Conceptual Development: The Physical World Flashcards
(42 cards)
Categorisation of objects: What are the three general categories that are evident from infancy?
- Inanimate objects
- Animals
- People
Categorisation of objects: what are the concepts behind inanimate objects, animals and people? What do these concepts allow?
Inanimate objects: No self-propelled movement.
Animals: Eat, drink, grow, breathe, move, act.
People: As animals, plus ‘similar to me’, mental states, people-specific behaviours.
Concepts:
Mental representations of properties. Allows the properties of unfamiliar category members to be inferred. More detailed with age.
People and animals: Give a brief overview of Ricard and Allard (1993) study.
How old were the participants?
What were the different behaviours for the conditions?
What idea do the results support?
. 9 - 10 month old infants
. Behaved differently in different conditions:
Approach and touch the toy rabbit, smile at the person, attend more to person than rabbit.
. Supports the idea of separate categories.
How do children understanding of category hierarchies grow?
As their language develops.
How do parents aid children understanding of category hierarchies?
Help explain relationships between basic level categories and more specific and more general categories.
What are the 3 types of categories in a category hierarchy? Give example of category hierarchy.
Basic level categories are formed before superordinate and subordinate categories.
e.g.,
Breeds of dog (subordinate)
Dog (basic)
Pets (superordinate)
By what age can infants perceive causal connections between physical events?
Give a study re this.
6 months.
Oakes and Cohen (1995).
. Habituate to a moving object colliding with a stationary object and causing the stationary object to move.
By what age can infants take into account the probability of the object having a causal effect.
Give a study re this.
24 months.
Waismeyer et al., (2015).
Explaining conceptual development: What do nativists believe?
. Innate understanding of fundamental concepts related to objects, space, time and number.
. Important in our evolutionary history.
. Specialised modules in the brain might explain early emergence and rapid development.
. Limited evidence; strongest for spatial processing.
Explaining conceptual development: What do empiricists believe?
. Understanding comes from experience, teaching and advances in information processing.
. Supported by cultural differences.
How is ‘Theory of Mind’ defined?
The term Theory of Mind used as a more sophisticated ability to explain, predict and interpret people’s behaviour by attributing mental states to self and others.
What evidence does Theory of Mind require?
Evidence that children are making judgements based on invisible mental states and not based on the state of the real world.
What is the ‘Maxi test’ (Wimmer & Perner, 1983)?
. Child puts chocolate in green cupboard then goes and plays outside.
. Mother moves chocolate from green to blue cupboard while may is away, then goes into the garden.
. Max goes back inside for his chocolate, where will Max look for his chocolate?
What do children need to understand to pass the ‘maxi test’?
. Another person can have a false belief about the state of the world.
. Behaviour is explained by a persons beliefs rather than reality.
What were the results of the ‘Maxi test’?
. Most 3 year olds fail.
. Some 4-5y/o pass.
. Nearly all 6-9y/o pass.
False belief test: What is the Smarties test (Gopnik & Astington 1988)?
- Show child closed tube - what’s inside?
- Reveal pencils - Childs surprised.
- When mum comes in what will she think is in the tube?
- Pencils! (<4yrs) / Smarties! (+4yrs).
3y/o performance improved to some extent when they were asked to switch contents to trick someone else.
What uses are there of Theory of Mind tests?
To understand individual differences in theory of mind performance between the ages of 3.5 to 6 years.
What factors can theory of mind correlate with (6)?
- Attachment security
- parents mental state talk
- Siblings/family size.
- Imagination
- Language
- Executive functions.
Later theory of mind development: give an example of second-order false belief tasl/
- John and Mary are in the park and want to buy an ice cream.
- Mary forgets her money.
- Ice cream man tells Mary he will be there all afternoon, so she can buy an ice cream once she has gone home to get money and come back.
- Mary goes home.
- Ice cream man tells John, bc there are no people in the park, he is going to drive to the church.
- When the ice cream man goes past Marys house, Mary sees him and he tells her he is going to the church.
- Later Mary gets some money and goes to buy an ice cream.
- John turns up at Marys house and Marys mum says that she has gone to buy an ice-cream.
- Where does John think Mary is?
Later theory of mind development: What do children need to be able to pass a second-order false belief task?
- Reason about the mental state of 2 other people.
- Understand that a second person can have beliefs about a third persons beliefs, and those beliefs may be false.
When do higher-order beliefs develop?
From middle childhood onwards.
What do higher-order beliefs take into accoun when interpreting actions?
Beliefs, desires, intentions, personality, attitudes and social scripts.
What do you begin to understand during the development of higher-order beliefs?
That 2 people can interpret the same situation in different ways for valid reasons.
When do higher-order beliefs performance improve?
Perfomance gradually improves with age, but individual differences in theory of mind remain in a adulthood.
