Week 6: TOM, formal operations, attention, memory Flashcards
What is theory of mind?
The ability to reflect on own thoughts and realize they aren’t necessarily the same as others
When did Piaget say theory of mind emerges?
Approx 8 years
However, other research is finding it in much younger children, even toddlers
An understanding of what is the beginning of theory of mind?
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)
What was the food study looking at theory of mind?
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
What is understanding false belief?
Ability to understand that someone else may have a false belief
What experiment demonstrates understanding false belief?
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
What is Piaget’s 4th stage in his model of cognitive development? what age constitutes this stage?
Formal operations stage
Begins at 11-12 years
What is hypothetico-deductive reasoning?
A few years into the formal operations stage
- Start to make and systematically test observation-based hypotheses
What is an example of a study done on hypothetico-deductive reasoning?
The Pendulum problem
- Which factor is responsible for the speed at which the pendulum swings
What is propositional reasoning?
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
The transition from concrete to formal operations is…
A gradual process
Formal operational thinking has a range of outcomes. What are the positive ones?
Think critically
Understand abstract concepts
Understand others better
Formal operational thinking has a range of outcomes. What are the negative ones?
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
What are the two different ways egocentrism may present in adolescence?
Thinking too much about yourself
- Imaginary audience: differentiating too little between your own thoughts and those of hypothesized audience
- 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)
Piaget’s ideas have profoundly influenced…
the way children are educated, particularly during primary school years
Do people continue formal operational thinking beyond adolescence?
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
There are two ways of thinking that differ between adults and adolescents. What are they?
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)
What is the domain-general approach to cog dev?
Development is driven by underlying changes in nature of childrens cognition
Stage-based versions are called neopiagetian theories
What are domain-specific approaches to cog dev?
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
What are neopiagetian approaches?
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
What does Vygotsky say about childrens cognitive development?
That it progresses within their zone of proximal development
What is zone of proximal development?
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
Vygotsky said that knowledge is…
relocated to the child (e.g. from the mind of the teacher to the mind of the child)
Social scaffolding is?
Children learn from each other through group work
What is reciprocal teaching?
The teacher models role of expert
Child plays role of teacher
Helps to consolidate learning
What is the core knowledge approach?
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
What is the information processing approach?
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
What is attention? Does it change across the lifespan?
The ability to focus on the most relevant stimuli in the environment
It improves markedly during middle childhood and more during adolescence
What has habituation told us about infant memory?
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
What is an example of operant conditioning during infancy?
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
Throughout childhood memory develops via what 3 mechanisms?
Memory strategies
General knowledge
Metamemory
What are memory strategies?
Techniques for improving storage and retrieval
Rehearsal, organization, elaboration
Do children use mnemonics?
Younger children around 5-6 years can use them, but do not think to do so
General knowledge memory development?
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
Metamemory in memory development?
Knowledge about your own memory in general
Improves with age
Those who overestimate their own memory are motivated to improve than those who dont
What are cognitive mechanics?
Basic memory processes that decline later in adulthood
What are cognitive pragmatics?
Needed to solve intellectual problems with culture-based knowledge and skills (wisdom)
What is cognitive plasticity?
The ability of other neurons to take over the function of lost or damaged neurons
Can change and be modified
Ageing brains can respond positively to…
Enrichment and training
However, there is little evidence of improvements in transferring outside training tasks
As we age there in an increase in … intelligence and a decrease in … intelligence
Crystallized intelligence increases
Fluid intelligence decreases
