Cognitive Development

Question 1

Conceptual understanding of how the world works in children, based on core knowledge, experience, and other’s influence

Answer 1

Children’s intuitive theories

Question 2

Children have intuitive theories in what topics?

Answer 2

Physics: forces
Biology: growth, illness
Psychology: desires, goals, beliefs

Question 3

What aspects of physics do children seemingly have an understanding of?

Answer 3

Object permanence, continuity, support, solidity

Question 4

Jean Piaget believed that 2-6 year olds were in what stage?

Answer 4

Pre-operational stage- egocentric, animistic, illogical, could not understand cause and effects

Question 5

Why did Piaget underestimate children’s understanding of the world?

Answer 5

Only gave verbal tasks that didn’t necessarily tap into the child’s competence, would ask leading questions

Question 6

Describe the Piaget conservation task.

Answer 6

The Piaget conservation task was a task where they got preschoolers to observe a set of 6 coins per row. They then spread out the row and this lead to the children thinking the second row had more coins.

Question 7

What counter evidence exists for the Piaget conservation task?

Answer 7

When they performed the task and had the teddy bear shuffle the coins instead, the children were able to tell that there were the same amount of coins no matter how the coins were shuffled. It is possible that the presence of an adult experimenter made the child expect something to change

Question 8

How was 6 month infant causality understanding established?

Answer 8

Children were habituated to a blue ball hitting a red ball and causing the red ball to move. When they saw the red ball causing the blue ball to move, they looked longer, establishing that they were used to the blue ball causing the red ball to move. They don’t look longer when the blue ball does not cause the red ball to move

Question 9

Describe the Blicket detector experiment.

Answer 9

Putting an object on top of the Blicket detector causes it to play music. Both the yellow block and blue block activate detector, but yellow block does not activate the detector by itself, children are able to tell if the blue block makes it go. In another test, yellow block makes it work both with a blue block and by itself, so children can tell that the yellow block makes it go

Question 10

When are intuitive theories learned ?

Answer 10

Most are learned by preschool age

Question 11

Why is learning about cause and effect relationships relevant for developing intuitive theories?

Answer 11

When children notices something causes something, they can link the cause and effect: stealing another kid’s toys makes the other kid mad

Question 12

Describe the “theory theory”.

Answer 12

Children’s intuitive theories are likely scientific theories. They learn what causes and effects, and revise them if anything changes. This allows them to make inferences about things that they don’t know before

Question 13

Describe the process of developing an intuitive theory.

Answer 13

Currently held theory
Observe evidence, if agrees, strengthen, if disagree, new hypothesis. Accept or reject, repeat

Question 14

Describe the relationship between psychedelic drugs and intuitive theories

Answer 14

Using psychedelic drugs makes people more open to new ideas

Question 15

Describe a study that show’s children’s interest in understanding the causal structure of the world

Answer 15

When experimenter explains the causal mechanisms of a toy, the children would play with a new toy. If experimenter does not explain, children would continue to play with the old toy to establish a cause

Question 16

Intuitive theories become more entrenched as people get _____

Answer 16

Intuitive theories become more entrenched as people get older.

Question 17

Explain a study that could show that children have an understanding of statistical probability.

Answer 17

When shown a box filled with lots of red marbles and little white marbles, they would be more surprised/look longer if you randomly take our five white marbles. They would not be surprised if a person with a random pocket grabs out five white marbles. Suggests they’re familiar with probability

Question 18

Explain a study that describes how children can use statistical probability to expect preference.

Answer 18

18% frogs /82% ducks-if the experimenter takes out all the frogs they will give the experimenter, so possibly the child could understand that the experimenter prefers ducks

Question 19

Explain a study that could possibly imply that children are familiar with social biases.

Answer 19

Showed child a box of cats, more with red shirts, some with blue shirts
if the raccoons choose all blue shirts they would assume the raccoons only want to be with blue shirts.
If they saw the raccoons choose more red shirts they still assume that the raccoon wants to play with blue shirts (higher proportion)

Question 20

What can be potentially problematic about teaching a child with direct instruction?

Answer 20

Children may be more willing to explore less and less likely to discover things on their own.

Question 21

Describe an experiment that shows how direct instruction could potentially lead to children exploring less.

Answer 21

Teacher shows on a toy one thing that the toy does despite the fact the toy has many different mechanisms. They find less features about the toy compared to an accidental demonstration or just showing the child the toy.

Question 22

What is the potentially rational inference that informs why children would only follow direct instruction?

Answer 22

you learn from an expert. If there was anything else, they would have expected the expert to bring it up

Question 23

What are the key mechanisms on how children learn about the world?

Answer 23

Exploration and experimentation
Learning from other people
Statistical and rational learning