Cognition & Development Flashcards

Question

Formal operations

Answer 1

- aged 12-->adulthood | - capable of formal reasoning and abstract thought

Answer 2

- abstract and logic thinking | - able to focus on the form of an argument s and not be distracted by it content

Answer 3

- logic questions - Rule and application of rule - 'all yellow cats have 2 heads' - I have a yellow cat named Charlie, How many heads does Charlie have?' - correct answer=two - younger children become distracted by the fact that cats do not have 2 heads

Answer 4

P - research support E - Conservation - showed child two beakers that were the same with the same volume of liquid - asked the child if they were the same - if yes: poured the liquid from one of the beakers into a narrower glass and asked 'are they the same' 2x - 'they're the same' = have conservation - 'the taller one' = do not have conservation - children under 7 were more likely to say the taller beaker had more liquid - C - this demonstrates how children in previous stages have qualitatively different thinking to those in later stages and support Piaget's theory - H - However, Piaget's conservation task has been found to have methodological issues (asking twice) - research by Bryant has found conflicting evidence P - good applications E - Piaget's stages have been used to develop key stages in schools - the level of development is used to determine the child's learning type - e.g. KS1 - emphasis on play vs KS3 - emphasis on abstract thought such as algebra C helps provide conditions that are optimal for children in each stage to learn and reach best cognitive ability P - Culture bias E - theory is based on his own West- European ideas e.g. for Piaget if child shows abstract though this means they are cognitively developed WHEREAS in other cultures operational abilities are more fundamental in displaying cognitive development C - weakness because it lacks generalisability across cultures P - diff learning styles E - some children may be more independent learners whereas others may work better in social settings - discovery learning vs peer learning C - explains some children but cannot be used to explain the cognitive development of all children

Answer 5

- agreed with Piaget that young children are curious and actively involved in learning - placed more emphasis on social contributions to the process of development rather than self-initiated development/discovery - believed children acquire their cultural values, beliefs, and problem-solving strategies through interaction with other, more knowledgeable people. - sociocultural approach to cognitive development

Answer 6

- children will pick up the mental tools that are most important for life within their physical, social and work environments - these tools vary between cultures

Answer 7

- a gap between a child current level of development i.e. what they can understand and do alone, and what they can potentially understand after interaction with more expert others ---> in order for new learning = tasks must be just outside child's current ability - assistance allows the child to understand as much of a subject/situation as they are capable - level of development still limits this to some extent

Answer 8

- structured interaction between MKO and learner - helps learner achieve a specific goal - Wood suggested features: engages child, focuses child, motivates child, identifies most important parts and demonstrates task - involves verbal instructions, prompts and cues that are progressively withdrawn

Answer 9

- Vygotsky said that children develop a more advanced understanding and more advanced reasoning abilities by learning with others rather than individual exploration - especially if this other person is more knowledgeable on the subject than they are (more knowledgeable other) - interaction with others does not only result in acquiring more info but also more advanced reasoning abilities

Answer 10

Roazzi and Bryant: - tested 4-5 year olds on estimating abilities when working with an older child - worked alone = less likely to succeed - worked with MKO = more likely to both succeed and master task

Answer 11

P - evidence support E - Connor and cross - Longitudinal study - observed mothers and children engaging in tasks - 16mths, 2.5, 3.5 and 4.5 years - mothers used less and less direct intervention and more prompts a children gained more experience C - This shows support for Vygotsky's theory as it shows that using progressively withdrawing help is an effective method for teaching children P - Application in schools E - social interaction in learning e.g. peer work and MKOs such teacher assistants have been used to scaffold children through their ZPD's C - we now know what techniques can encourage learning and help children reach their potential P - individual differences E - not everyone learns in the same way and do not learn the best through social interaction C - the theory therefore unhelpful in some cases as it cannot be generalised to all children and all learning style

Answer 12

- infants may be much more capable than Piaget claimed, and at least some of the physical world is innate - Baillargeon believed the reason infants appeared to fail to understand object permanence was because they did not have the necessary motor skills to pursue a hidden object

Answer 13

- measured the amount of time that children look at an expected event vs an unexpected event - expectation: children will look at the unexpected event for longer - tests object permanence - children consistently looked at the unexpected even for longer - this was interpreted as surprise - surprised = must understand what should have happened - this demonstrates object permeance

Answer 14

- 60 children - 1/2 boys 1/2 girls - 20 = 4 y/o 20 = 5 y/o 20 = 6 y/o - given tasks that measure role-taking ability - given scenarios and asked how each person felt within these scenarios (interpersonal dialemmas) - e.g. girl asked by dad not to climb trees girl must climb tree to save friends cat - how would each person feel if girl did or did not climb the tree ---> lead to the identification of distinct levels of role-taking these correlated with age suggesting it was to do with development

Answer 15

- Ages 3-6 - child cannot reliably distinguish between their own emotions and those of others - they can identify the emotional states of others but cannot identify what social behaviour may have caused them

Answer 16

- Ages 6-8 - child can now tell the difference between their own viewpoint and that of others, but they can usually focus on only one of these perspectives - they can appreciate that others may have a different POV because they have access to different info

Answer 17

- Ages 8-10 - child can put themselves into the position of another person and fully appreciate their perspective - but can only take on one broad point of view at a time

Answer 18

- Ages 10-12 - child now has the ability to look at a situation from their own perspective and another's perspective at the same time - e.g. as a third person viewpoint

Answer 19

- Ages: 12+ - child realises that understanding other peoples viewpoints is not enough to allow people to reach an agreement - perspective is also influenced by personal, social and cultural factors

Answer 20

- the mental processes we use when engaged in social interaction - we make decisions based on our understanding of the social situation - both understanding and decision making are cognitive processes

Answer 21

- Piaget = physical + social perspective-taking occur together - Selman identified social perspective-taking as separate: - the ability to appreciate a social situation from another's perspective - underlies much of our normal social interactions

Answer 22

- children gave answers relevant to their age group - as children mature they take into consideration more information and begin to understand that people may react differently - they develop: the ability to analyse objectively to be a 'neutral bystander' - and realise that different cultural and societal values affect the perspective of the bystander

Answer 23

P - Applications E - Pair therapy - used to help children with behavioural and emotional difficulties to develop perspective-taking and negotiation skills that are appropriate to their age. e.g. talking through the perspectives of others C - this is a strength because it can be used to improve the QOL of children and help them develop social cognition HOWEVER P - Selman’s theory overemphasises the cognitive aspects of social interactions; E - perspective-taking is not the only aspect needed for good social interactions e.g. family climate and opportunities to learn - so this would need to be taken into account for pair therapy to work in the best way possible. P - evidence that perspective-taking gets better with age E - found correlations between age and ability to take different perspectives in original interpersonal dilemmas study - a longitudinal follow up study - show: perspective-taking develops with age in each child - earlier research = not simply the result of individual differences in social-cognitive ability in different groups C - strength because Selman's ideas are based on solid research and are supported by a range of studies P - cultural differences E - Wu et al found young adult Chinese p's did significantly better in perspective-taking tasks than matched Americans C - weakness because it shows there is more to the development of perspective-taking than cognitive maturity because the differences here were down to cultural inputs.

Answer 24

- our personal understanding of what other people are thinking and feeling - understanding that other people hav e different POVs - provides the ability to predict and interpret the behaviour of others

Answer 25

- tests whether children can understand that people can believe something that is not true - test whetehr they can interpret a scene from anothers POV - if they understand the false belief they have a TofM - TofM becomes more advanced at around 4

Answer 26

- sally put the marble in her basket - sally leaves - anne moves the marble to her box - where will sally look for the marble? - understanding that sally does not know that anne has moved the marble requires an understanding of Sally's false belief about where the marble is

Answer 27

- 20 Autistic children (chronological age: 12) (verbal mental age: 5.5) - 14 with Down's Syndrome (CA: 11) (VMA:3) - 27 Typically Developed (ages: 4.5)

Answer 28

- to see whether the results from the ASD children related to induviduals with disorders in general or jsut those with autism - if its just those with ASD it can be applied to explain why children with ASD lack socail skills

Answer 29

questions to ensure p's understood the task: - naming Q: 'what is this doll called?' - reality Q: ' where is the marble now?' - memory Q 'where was the ball in the begining' - ----> all P's answered 100% correctly (they understand) - Belief question: 'where will Sally look for the marble': revealed the differences between P's

Answer 30

- 3-4-year-olds told a story - Maxi left his chocolate in the blue cupboard - his mum uses it and places it in the green cupboard - where would Maxi look for his chocolate? - 3 year olds - incorrect (green) - 4 year olds - correct (blue cupboard) - understood that Maxi doesn't know his mother moved it - TofM become more advanced at around 4

Answer 31

correctly answered: - Down's: 86% - Typically developed: 85% - Autistic: 20%

Answer 32

- the children with ASD didn't understand the false belief - so lack TofM - This suggests TofM explains the development of social cognition - if TofE develops so does social cognition - a lack of TofM can result in ASD - explains the social cognition difficulties in induviduals with ASD

Answer 33

- found impaired TofM in adults rather than lack - suggests t it develops just with deficit - reading emotions based off of cropped images of eyes - adults with AS and those with ASD struggled - further supports the idea of lacking TofM may cause ASD

Answer 34

P - research had good methodology E - the inclusion of the Down's control group in the Sally-Anne task answered 'no' to 'is it just disorders in general that cause lack o TofM?' - additionally all questions asked were closed Q's which made it easy to make comparisons between the 3 groups C - increases validity of the findings and in turn the theory P - False belief tasks validity issues E - young children who were not successful at the sally-anne task - still engage in imaginary play (requires TofM) - they have a TofM and still struggle --> is it a valid way of testing TofM? C - is it measuring what we think it is? --> reduces validity P - other validity E - autistic children can be very 'literal' - they know dolls aren't real and don't have thoughts etc C - so we may not be measuring the child's TofM but their ability to understand that inanimate objects don't have thoughts - reduces the validity H - however, a replication of the study with human models found the same results - ^ validity --> suggests it was measuring TofM P - Application: Social stories E - encorage children to consider different POVs - explains social situations through stories - teaches what to expect and what to do C - helps ASD children to understand social situations

Answer 35

- special brain cells called mirror neurons distributed in several areas of the brain - unique because they fire both in response to personal action and in response to action of others - may be involved in social cognition allowing us to interpret intention and emotion in others

Answer 36

- fMRI and EEG's

Answer 37

- Ramachandran proposed the 'broken mirror' theory of ASD - dysfunction in the mirror neuron system prevents developing child imitating and understanding social behaviour in others - e.g. ASD infancy --> Autistic children imitate adult behaviour less than others - later problems with the mirror neurons can lead to difficulties in social communication - ----> as children fail to develop the usual abilities that aid in reading the intentions and emotions of others

Answer 38

- Electrical activity in a monkey's motor cortex was studied - when a researcher ate in front of a monkey - monkey's motor cortex became activated in the same way in which it would if the monkey reached for the food itself - Further investigations: it was the same cells that fired when the monkey reached itself or watched some else reach. - These cells were then called mirror neurons.

Answer 39

- understanding each other's intentions is central to social cognition - It was suggested that mirror neurons respond not just to observed actions but to intentions behind behaviour. - We interpret people's actions with reference to our memory AND experience their intentions using our mirror neurons

Answer 40

- associated with TofM and ability to take other's perspectives - mirror neurons fire in response to others' actions and intentions --> this may give us a neural mechanism for experiencing and understanding others' perspectives and emotional states. - the same information that we use to determine intention may allow us to interpret what others are thinking and feeling.

Answer 41

- Ramachandran - complex social interactions humans have require a brain system that contains the ability to understand intention, emotion and perspective - without these - we could not live in large groups with complex social roles and rules

Answer 42

P - Evidence support for dysfunction of mirror neuron system in people with ASD E - Ramachandran: mu waves - in typical people: mu waves suppressed during movement of own body AND observation of other people moving those same body parts (involves mirror neurons) - ASD P's: mu waves are suppressed when moving own body but not when observing others C - scientific evidence support increases the validity of the theory H - however, there are issues with sample (only male) which decreases the generalisability of the results P - Correlational evidence E - evidence of brain structure is simply correlational, one variable occurs alongside the other - e.g. here the mirror neuron dysfunction occurs alongside ASD there is no evidence to say it CAUSES it C - reduces validity of the theory because we cannot establish cause and effect P - difficulty studying mirror neurons E - Evidence fcomes from brain scanning which identifies activity levels in regions of the brain - doesn't allow us to measure activity in individual brain cells (ethically not possible to insert electrodes into human brain) C - Weakness - because researchers are generally measuring activity in a part of the brain and inferring that this means activity in mirror neurons. - This is a lack of direct evidence for mirror neruons from studies like this.