Cognitive Development

Question 1

Jean Piaget: How does development happen: Continuously

Answer 1

-Equilibration: people balance knowledge to create stable schemas (understandings of the world). When in disequilibrium, need to adapt/something needs to change…

–Assimilation: incorporate information into an preexisting schema

–Accommodation: adapt current knowledge structures in response to a new experience

Question 2

Jean Piaget: How does development happen: Discontinuously

Answer 2

-Invariant sequence: sequence of stages are stable for all people through all time; stages are not skipped

–Qualitative change: children of different ages/stages think in different ways

–Brief transitions: transitions to higher stages of thinking are not necessarily continuous

Question 3

Piagetian Stages: Sensorimotor

Answer 3

–Birth-2yrs

–Understands world through senses and actions

Question 4

Piagetian Stages: Preoperational

Answer 4

–2yrs-7yrs

–Understands world through language and mental images

Question 5

Piagetian Stages: Concrete Operational

Answer 5

–7yrs-12yrs

–Understands world through logical thinking and categories

Question 6

Piagetian Stages: Formal Operational

Answer 6

–12yrs onward

– Understands world through hypothetical thinking and scientific reasoning

Question 7

Preoperational Stage: Symbiotic play

Answer 7

an object can be represented by another item

Question 8

Preoperational Stage: Egocentrism (what is 3 mountain task)

Answer 8

• perceive the world from their own POV
• difficulty with tasks involving perspective-taking (3 mountain tasks)
• 3 mountain task- doll in front of a mountain, give child pictures of different POV of the mountain, the child had to choose the picture that is the doll’s POV

Question 9

Preoperational Stage: Centration

Answer 9

focus on a striking feature to the exclusion of other less striking features
-leads to difficulty with conservation–the notion that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in form (conservation tasks)

Question 10

Concrete Operational Stage: Classifications

Answer 10

• the ability to understand hierarchies
• Can solve conservation tasks but not more advanced
• -difficulty with tasks that require systematic thinking (Pendulum Problem) shorter, longer, heavier, lighter, metal object
• -difficulty with tasks that require deductive Sensori reasoning (feather)

Question 11

Sensorimotor Stage: Object Permanence

Answer 11

the idea that objects continue to exist even when they are not visible

Question 12

Sensorimotor Stage: A-not-B error

Answer 12

reaching to location A even after object moved to location B; reveals incomplete sense of object permanence

Question 13

Sociocultural Theory: How does development happen?Zone of proximal development

Answer 13

range between what children can do unsupported and what they can do with optimal social support

Question 14

Sociocultural Theory: How does development happen? Intersubjectivity

Answer 14

shared communication

Question 15

Sociocultural Theory: How does development happen? Joint attention

Answer 15

infants and social partners focus on common referent

Question 16

Sociocultural Theory: How does development happen? Social referencing

Answer 16

children look to social partners for guidance on how to respond to unfamiliar events

Question 17

Sociocultural Theory: How does development happen? Social scaffolding

Answer 17

more competent people provide temporary frameworks that lead children to high-level thinking

Question 18

Information Processing Theory (Vygotsky)

Answer 18

• Computational (computer) system
• Continuous cognitive change
• Particularly concerned with learning, memory, and problem-solving skills
• Attention, working memory, long-term memory, categorization, decision-making

Question 19

IP: Development means changes in processing
Example: Executive Function

Answer 19

Processes that allow for control of behavior:
-Working Memory: holds and processes information that is being “worked on” in some way. Working memory consists of at least three components: a short-term store, a processing component, and a control mechanism
Inhibitory Control: involves the ability to focus on relevant stimuli in the presence of irrelevant stimuli
task-switching: that involves the ability to unconsciously shift attention between one task and another

Question 20

Information Processing Example: Executive Function & DCCS

Answer 20

• The Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task is widely used to study the development of EF
• Children are asked to sort cards by shape or color and then switch and sort by the other dimension
• 3-year-olds perseverate, while 4-year-olds can switch rules
• Switch costs are still seen in adulthood

Question 21

IP: How does development happen?: Domain-general processing & Domain-specific processing

Answer 21

• Domain general – same process, different areas/topics
• –Kail (1988)
• –Memory capacity same for multiple tasks
• Domain specific – particular, specific process for unique areas/topics
• –Chi & Ceci (1987)
• –Chess digit span specific to chess players

Question 22

Overregularization errors

Answer 22

are grammatical mistakes that young children make because they are applying grammatical rules too stringently

Question 23

private speech

Answer 23

self-talk

Question 24

logical extension

Answer 24

When learning a word, children extend it to other objects in the same category.

Question 25

mutual exclusivity assumption

Answer 25

When learning new words, young children assume that objects have only one label or name. in learning new words: They assume that objects have only one label or name.

Question 26

joint attention

Answer 26

is the shared focus of two individuals on an object

Question 27

intersubjectivity

Answer 27

is having a shared, common agreement in the definition of an object. So most people would experience intersubjectivity when asked to picture an apple- the definition of an apple would be the same.