8: Cognitive Abilities Across The Lifespan Flashcards
(30 cards)
What are autobiographical memories?
Memories of our own lives that make up our own personal histories
What is childhood amnesia?
Most people remember very little from before the age of 3
What are some explanations for childhood amnesia?
Reduced recency
Freudian repression
Later development of the hippocampus
Later development of the coherant self which is needed for episodic memory
What is the reminiscence bump?
An increase in memories between the ages of 15 and 30 with fewer memories over the age of 40
This effect only occurs for positive events
Why is it difficult to study long term memory in infants?
They have limited language and motor responses as well as poor attention so it’s difficult to differentiate between conscious and unconscious reccolection
Why do some argue that babies can’t have LTM before the age of 8 months?
Their hippocampus is not developed enough
Why do some argue that babies can have LTM before the age of 8 months
They can associate stimuli that are generally presented together
What is the mobile conjugate reinforcement task?
A ribbon is attatched to the babies foot and a mobile so every time they kick, the mobile moves
When it’s taken off, they still kick more to try and move it which shows that they remember the reaction it produced before
What is deferred immitation?
Observing target actions and reproducing them after a delay
What evidence is there that infants can form long term associations?
A pink rabbit and yellow duck were presented together.
3 target actions were modelled on the rabbit
After a delay, they were able to immitate the actions on the duck
What is the verbal short term memory of 5 year olds?
4 items
What is the verbal short term memory of 12 year olds
The same as adults
6/7 items
What is the visual short term memory of 1 year olds?
4 items
What is the link between working memory and age?
All 3 componants of the model improve with age
What is the link between false memory and age?
In childhood, false memories increase due to improvements in gist memory
What is gist memory?
We remember the gist of the sentance or the event, not the exact words
What is implicit memory?
The unconscious priming and associations we make between items
Not associated with age
What is the link between executive function and age?
Starts to develop around the age of 4 and doesn’t reach adult levels until around 20
Includes synaptic pruning, myelination and development of the prefrontal cortex
How does selective attention develop?
It increases between the ages of 3 and 8
At age 3, when asked to learn the locations of target objects, they looked in every box. 8 year olds only looked in the relevent boxes
How does planning change as we age?
Older children are able to do it more systematically
What is the cohort effct?
Our experiances are most similar to those of a similar age. It might be that different groups have different experiances not because of age but because they grew up in a different society
How does IQ change accross lifespan?
They remain stable
IQ at 11 is correlated with their IQ at 80
What happens to episodic memory as we age?
It declines
What memory systems do not change as we age?
Semantic and implicit memory systems
