6. Cognitive Development in Adolescence Flashcards
(29 cards)
What are basic level cognitive functions?
- attention
- perception and memory
What are high level cognitive functions?
separate humans from other species
- logical reasoning
- problem solving
What areas of the brain are cognitive functions linked to?
- prefrontal cortex: still developing in adolescence
What 3 interrelated concepts are we interested in when assessing cognitive functions in adolescents?
- content of adolescent cognitive functions: is it qualitatively different to that in children
- structure in which adolescents cognitive functions are organised
- process by which adolescents perform basic and higher order functions
What is perception?
- cognitive ability present from early on in life
- changes with age
- with development we see change in the flexibility of perception: able to perceive something in more than one way
- flexibility of visual perception is tested with ambiguous figures
What do studies show about perception of ambiguous figures? (Gopnik and Rosati ; Van Krevelen ; Wimmer et al)
- younger children generally report seeing one figure (lack of flexibility)
- only when an adult makes the distinction between the two elements do younger children see a figure
- young adolescents can perceive them more flexibly
What is selective attention?
- the ability to allocate attentional resources and focus on a specific object
- this ability improves with age
- crucial for problem solving where you may need to pay attention to relevant information and ignore irrelevant information
How does the central-incidental learning task assess selective attention?
- task using a set of cards using two objects belonging to different categories
- participants only asked to remember one category and not pay attention to the other
- later they are asked to recall items from both categories
- adolescents are more likely than younger children to remember more items from the central class than the incidental class
THEREFORE… adolescents are better at selective attention
What is processing speed?
- the time it takes the brain to receive/output information
- or the speed a mental calculation can be carried out
How does processing speed develop?
- develops rapidly during childhood and continues to develop during adolescence
- older adolescents show faster speed of processing (declines after 25)
- this development is at least partially driven by maturation of white matter in the brain
What is matrix reasoning? (reasoning measure)
- subtest of WASI
- modeled after a transitional test of ‘fluid’ or non-verbal reasoning
- measures the ability to select the geometric visual stimulus that accurately completes an array of stimuli arranged according to one or more progression rules
What is block design? (reasoning measure)
- another WASI subtest
- measure the ability to arrange a set of red and white blocks in such a way as to reproduce a two dimensional visual pattern shown on a set of cards
What are the two subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson tests of achievement?
- concept formation
- participants must identify rules that make up geometric figures after being exposed to concepts
- also measures cognitive flexibility - analysis synthesis
- measures the ability to analyse the structure of an incomplete logic puzzle and complete the missing parts
What is STM?
- memory required for short duration
- sometimes known as temporal and working memory
- subject to temporal decay and chunk capacity limits
What about STM are we interested in measuring?
- changes in how quickly information in STM is forgotten and how many items can be remembered as we age
- look at how these changes correlate with changes in the brain and other cognitive functions
What two tests often measure STM?
- span task
- series of items presented at a rate of 1/sec
- task is to repeat them in the same order - spatial span task
- blocks are presented in a particular arrangement
- experimenter taps the blocks in a specific order
- PPs are required to repeat the sequence
What in STM improves during adolescence?
chunk capacity
What are the explanations for age-related improvement in STM?
neurological changes during childhood and adolescence
- volumetric changes in the medial temporal lobe as a result of sexual maturation
- gray matter changes in the frontal lobe as a result of brain maturation
What are the three conceptualisations of WM according to Cowan?
- STM applied to cognitive tasks (purpose)
- a multi-component system that holds and manipulates information in STM (function)
- the use of attention to manage STM (function)
What 2 tasks can measure WM?
- modified span task
- PPs are presented with a series of items and asked to reproduce them in reverse order - letter span task
- a list of random letters are presented
- PPs are required to repeat the letters in any order they appear
What is long term memory?
- longer than STM
- memory for people/events/general knowledge
- absolute capacity does not change with age
What 2 strategies can be used to improve memory?
rehearsal strategy
- often used by young children
- repeat sequence
elaboration strategy
- more complex
- more effective
organisation strategy
- chunk to aid memory
What are Luciana et als 3 WM strategies used?
- non-verbal facial recognition
- PPs presented with faces
- then presented with 2 faces (one of which was previously seen) - delayed spatial recall
- dots flashed at different locations on screen with a short/long delay
- PPs need to indicate the location of the dot with a touch pen - spatial memory span
- sequences tapped on three blocks in front of PPs
- need to reproduce in correct order and backwards
What does spatial self-ordered search measure?
What does it require?
- PPs ability to conduct an organised search of locations to obtain tokens hidden at each location
- requires strategic self-monitoring and organisation of behaviour
- places heavy demand on executive control
