week 6

Question 1

question: what age do children understand the violation-of-expectation paradigm?

Answer 1

• 3.5 mths = look equally as long
• 4.5 mths = look longer at impossible event

Question 2

explain: object continuity and cohesion

Answer 2

• 2.5 mths understand impossible event hwere doll should appear in between two screens but it doesn’t (therefore look longer)
• when connect the screens at the top, 2 mths no longer look longer (don’t really understand cohesion)
  ⤷ 3 mth look longer bc surprised to no see doll in between

Question 3

explain: object permanence in violation-of expectation paradigm (baillargeon)

Answer 3

• infants first habituate to rotating screen
• impossible event = screen goes through object and keeps rotating
• 3 mths look longer at impossible
  ⤷ expect that screen should be blocked by object + shocked when it doesn’t

Question 4

explain: computer analogy for hardware and software in children neurophysiology

Answer 4

• hardware = children are limited by neurons, synapses, myelin
• software = children are limited by extent to which they can apply appropriate stategies

Question 5

define: strategy

Answer 5

• deliberate, goal-directed mental operations to solve problems
• more effort for children

Question 6

name: examples of strategies used by children in diff. tasks

Answer 6

task: mixing up cups, asked to remember which cup had the object under it
⤷ pointing to cup, peeking, keeping hadn on cup

task: showed 7 pictures, told to remember 3 items during a pause
⤷ rehearsal
⤷ most didn’t rehearse but once taught to, performance increased
⤷ after a while, stopped rehearsing again

**OVERALL CONCLUSION: strategies -> better performance but are effortful for children to use

Question 7

explain: speed of processing (kail 1991)

Answer 7

• compared processing times from 8 - 20 year olds during diff. tasks
• all showed 8 yr olds had longest time
• reach a peak time (plateau)
• deteriorate around 50s - 60s (increased time again)

Question 8

question: how does processing speed increase?

Answer 8

• increased myelination
• synaptic pruning

Question 9

name + define: types of attention (4)

Answer 9

1. sustained
   ⤷ attention span
2. selective
   ⤷ can you ignore distractions and pay attention to a select thing
3. divided
   ⤷ concentrating on more than 1 activity at a time
4. executive
   ⤷ broader control of attention

Question 10

question: relationship found between screentime and attention (tamana 2019)?

Answer 10

• more than 2 hrs a day were 5.9x more likely to have attention problems and 7.7x higher risk of ADHD
• compared to less than 30mins a day

Question 11

define: ADHD

Answer 11

• attendion-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
• brain-based weakness in attention and executive functions
• medications often help

Question 12

define: joint attention

Answer 12

• ability to focus on same thing with another indiv.
• req. ability to track another person’s beha. and reciprocate the integration
• emerges around 7 - 8 mths
• important to language dev.

Question 13

question: what is inhibitory control and how does it change with age?

Answer 13

• ability to actively inhibit resp.
  ⤷ ex. simon says
• increases with age

Question 14

question: what is cognitive flexibility (answer w/ dimensional card sorting task)?

Answer 14

• ability to shift between sets of rules or tasks
• dimensional card sorting = asked to sort cards based on 2 dimensions/rules
  ⤷ show that children good at sorting 1 dimension but not 2
  ⤷ too much effort to use the new rules

Question 15

define: types of memory (3)

Answer 15

1. sensory memory
   - stores sensory info
   - unlimited capacity but rapid decay
   ⤷ can perceive a bunch of stim. but will disappear unless you pay attention to it
2. working memory
   - info attended to while mental operations are happening
   ⤷ limited by attentional resources
3. long term memory
   - procedural and declarative
   ⤷ habits and skills
   - stored to be retrieved later

Question 16

question: where are the implicit and explicit memory associated with?

Answer 16

IMPLICIT
- cerebellum
- basal ganglia

EXPLICIT
- hippocampus
- prefrontal cortex
- temporal lobes

**long term = dentate gyrus of hippocampus + frontal cortex pruning

Question 17

question: how does the dentate gyrus change with age?

Answer 17

• V decreases with age until asymptote at 80s
• linked with better memory

Question 18

explain: relationship between rehearsal, working memory, long term memory

Answer 18

• rehearsal keeps info in working mem.
• enough rehearsal -> long term mem.

Question 19

define: infantile amnesia

Answer 19

• inability to remember info before 3 - 4 yrs of age
• lack autobiographical memories
  ⤷ none in first person perspective

Question 20

name + explain: theories of infantile amnesia (3)

Answer 20

1. memory as action patterns
   - infants = preverbal so the memories as an infant are action patterns
   - adult memories are verbal
   - mismatch between the coding of action pattern memories ad retrieval for verbal memories
2. sense of self
   - without a solid sense of self, experiences can’t be anchored to an autobiographical memory
   - SOS only dev. around 18 - 24 moths and still continues to dev.
3. verbatim vs fuzzy trace
   - young children = encode things verbatim
   - increased capacity -> encode the gist of things
   - mismatch between encoding in verbatim and retrieving fuzzy traces

Question 21

explain: findings of rovee-collier memory study

Answer 21

• tied ribbon to infant’s ankles to move a mobile
• after several weeks -> they forgot
• but move the mobile slightly for the baby and they will remember
  ⤷ next day, will remember to kick again

Question 22

explain: findings of fuzzy trace theory (brainerd 2010)

Answer 22

• words presented orally to 7, 11, and dullts
  ⤷ highly assoc. word not given
• adults remembered the most words -> 11 -> 7
• more adults also “remembered” the critical word -> 11-> 7

OVERAL CONCLUSION: memory improves with age but older ppl learn to remember a fuzzy trace bc more efficient but can sometimes -> false recall

Question 23

explain: sam stone study

Answer 23

1 = no interventions
2 = given a stereotype of SS
3 = given suggestive questions
4 = both stereotype and suggestion

1 = few errors in both 3/4 and 5/6
2 = higher errors in 3/4 than 5/6
3 = higher in 3/4 than 5/6 and overall higher than just stereotype
4 = highest error rate, 3/4 still higher than 5/6

Question 24

question: how well do children remember events (ceci 1994)?

Answer 24

• asked about 2 true and 2 false events
• majority of 3/4 reported false events
• 40% 5/6 reported false events
• children often included additional details in false reports
  ⤷ shows that they create their own narratives

Question 25

define: increased suggestibility

Answer 25

- children are more likely to accept suggested details as important info instead of questioning it - try to imagine the suggested info to understand it but gets intertwined with their recall of the actual event

Question 26

question: what's the impact of knowledge and expertise on memory?

Answer 26

- 10/11 yr old chess experts could remember more chess pieces than uni students - older children often have more expertise which supports their memory

Question 27

define: metacognition

Answer 27

- knowing about knowing - thinking about when and where to use which strategy

Question 28

define: theory of mind

Answer 28

- person's developing concepts of mental activity - helps in cooperation and social interactions

Question 29

name: prerequisite skills for theory of mind (2)

Answer 29

1. ability of view self and other's behaviour as intentional 2. ability to take another person's perspective

Question 30

question: when do children show an understanding of desire?

Answer 30

- implicit understanding at 5 mths (hab. and dishab.) - explicit understanding at 18 mths (broccoli vs cracker)

Question 31

question: when do children understand goal directed behaviour?

Answer 31

- improves over 14 - 18 mths - 14 - 18 mths are more likely to imitate novel behaviour if adult said "there" instead of "oops" ⤷ shows they know it's on purpose - 14 mths only imitate actions they find necessary for goal completion - younger infants will imitate failed behaviour instead of purposeful

Question 32

explain: content false belief task

Answer 32

- ask about a box (smarties box) - contents aren't what child expects (paperclips, not candy) - ask child what another person would say about the contents ⤷ if smarties: understands the perspective of others ⤷ if paperclips: doesn't understand (thinks the other person knows what they know) **3 yr old won't understand, 4 - 5 will

Question 33

explain: location false belief task

Answer 33

- sally puts away and object and leaves - anne changes the spot - where will sally look when she comes back? - OG spot = understands - new spot = doesn't understand **3 won't understand, 4 - 5 will

Question 34

question: why do 3 yr olds fail false-belief tasks?

Answer 34

- lack dual representation ⤷ can't represent the current situation and the previous sit. at the same time - poor executive function - poorer mem. space - limited cog. flexibility - struggle to inhibit the info they just saw

Question 35

explain: content true belief task

Answer 35

- after flask-belief task - put smarties back into box - will think the other person thinks its paperclips - even 4 - 5 yr olds fail - can't go back all the way to the beginning ⤷ knows that person doesn't know what they know but aren't skilled enough to goo back to beginning (smarties)

Question 36

question: how could 3 yr olds pass the false belief tasks?

Answer 36

- if presented in a familiar context - allowing the child to move item in location tasks - don't let the child see the items ⤷ only verbal ⤷ bc maybe the vis. stim. cues certian answers

Question 37

define: ASD

Answer 37

- autism spectrum disorder - heritable - abnormal brain function - low performance on false-belief tasks (usually)

Question 38

explain: relationship between executive function and theory of mind

Answer 38

- strong positive correlation - better executive -> better theory of mind

Question 39

question: what are factors that influence theory of mind performance?

Answer 39

- older siblings (adds knowledge and expertise) - language skills - maternal warmth - quality of attachment - number of adults child interacts with regularly (helps soc. understanding)

Question 40

define: innate mind reading system

Answer 40

- theory of mind is a domain specific skill - brains are designed to read others' minds

Question 41

name + define: modules of innate mind reading system (4)

Answer 41

1. **intentionality detector** - 9 mths - infants interpret moving objects have intention 2. **eye direction detector** - 9 mths - detects presence of eyes and direction fo gaze - important in join attention 3. **shared attention mech.** - 9 - 18 mths - child can engage in 3 way interactions - needs to first 2 modules to dev. first bc shared attention 4. **theory of mind module** - 2 - 4 yrs - pass false-belief - can do belief-desire reasoning

Question 42

question: what was added to the innate mind reading system in 2005?

Answer 42

- empathizing system - allows for social interactions - emotion detector = 6 mths - works at 14 mths