Cognition and Development

Question 1

piagets theory

what is schema?

Answer 1

a mental framework of the world created through life experiences

Question 2

piagets theory

what is disequilibrum and equilibration?

Answer 2

D: experiencing something we cannnot make sense of

E: to adapt and develop schemas

Question 3

piagets theory

what is accomocation?

Answer 3

creating a new schema when facing a new experience

Question 4

piagets theory

what is assimilation?

Answer 4

adding new information to exisiting schemas

Question 5

piagets theory

A03:

Answer 5

real world application:
- school lessons moved away from traditional style teaching and introduced more activities

social processes
- piaget only focused that learning is an indivdual process, vygotsky argued it was with the help of peers

Question 6

piagets theory

what are the four stages created by piaget?

Answer 6

sensorimotor (0-2yrs):
- children are learning the world through their senses and develops object permanence

pre-operational (2-7yrs):
- children are egocentric demonstrated through 3 mountains task
- lack conservation skills
- begin to understand class inclusion

concrete (7-11yrs):
- begin to conserve and lose egocentrism
- developed more reasoning

formal (11+yrs):
- become capable of formal reasning without distarctions
- can solve problems on a systematic way (pendelum task)

Question 7

piagets theory

what are the three mountains task?

Answer 7

method:
- A child is shown a display of three mountains
- tallest mountain is covered with snow.
- On top of another are some trees, and on top of the third is a church
- The child stands on one side of the display, and there is a doll on the other side of it.

findings:
- At age 7, thinking is no longer egocentric as the child can see more than their own POV
- 4 yrs: reports what can be seen from her perspective and not what can be seen from the doll’s perspective.

Question 8

piagets theory

what is the conservation task?

Answer 8

the ability to understand that a certain property of an object remains the same, despite any transformation that has changed the appearance of the object.

Question 9

piagets theory

what is object permanance?

Answer 9

knowing that an object still exists even if it is hidden.

Question 10

piagets theory

what is class inclusion?

Answer 10

the ability to classify objects into two or more categories simultaneously.

Question 11

piagets theory

stages A03:

Question 12

vygotskys theory

what is cognitive development?

Answer 12

a social process and a child uses ‘experts’ to learn frm

Question 13

vygotskys theory

what is the zone of proximal development?

Answer 13

the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.

Question 14

vygotskys theory

what is the more knowledgable other?

Answer 14

a peer that knows more information than someone else and assists them

Question 15

vygotskys theory

what is scaffolding?

Answer 15

• the help given by experts to children
• levels of help is intially high but then gets less as the child learns what to do

Question 16

vygotskys theory

what are the scaffolding levels?

Answer 16

**level of help: nature prompt: **
5. demonstration
4. prepration foir child
3. indication of materials
2. specific verbal instructions 1. general prompts

Question 17

vygotskys theory

A03:

Answer 17

application to education:
-principle of scaffolding has been introduced in classrooms

cultural differernces:
- students in china effectively learn in a lecture style classrom
- suggests that vygotsky overemphasised the importance of scaffolding in learning

Question 18

baillargeon explanation of indant abilities

what is knowledge of the physical world?

finish

Answer 18

believed that babies lacked the motor skills to find the hidden object or got distarcted rather than not understanding

Question 19

baillargeon explanation of indant abilities

what was the study?

Answer 19

procedure:
- 24 babies aged 5-6 months were shown a tall and short rabbit behind a screen with a window

• familarisation event: shown both rabbits disappearing behind a screeen (meets expectation)
• expected event: short rabbit passes window and isnt visible
• unexpected event: tall rabbit is not seen through window but passes

findings:
- demonstrates object permanence

Question 20

baillargeon explanation of indant abilities

what is violation of expectation?

Answer 20

to see whether young infants actually have object permanence, based on the idea that infants will show surprise when witnessing an ‘impossible’ event

Question 21

baillargeon explanation of indant abilities

what is the theory of infant reasoning?

Answer 21

babies are born with a basic understanding of the real world and we have the a ability to learn more from experience

Question 22

baillargeon explanation of infant abilities

A03:

Answer 22

greater validity:
- piaget cant distinguish between the babys distraction and lack of object permnance, baillargeon overcomes this with her VOE she controls this confounding variable

interpretation:
- argued that babies could have been interested for a different reason which shows subjectivity

Question 23

social cognition (selmans levels of perspective taking)

what is selmans perspective taking?

Answer 23

develops indepently from physical perspective taking unlike piaget

Question 24

social cognition (selmans levels of perspective taking)

what was selmans study?

Answer 24

procedure:
- 30 boys and 30 girls
- asked how they would feel in different scenarios
- holly was told by father to n ot climb trees, her friends kitten got stuck in one
- they were asked how holly, her friend and father would feel if she climbed the tree

findings:
- found different stages in development

Question 25

social cognition (selmans levels of perspective taking)

what are selmans stages?

Answer 25

stage 0 (3-6yrs):
- egocentric: does not understand others emotional state

stage 1(6-8yrs):
- social informational: can tell the difference between their pov and others but can only take on board one at a time

stage 2(8-10):
- self reflective: can take on another perspective and compare their own

stage 3(10-12yrs):
- mutual: can look at their pov and anothers at the same time

stage 4(12+yrs):
- social and conventional system: know that understanding someones pov will not always lead to an agreement so social conventions are needed

Question 26

social cognition (selmans levels of perspective taking)

what were selmans later developments?

Answer 26

added by schultz:

interpersonal understsnading:
- if we take differetn roles then we can understand social situations

interpersonal negotation strategies:
- we develop sklills in responding to what others think

awarness of personal meaning of relationships:
- being able to adapt our behaviour in different relationship contexts

Question 27

social cognition (selmans levels of perspective taking)

A03:

Answer 27

longitudinal study:
- followed children over a long period of time and found that tbheir perspecticve improved

social development:
- important for social development

cultural differences:
- children progressed through the stages according to biological maturity

Question 28

social cognition (theory of mind)

what is theory of mind?

Answer 28

the ability to understand what another person is thinking or feeling

Question 29

social cognition (theory of mind)

what is the sally-anne study?

Answer 29

procedure:
- a form of false belief task
- sally puts a marble in her basket then when she isnt looking anne moves it away. the child is asked where sally would look for her marble
- 20 autistic children completed the task
- control groups of 27 non-autistic children and 14 with down syndrome

findings:
- 85% control groups could identify that sally would look in her basket
- only 20% of atustic children could answer correctly
- suggests that autstic children have a TOM deficent

older children and adults:
- some studies show that older children/adults who dont have a learning disability can complete sally-anne task
- baron cohen suggested they are not successful in a more challenging task

Question 30

social cognition (theory of mind)

A03:

Answer 30

perspective-taking:
- children could just be perspective taking in the

memory problems:
- false belief tasks rely on good visual memory could have a deficient in memeory rather than TOM

real world application:
- helps us understand why autistic people struggle with social interactions

Question 31

social cognition (mirror neurons)

what is the mirror neuron system?

Answer 31

they are neurons that activate when observing another individual performing an action

Question 32

what are the role of mirror neurons

Answer 32

• NEURONS THAT WIRE TOGETHER FIRE TOGETHER
• they are importnant for social-cognitive skills such as empathy perspective taking and theory of mind

Question 33

social cognition (mirror neurons)

what is the theory of autism?

Answer 33

ramachandran & oberman proposed the ‘broken mirror’ thoery which suggests that autism is caused partly by a defiecnecy in the MRS

Question 34

social cogntion (mirror neurons)

A03:

Answer 34

supporting research:
- lacoboni et al found that MRs are activated when trying to understand intention

fmri scans:
- dapretto found that autisitic children had no activity in the interior fronal gyrus

methodological issues:
- FMRIs and EEGs are used for MR studies but they measure brain activity there for it lacks generalisability