Week 6: TOM, formal operations, attention, memory

Question 1

What is theory of mind?

Answer 1

The ability to reflect on own thoughts and realize they aren’t necessarily the same as others

Question 2

When did Piaget say theory of mind emerges?

Answer 2

Approx 8 years

However, other research is finding it in much younger children, even toddlers

Question 3

An understanding of what is the beginning of theory of mind?

Answer 3

Joint attention: aware that someone else has their own thoughts and you can join in or you can think something different

Social referencing: checking with others, often through eye contact to see how they’re reacting and therefore how they should react (e.g. looking for their mum ofter a loud bang to see if she is scared and therefore they should be too)

Question 4

What was the food study looking at theory of mind?

Answer 4

14 and 18 month olds presented with 2 foods (veg and something more appealing)

The adults made out that they hated the treat food and prefered the veg

14 month olds would give the adults the treat food because it is what they preferred
18 month olds gave the food that the adults preferred regardless of whether the child themselves liked it

Question 5

What is understanding false belief?

Answer 5

Ability to understand that someone else may have a false belief

Question 6

What experiment demonstrates understanding false belief?

Answer 6

The Sally-Anne or change-in-location task

There is a box and a basket, sally puts her marble in the box, Sally then goes outside and can no longer see her box
Anne takes the marble and puts it in her basket - then sally comes back in

The child is asked where Sally will look for her marble

4 year olds will correctly identify the box (have TOM)
3 year olds will say the basket because that is where it is and they can’t imagine someone having a false belief

Autistic children severely struggle with this

Question 7

What is Piaget’s 4th stage in his model of cognitive development? what age constitutes this stage?

Answer 7

Formal operations stage

Begins at 11-12 years

Question 8

What is hypothetico-deductive reasoning?

Answer 8

A few years into the formal operations stage

- Start to make and systematically test observation-based hypotheses

Question 9

What is an example of a study done on hypothetico-deductive reasoning?

Answer 9

The Pendulum problem

- Which factor is responsible for the speed at which the pendulum swings

Question 10

What is propositional reasoning?

Answer 10

Proposition is presented as being true
Need to make logical inference that the concluding statement is therefore also true
Formal operations children can so this

E.g. uni lectures are a lot of fun to attend (accept as true)
Developmental psych lectures are uni lectures (if also true)
Therefore dev psych lectures are a lot of fun to attend (must be true)

Involves the manipulation of abstract thoughts (free from concrete thinking)
Concrete operational children can’t accept untrue premises and therefore won’t accept the logical conclusion

Question 11

The transition from concrete to formal operations is…

Answer 11

A gradual process

Question 12

Formal operational thinking has a range of outcomes. What are the positive ones?

Answer 12

Think critically
Understand abstract concepts
Understand others better

Question 13

Formal operational thinking has a range of outcomes. What are the negative ones?

Answer 13

Ability to imagine alternatives
Question rules and authority
Frustrated with a perceived lack of logic
Become idealistic and don’t see practical barriers
Simple solutions for complex problems

Question 14

What are the two different ways egocentrism may present in adolescence?

Answer 14

Thinking too much about yourself

1. Imaginary audience: differentiating too little between your own thoughts and those of hypothesized audience
2. Personal fable: differentiating too much between ones own thoughts, feelings and experiences from others (think you are so different that no one else can understand)

Question 15

Piaget’s ideas have profoundly influenced…

Answer 15

the way children are educated, particularly during primary school years

Question 16

Do people continue formal operational thinking beyond adolescence?

Answer 16

Adolescents seem convinced that there is a logical answer to every question where as adults are better able to answer more complex questions with more flexibility

Question 17

There are two ways of thinking that differ between adults and adolescents. What are they?

Answer 17

Relativistic thinking: knowledge depends on the context and the persons own subjective experience (not just taking everything at face value)

Adolescents will just take it at face value whereas adults are more likely to look at the broader context

Dialectic thinking: detecting and reconciling inconsistencies
(recognizing that a problem is multifaceted, consider various possibilities, reconcile parts that don’t make sense, solicit others advice, making a decision and being aware it might not be a perfect decision)

Question 18

What is the domain-general approach to cog dev?

Answer 18

Development is driven by underlying changes in nature of childrens cognition

Stage-based versions are called neopiagetian theories

Question 19

What are domain-specific approaches to cog dev?

Answer 19

Different mechanisms are assumed to drive development in different domains of knowledge

Getting better at lots of different things at once, independent of each other

Question 20

What are neopiagetian approaches?

Answer 20

More modern views that still assume stage-like development and that the transition through stages are driven by fundamental changes in the structure of cognition

Question 21

What does Vygotsky say about childrens cognitive development?

Answer 21

That it progresses within their zone of proximal development

Question 22

What is zone of proximal development?

Answer 22

the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers

Question 23

Vygotsky said that knowledge is…

Answer 23

relocated to the child (e.g. from the mind of the teacher to the mind of the child)

Question 24

Social scaffolding is?

Answer 24

Children learn from each other through group work

Question 25

What is reciprocal teaching?

Answer 25

The teacher models role of expert
Child plays role of teacher

Helps to consolidate learning

Question 26

What is the core knowledge approach?

Answer 26

Domain specific

Children develop specialized ways of learning about specific domains

They start off by developing their own naive theories for how the world works and it is gradually replaced with more complex theories

Question 27

What is the information processing approach?

Answer 27

Domain specific
Moving away from stage like view and looking more at specific cognition

Child seen to process stimuli

Looks at the individual processes involved in specific cognitive tasks

Development is seen as continuous with human cognition seen as a complex system of storage and retrieval

Question 28

What is attention? Does it change across the lifespan?

Answer 28

The ability to focus on the most relevant stimuli in the environment
It improves markedly during middle childhood and more during adolescence

Question 29

What has habituation told us about infant memory?

Answer 29

Newborns can remember a stimulus for a few seconds

3-month olds can remember moving images for up to 3 months

5-month-olds can remember faces even after only 5-10 seconds’ exposure

Question 30

What is an example of operant conditioning during infancy?

Answer 30

Infant learns to kick to make the mobile move
If you place infant under the mobile some time later, 2 month old can remember for 3 days, 3 month olds can remember for 8 days, 6 month olds can remember for 3 weeks

Question 31

Throughout childhood memory develops via what 3 mechanisms?

Answer 31

Memory strategies

General knowledge

Metamemory

Question 32

What are memory strategies?

Answer 32

Techniques for improving storage and retrieval

Rehearsal, organization, elaboration

Question 33

Do children use mnemonics?

Answer 33

Younger children around 5-6 years can use them, but do not think to do so

Question 34

General knowledge memory development?

Answer 34

Knowledge and memory are linked
The more we know, the more we can learn/remember

Constructive memory: we use our knowledge to encode and retrieve complex information

Question 35

Metamemory in memory development?

Answer 35

Knowledge about your own memory in general
Improves with age

Those who overestimate their own memory are motivated to improve than those who dont

Question 36

What are cognitive mechanics?

Answer 36

Basic memory processes that decline later in adulthood

Question 37

What are cognitive pragmatics?

Answer 37

Needed to solve intellectual problems with culture-based knowledge and skills (wisdom)

Question 38

What is cognitive plasticity?

Answer 38

The ability of other neurons to take over the function of lost or damaged neurons

Can change and be modified

Question 39

Ageing brains can respond positively to…

Answer 39

Enrichment and training

However, there is little evidence of improvements in transferring outside training tasks

Question 40

As we age there in an increase in … intelligence and a decrease in … intelligence

Answer 40

Crystallized intelligence increases

Fluid intelligence decreases