Cognitive Development Flashcards
(30 cards)
How does Piaget’s theory of children’s thinking differ from recent theorists’?
Piaget:
- logic improves
- discontinuous development; 4 stages
vs
Other theorists:
- information processing improves
- continuous development
What abilities contribute to information processing?
Brain speed (maximum reached by 15 years…)
Knowledge, strategies, memory, working memory, practice (automatisation)
What are some examples of cognitive functioning?
Processing speed, memory & working memory, inhibitory ability and attention
What do all information processing theories agree on?
The structure of the information processing system.
Children have limitations to overcome.
What is the structure of the information processing system?
Sensory memory –> Short term memory –> Long term memory
What were Atkinson & Shiffrin’s contributions the info processing system?
Sensory memory
- fraction of a second
- rapid decay
- 5 year old’s memory is just as good as an adult’s
According to Neisser, what are the different types of sensory memory?
Iconic: visual
Echoic: auditory
Haptic: tactile / touch
How is our short term memory like, and how is it measured?
- 15 - 30 seconds
- 3 - 7 units (chunks) = bottlenecks if more than 7 units
- rapid retrieval
- improves with age
- measured with digit span
There are no limits to how ____ and how ____ information is stored in long term memory.
much; long
What was Kail’s observation of the trend between our information processing speed and age?
Time needed to execute mental operations declines steadily during adolescence and childhood.
Why are there age diffs in processing speeds?
More efficient strategies
More elaborated knowledge = strong neural connections
What do the factors in age difference in processing speed imply?
Strategies and knowledge develop at diff rates in diff domains –> changes in processing speed shouldn’t be consistent across domains
What is the difference between domain general and domain specific changes in processing speed?
Domain general:
consistent change across diff domains of knowledge
Domain specific:
inconsistent change across diff domains of knowledge
What did Kail find out about the consistency between adult and children reaction times across many tasks?
High consistency = general domain change
What are some tasks to determine processing speed?
Choice reaction time: left button for <– , right for –>
Mental rotation: left button if figure matches original, right if not
Letter matching: left button if letters matched, right if not
What did Kail and Park find out about automatisation?
Through 3000+ practice trials of mental rotation task, there became no diff b/w 11 year olds’ and adults’ response times.
Shift from domain general to domain / task specific mechanisms.
What facilitates increased processing speed?
Stronger neural connections; synaptic pruning & myelination
How are the correlation of perceptual speed between fluid IQ (working memory) and STM like?
Substantial; faster we process information, the better our working & ST memories
What do information processing theories differ on?
Emphasis placed on mechanisms that undergo change with development
What are the four mechanisms that undergo change with development?
Encoding:
- determine which features of task / part of instructions are important
Strategy formation:
- strategise based on encoded info and relevant previous knowledge to solve problem
Generalisation:
- generalise solution to apply to other contexts
Automatisation:
- practice automates strategy; more effective (less attention needed to execute)
What are the three types of information processing limitations that children face?
Encoding
Strategies
Working memory
- Retrieval
- Storage
What does it mean to have encoding limitations?
Failure to encode proper info about a problem
Example: (5x5)/5
- encode multiplication sign as a plus sign instead
- encode correctly, but lack strategy (don’t know how to multiply or divide)
What are the two types of working memory limitations, and what does it mean to experience them?
Retrieval:
- retrieve wrong strategy, despite having the appropriate one stored in LTM
Storage:
- forget what number to divide by, despite encoding correctly and retrieving appropriate strategy
How can we overcome working memory limitations?
Rehearsal:
- mental repetition of info (eg. repeating a number in your head until you can write it down somewhere)
- few 5 y/os will rehearse, whilst most 10 y/os will
- younger children can be taught this and it improves their memory, but they stop using strategy
Elaboration:
- associations between items to help recall
- older children do more to make things semantically meaningful
