risk factors of multi-infarct dementia?
- hypertension (high blood pressure)
- diabetes
- advanced age
- male
- smoking
What accounts for 50-60% of organic brain syndrome in patients over 65 years of age?
Alzheimer’s disease
What is the prevalence rate of Alzheimer’s in 64 year olds?
1%
What is the prevalence rate of Alzheimer’s for 85 year olds?
24-36%
What is the course of Alzheimer’s disease?
usually 7-10 years
What is the main risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease??
chronological age
