Cognitive Develpment

Question 1

___________________ is based on the premise that people actively construct higher levels of knowledge from elements contributed by both biological maturation and the environment.

Answer 1

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

Question 2

For Piaget, the motivation for cognitive development comes from a drive toward ____ ____. Development occurs when a ____ of _____ is brought on by a discrepancy between reality and the person’s current understanding of the world (repertoire of cognitive schemas) and is resolved through _____, which entails two complementary processes: _____ and _____.

Answer 2

Cognitive Equilibrium (Equilibration); State of Disequilibrium; Adaptation; Assimilation and Accommodation

Question 3

_____ is the incorporation of new knowledge into existing cognitive schemas, while _____ is the modification of existing schemas to incorporate new knowledge. When given a toy for the first time, a young child will treat it as she would any new object and will probably bang it, hit it, throw it, and taste it. In other words, the child will attempt to understand the toy by _____ it into their current repetoire of _____. As the child begins to recognize the toy’s unique properties, they will _____ (modify) their _____ _____ and, as a result, develop new ways of ____ with the toy.

Answer 3

Assimilation; Accommodation; Assimilating; Schemas; Accommodate their Existing Schemas; Interacting

Question 4

Piaget described _____ _____ of _____ _____, which he considered to be both invariant and universal.

Answer 4

Four Stages of Cognitive Development

Question 5

During the _____ _____, a child learns about objects and other people through the sensory information they provide (how they look, feel, and taste) and the actions that can be performed on them (sucking, grasping, hitting, etc.). Piaget proposed that the predominant type of learning during this phase is the result of _____ _____, which are actions that are performed to reproduce events that initially occurred by chance. Piaget described the changes that occur in these reactions in terms of six substages.

Answer 5

Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 Years); Circular Reactions

Question 6

The infant exercises his/her reflexes.

Answer 6

Substage 1 — Reflexive Schemes (birth to 1 month):

Question 7

The infant attempts to repeat pleasurable events involving his/her own body (e.g., thumbsucking).

Answer 7

Substage 2 — Primary Circular Reactions (1 to 4 months)

Question 8

The infant attempts to reproduce pleasurable events involving other people or objects (e.g., shakes a rattle).

Answer 8

Substage 3 — Secondary Circular Reactions (4 to 8 months)

Question 9

The infant combines secondary circular reactions (schemes) into new, more complex action sequences (e.g., uncovers an object and then it).

Answer 9

Substage 4 — Coordinated Secondary Circular Reactions (8 to 12 months)

Question 10

The infant deliberately varies an action or action sequence to discover the consequences of doing so (e.g., drops a toy from different heights).

Answer 10

Substage 5 — Tertiary Circular Reactions (12 to 18 months)

Question 11

The infant develops representational (symbolic) thought, which involves forming internal representations that allow them to think about absent objects and past events and to anticipate the consequences of an action.

Answer 11

Substage 6 — Mental Representation (18 to 24 months)

Question 12

An important accomplishment of the sensorimotor stage is the development of ____ ____ (the “object concept “), which begins in ____ _ and allows the child to recognize that objects and people continue to exist when they are out of sight.

Answer 12

Object Permanence; Substage 4

Question 13

Other important accomplishments are the beginning of an understanding of ____ (recognition that certain events cause other events) and the emergence of ____ ____ (imitating another person’s behavior hours or days after the behavior occurred) and ____-____ (symbolic) play.

Answer 13

Causality; Deferred Imitation; Make-Believe

Question 14

A key characteristic of the ____ ____ is the ____ (____) ____, which is an extension of representational though and permits the child to learn using language, mental images, and other symbols. As a result of this capacity, preoperational children engage in ____ ____ ____ ____ (e.g., by adopting the roles of other people and using Objects symbolically) and can ____ ____ ____. Despite the emergence of these important abilities, the preoperational stage is limited by several factors.

Answer 14

Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 Years); Symbolic (Semiotic) Function; Sophisticated Symbolic Play; Solve Problems Mentally

Question 15

Children in the preoperational stage exhibit ____ (____) ____, which reflects an incomplete understanding of cause and effect.

Answer 15

Precausal (Transductive) Reasoning

Question 16

One manifestation of precausal reasoning is ____ ____, or the belief that thinking about something causes it to occur (e.g., thinking bad thoughts about Dad will cause something bad to happen to him).

Answer 16

Magical Thinking

Question 17

Another manifestation of precausal reasoning is ____, which is – the tendency to attribute human characteristics to inanimate objects. A child is exhibiting ____ when she says her doll gets lonely if it’s not played with often enough.

Answer 17

Animism; Animism

Question 18

____ refers to the child’s inability to separate his/her perspective from that of others. Because of their egocentrism, preoperational children are unable to imagine another ____ ____ of ____.

Answer 18

Egocentrism; Person’s Point of View

Question 19

Children in the preoperational stage do not recognize that ____ can be ____ (____), and they focus on the ____ ____ ____ of ____ (____). Consequently, these children are unable to ____, or ____ that changing one dimension of an object does not change its other dimensions. When a preoperational child watches a liquid being poured from a short fat glass into a tall thin one, for example, he is likely to say there is more liquid in the second glass.

Answer 19

Actions can be Reversed (Irreversibility); Most Noticeable Features of Objects (Centration); Conserve, or Understand

Question 20

Children in the ____ ____ ____ are capable of ____ ____, which are logical rules for transforming and manipulating information. As a result, they can classify in more ____ ____ (e.g., solve class inclusion problems), ____ (order items in terms of length or other quantitative dimensions), understand ____ -____ ____ in ____ ____ (e.g., bigger, lighter), and ____.

Answer 20

Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 11 or 12 Years); Mental Operations; Sophisticated Ways; Seriate; Part-Whole Relationships in Relational Terms, Conserve

Question 21

____ depends on the operations of reversibility and decentration and develops with ____ of ____ occurring first, followed by ____ of ____, ____, ____, and then ____ ____.

Answer 21

Conservation; Conservation of Number; Conservation of Liquid, Length, Weight; Displacement Volume

Question 22

Piaget used the term ____ ____ to describe the gradual acquisition of conservation abilities and other abilities within a specific stage of development.

Answer 22

Horizontal Decalage

Question 23

A person in the ____ ____ ____ can think abstractly and is capable of ____ -____ ____, which means that he or she can identify competing hypotheses about a problem and strategies for systematically testing those hypotheses. In adolescence, there is a ____ ____, which involves an inability to separate one’s own abstract thoughts from the thoughts of others.

Answer 23

Formal Operational Stage (11 or 12+ Years); Hypothetico-Deductive Reasoning; Renewed Egocentrism

Question 24

Elkind (1984) extended Piaget’s work by identifying the specific characteristics of ____ ____. These include the ____ ____ (the belief that one is unique and not subject to the natural laws that govern others) and the ____ ____ (the belief that one is always the center of attention).

Answer 24

Adolescent Egocentrism; Personal Fable; Imaginary Audience

Question 25

Research evaluating Piaget’s theory has generally confirmed that cognitive development occurs in a ____ ____ of ____ and that a stage is ____ ____. Cross-cultural studies suggest, however, that the ages at which children reach each stage ____ ____. It also appears that young children may be more competent ____ than their performance on Piagetian tasks suggests.

Answer 25

Predictable Sequence; Never Skipped; May Vary; Cognitively; Suggets

Question 26

When simpler or more familiar tasks are used, children as young as two seem to be able to recognize that other people see things from another perspective. Finally, there is evidence that many adolescents and adults do not necessarily exhibit formal ____ ____, especially on tasks and in situations that are ____.

Answer 26

Operational Thought; Unfamiliar

Question 27

____ ____ ____ grew, in part, out of research comparing the functioning of computer programs to the human mind. These theories describe cognitive development as involving increasing ____________________. From this perspective, cognitive abilities are similar at all stages of development but differ in terms of extent.

Answer 27

Information Processing Theories; Information Processing Capacity and Efficiency

Question 28

Improvements in memory are due to ____ ____ ____, enhanced ____ ____, and greater ____. In contrast to Piagetians, information processing theorists focus on ____ within ____ ____ ____ such as attention, memory, and reasoning rather than on identifying global principles of development. They also view cognitive ability as ____ -____ and are more interested in ____ ____ ____ are ____ for tasks and contexts.

Answer 28

Increased Memory Capacity; Processing Speed; Automaticity; Development within Specific Cognitive Domains; Task-Specific; How Specific Skills are Used

Question 29

Neo-Piagetian theories combine the ____ ____ and ____ approaches.

Answer 29

Information Processing; Piagetian

Question 30

The neo-Piagetians recognize the roles of ____ ____ and experience in cognitive development and propose that individuals actively construct their own ____. However, like information processing theorists, they focus more on ____ ____ within specific ____ ____ and on the impact of the context in which ____ occurs. Consequently, they consider unevenness in development across domains and contexts as a ____ ____ of ____.

Answer 30

Biological Maturation and Experience; Knowledge; Developmental Changes; Specific Cognitive Domains; Development; Normal Part of Development

Question 31

The Russian psychologist Vygotsky (1978) acknowledged the impact of ____ on cognitive development but placed greater emphasis on the role of ____ and ____ ____. His ____ ____ views all learning as socially mediated and proposes that cognitive development is first ____ (which refers to the child’s interactions with others) and then ____ (which occurs when the child internalizes what he or she has learned).

Answer 31

Biology; Social and Cultural Factors; Sociocultural Theory; Interpersonal; Intrapersonal

Question 32

According to Vygotsky, cognitive development is facilitated when instruction and other environmental demands fall within the child’s ____ of ____ ____, which refers to the discrepancy between a child’s current developmental level (the level at which the child can function independently) and the level of development that is just beyond his or her current level but can be reached when an adult or more experienced peer provides appropriate ____.

Answer 32

Zone of Proximal Development; Scaffolding

Question 33

refers to instruction, assistance, and support and is most effective when it involves modeling, providing cues, and encouraging the child to think about alternative plans of action.

Answer 33

Scaffolding; Modeling; Providing Cues; Alternative Plans of Action

Question 34

Vygotsky also proposed that ____ (make-believe) ____ provides a child with a zone of proximal development that enables the child to practice behaviors in situations that require less precision and accuracy than would be required in reality.

Answer 34

Symbolic Play

Question 35

Vygotsky noticed that young children often ____ ____ to themselves when performing tasks. In contrast to Piaget, who referred to this speech as egocentric, Vygotsky described it as ____ -____ (____) speech that helps children regulate and organize their ____ ____. As children grow older, self-directed speech becomes ____ as ____ (____) speech.

Answer 35

Talk Aloud; Self-Directed (Private); Own Behaviors; Internalized as Inner (Silent)

Question 36

Vygotsky’s influence on educational strategies can be seen in Brown and Palinscar’s (1989) ____ ____ ____, which emphasizes a child’s ability to learn through ____ ____ and has been applied to reading instruction. When using this method, the teacher initially leads the instruction and models the appropriate kinds of questions to ask to foster students’ understanding of the text. Gradually, students take over the teacher’s role and take turns asking similar types of questions of their fellow students.

Answer 36

Reciprocal Teaching Method; Social Interaction

Question 37

____ of ____ refers to “the ability to make inferences about another’s representational states and to predict behavior accordingly”.

Answer 37

Theory of Mind (ToM)

Question 38

The research has found that theory of mind develops gradually during childhood, with major changes usually occurring at ages two to three, four to five, and after age five.

Answer 38

Gradually During Childhood

Question 39

During this period, children become aware of other people’s mental states and begin to understand that people have different perceptions, emotions, and desires that influence their actions.

Answer 39

Ages two to three

Question 40

understand that another person’s thoughts may be false (inaccurate) and that people may act on their false beliefs.

Answer 40

Ages four to five:

Question 41

Children begin to develop a more sophisticated theory of mind by about age six and realize that people’s actions are not always consistent with their true thoughts and feelings.

Answer 41

After age five

Question 42

After age 5, they also understand that people ____ (rather than simply record) events and that different people may interpret the same event ____. As they move into early adolescence, they recognize that people can have ____ ____ about events and other people.

Answer 42

Interpret; Differently; Mixed Feelings

Question 43

The research has also shown that there are ____ ____ in the development of theory of mind and that development is affected by several factors, including the degree to which children ____ in ____ ____, their level of ____ ____, the nature of ____ -____ ____, and ____ of ____.

Answer 43

Individual Differences; Engage in Pretend Play; School Adjustment; Parent-Child Interactions; Number of Siblings

Question 44

Developmental psychologists have identified several predictable changes in memory that occur childhood.

Answer 44

Memory in Childhood:

Question 45

____ ____ and ____ ____: Researchers use several techniques to study memory and other cognitive processes in young children. Studies using ____ as the research methodology have found that, by ___ ____ of age, infants demonstrate ____ ____ for a stimulus for up to 24 hours following exposure to that stimulus. Also, studies using ____ ____ that require babies to imitate a series of events indicate that the ability to recall past events is apparent by ___ to _ ____ of age.

Answer 45

Early Recognition and Recall Memory; Habituation; Three Months; Recognition Memory; Imitation Tasks; Six to 12 Months

Question 46

Barr et al. (1996) found that ____% of the 6-, 9-, and 12-month old infants in their study successfully ____ a sequence that involved removing a mitten from a puppet, shaking the mitten, and then replacing the mitten on the puppet after a delay of two days.

Answer 46

75%; Imitated

Question 47

Age-related changes in memory during childhood are due to– increases in the speed and capacity of ____ ____, an ____ ____ ____, and increased use of ____ ____.

Answer 47

Working Memory; Expanded Knowledge Base; Memory Strategies

Question 48

Regarding the memory strategies, preschoolers sometimes use ____ -____ ____ ____ (“incidental mnemonics”) but do so in an ____ ____, and children in the early elementary school years use somewhat more ____ ____ but are often distracted by ____ ____.

Answer 48

Non-Deliberate Memory Strategies; Ineffective Way; Effective Strategies Irrelevant Information

Question 49

When taught rehearsal or other memory strategies, young children may apply them to the ____ ____ but do not subsequently use them in ____ ____. By age nine or ten, children use begin to use memory strategies ____, beginning with ____, followed by ____, and then ____. In adolescence, these strategies are “____ -____ “ and used more ____ and ____.

Answer 49

Immediate Situation; New Situations; Regularly; Rehearsal; Organization; Elaboration; “fine-tuned”; Deliberately and Selectively

Question 50

Memory differences between younger and older children (and adults) are also related to improvements in ____, which is the ability to “think about thinking,” and in ____, which is the aspect of metacognition that involves an ability to reflect on one’s own memory processes.

Answer 50

Metacognition; Metamemory

Question 51

The research has identified several predictable changes in cognitive ability that occur during adulthood. For example, investigators have found that the optimal time for completion of certain types of tasks (especially tasks that depend on the ability to inhibit a prepotent response) is related to ____ ____, which varies with age: For older adults, peak arousal and task performance levels occur in the ____, while younger adults have higher levels of both in the ____. This phenomenon is referred to as the “____ ____ “.

Answer 51

Circadian Arousal; Morning; Evening; Synchrony Effect

Question 52

Other research has found that multitasking, selective attention, and inductive reasoning are all adversely _________.

Answer 52

affected by increasing age.

Question 53

____ in ____ ____: Studies investigating ____ (____) memory have found that adults are usually able to recall very few of the events they experienced prior to age three or four. One explanation for this ____ (____) ____ is that it occurs because areas of the brain essential for the memory of events (especially the prefrontal lobes) are not sufficiently developed prior to age four. Another explanation is that it is due to the absence of the ____ ____ that are necessary to encode information in ways that would enable later retrieval.

Answer 53

Changes in Episodic Memory; Episodic (Autobiographical); Childhood (infantile) Amnesia; Language Abilities

Question 54

The research has also shown that, when adults aged 50 and older are asked to recall personal events from their lives, they recall several ____ ____ followed by events that occurred in ____ and ____ ____. Greater recall of recent events (events that occurred in the last 20 years) is referred to as the ____ ____, while greater recall of events that occurred from about 10 to 30years of age is referred to as the ____ ____.

Answer 54

Recent Events; Adolescence and Young Adulthood; Retention Function; Reminiscence Bump

Question 55

Several explanations for the reminiscence bump have been proposed: One explanation is that people generally experience a larger proportion of ____ ____ during this period, and these experiences are more likely to be ____. Another explanation is that the ____ of ____ is most efficient during this period. Finally, a more recent explanation is that people develop a personal ____ of ____ during these years, and memories for events that occurred during this time are more easily ____ because they’ve become part of the person’s ____ of ____.

Answer 55

Novel Experiences; Remembered; Encoding of Information; Sense of Identity; Recalled; Sense of Self

Question 56

Changes in Short- and Long-Term Memory: The ____ of ____ on ____ vary, with some aspects of memory being affected more than others. For example, the studies have found that increasing age has a greater negative impact on ____ ____ than ____ ____. Consequently, older adults have more trouble recalling what they need to buy at the grocery store than remembering the words to a familiar song while singing.

Answer 56

Effects of Age on Memory; Explicit Memory than Implicit Memory

Question 57

Studies have also found that, when compared to younger adults, older adults exhibit the greatest age-related declines in ____ ____ -____ (____) ____ followed by the ____ ____ aspect of ____ -____ ____, while ____ ____ -____ ____, ____ ____ (another aspect of short-term memory), and ____ ____ are relatively unaffected.

Answer 57

Recent Long-Term (Secondary Memory; Working Memory; Short-Term Memory; Remote Long-Term Memory; Memory Span; Sensory Memory

Question 58

Regarding ____ ____, older adults perform less well than younger adults on tasks that require them to recall word lists or details from prose passages they have recently read. The studies have also found that ____ ____ is more adversely affected by increasing age than is ____ or ____ ____ and that ____ shows some age-related decline, although this is moderated by certain individual characteristics (e.g., self-efficacy beliefs) and the nature of the task.

Answer 58

Secondary Memory; Episodic Memory; Semantic or Procedural Memory; Metamemory

Question 59

Age-related declines in working memory seem to be due primarily to ____ ____ ____ (which is measured in terms of perceptual speed) and a reduced ability to prevent irrelevant information from entering ____ ____; while decrements in long-term memory are largely because older adults are less likely than younger adults to use effective ____ ____.

Answer 59

Reduced Processing Efficiency; Working Memory; Encoding Strategies

Question 60

The studies have also found that healthy older adults benefit from training in the use of memory strategies. There is also evidence that age-related decrements in memory are less apparent on ____ ____ than on the ____ ____ ____ usually used by researchers.

Answer 60

Memory Strategies; Familiar Tasks; Unfamiliar Laboratory Tasks

Question 61

According to Piaget, adaptation reflects two complementary processes: 1) ____ involves incorporating new information into existing schemas, while 2) ____ entails modifying easting schemas to incorporate new information. Piaget distinguished between four stages of development that he considered to be both universal and invariant: During the 3) ____ stage, development depends on the sensory information provided by objects and other people and the actions that can be performed upon them. Major accomplishments of this stage include the development of 4) ____ thought, 5) ____ permanence, 6) ____ imitation, and make believe play.

Answer 61

(l) Assimilation; (2) accommodation; (3) sensorimotor; (4) representational (symbolic): (5) object; (6) deferred

Question 62

The preoperational stage is characterized by a number of limitations including 7) ____ reasoning, which underlies magical thinking and (8), which is the tendency to attribute human characteristics to inanimate objects. Children in the 9) ____ stage are capable of conservation, which depends on the operations of reversibility and 10) ____. Piaget used the term 11) ____ to describe the gradual acquisition of conservation abilities and other abilities within a specific stage of development. Finally, the 12) ____ stage is characterized by the ability to think abstractly and engage in 13) ____ reasoning. The beginning of this stage involves renewed egocentrism, which, according to Elkind, is reflected in two phenomena the personal fable and the 14) ____.

Answer 62

(7) precausal (transductive); (8) animism; (9) concrete operational; (10) decentration; (11) horizontal decalage; (12) formal operational; (13)hypothetico-deductive; (14) imaginary audience

Question 63

In contrast to Piagetians, information processing theorists focus on development within specific 15) ____ Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory focuses on the role of social and cultural factors and emphasizes the importance of the zone of 16) ____ which refers the discrepancy between a child’s current developmental level and the level that he/she can reach when an adult or more experienced peer provides appropriate 17) ____.

Answer 63

(15) cognitive domains; (16) proximal development; (17) scaffolding

Question 64

Research comparing the memory of children and adults suggests that, until about age 18) ____, children do not regularly use rehearsal, elaboration, and other memory strategies. Improvements on cognitive tasks that occur as children get older are due, in part, to improvements in 19) ____ (“thinking about thinking’). Among older adults, 20) ____ memory shows the greatest age-related decline, which appears to be due primarily to problems related to the use of effective 21) ____ strategies. The ability of adults to have better recall of autobiographical events that occurred between the ages of 10 and 30 is referred to as the 22) ____.

Answer 64

(18) 9 or 10; (19) metacognition; (20) recent long-term (secondary); (21) encoding; (22) reminiscence bump