Exam 1

Question 1

What is a stage theory of cognitive development (criteria)?

Answer 1

• Qualitative Change: Each Stage is held to involve differences in kind, rather than differences in amount
• Unified Structures: Each stage is characterized by the existence of an integrated cognitive structure of structures that guide and constrain an individual’s acquisition and processing of information
• Progression: Each stage builds on the previous ones
• Stable Order: Stages must be experienced in a fixed order, with each stage a logical prerequisite for the next
• Universality: Stages are fundamental to human nature and occur in basically similar ways across cultures

Question 2

Piaget – background and theoretical foundation

Answer 2

• 1896-1980 Swiss stage theorist
• Earned PhD 1918 and taught at a boys’ school in France
• Studied intelligence measurement in Zurich and “mistakes” of children at different ages–the consistent misunderstandings
• idea that development precedes learning
• did not believe in tabula rasa

Question 3

Piaget – adaptation, assimilation, accommodation, schema

Answer 3

• Adaptation: changes in reflexes or mental structures through assimilation and accommodation
• Assimilation: process by which a child uses acquired adaptive techniques to novel objects + settings
• Accommodation: The change in mental structures that is elicited by new stimuli or experiences
• Schema: Organized representation of knowledge that often contains both fixed and variable parts (categorizing the world)

Question 4

Key characteristics of Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development

Answer 4

• Sensorimotor Period: (Birth-24mo) sensory and motor experiences, action, exploration, and interaction with the environment helps modify existing schema and build intelligence. No object permanence.
• Preoperational Stage: (24mo-6yrs) getting mental representations, language, rigidity of thought, egocentrism, failing at conservation of volume and number.
• Concrete Operational Stage: (7-11yrs) “transitional stage” where kids can work with concrete problems using systematic thought and manipulation of materials, even with hypothetical problems. Kind of bratty.
• Formal Operations (12yrs-adulthood) Has “structural capacity” of adult and has concept of the abstract, able to logically think with creative solutions to problems, deductive reasoning, systematic planning, etc. to think about big ideas

Question 5

Object permanence

Answer 5

The understanding that objects and other people continue to exist even when the infant is not in sensory or motor contact with them

Question 6

Conservation tasks

Answer 6

such as number conservation, where two rows of the same number of checkers are set out and the child thinks the ones that are spread out farther have more in the group

Question 7

Egocentrism

Answer 7

tendency to see the world only through one’s own perspective

Question 8

Vygotsky – background and theoretical foundation

Answer 8

• studied the amalgam of person and culture
• commie who grew up in ukraine, and believed that in order to understand adult mind, you must understand it’s genesis
• SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT about how cognition emerges from the context of our cultural matrix
• studied environment and the child
• idea that learning is necessary and universal
• zone of proximal development

Question 9

Zones of proximal development

Answer 9

range of cognitive functioning a child is capable of demonstrating, bound at one end by what the child can do independently and by what the child can do with help from others with the right set of tools or supports available

tldr: zone in between what you can do on your own and what you need help with

Question 10

Information processing model

Answer 10

• developed during computer age, based off of the way computer science models memory storage

PG 80 of textbook Example:

• Detection & incoming information lead to->
• visual sensory register, auditory sensory register, olfactory sensory register ->
• recognition and short term memory–>
• rehearsal to long term memory, categorization (within this, recoding, reorganization, and manipulation)–>
• goes to response output

Question 11

Learning theory

Answer 11

• Habituation: repeated exposure = “tuning out” of stimuli
• Classical Conditioning: association between unconditioned and conditioned stimuli (Pavlov dogs)
• Operant Conditioning: “law of effect” - rewards and punishments
• Social Learning Theory: imitating others, such as Bandura and the Bobo Doll experiment

Question 12

Brain growth in infancy/early childhood

Answer 12

• prefrontal cortex develops most slowly (executive functioning)
• neurons and neurotransmitters send messages around the brain, includes “pruning” of unused neurons to increase functioning
• brain lateralization: right and left work together but also focus on different things

Question 13

Microcephaly and hydrocephaly

Answer 13

Microcephaly: smaller brain within brain cavity

Hydrocephaly: too much brain/spinal fluid in head and during cranial development, pressure pushes skull out and brain is too big

Question 14

Carl Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit”

Answer 14

• confirm facts
• encourage debate from all points of view
• arguments from authorities are mid
• have multiple hypotheses
• don’t get attached to one of them
• quantify
• make sure every part of argument works
• occam’s razor
• ask if hypothesis can be falsified

Question 15

Reliability and validity of measures of cognitive functioning

Answer 15

• reliability: consistency!!! of a measure in a study, repeated score across multiple testings
• validity: accuracy!!! is this doing exactly what we need it to?

Question 16

Methods of studying cognitive function and development (e.g., lesions)

Answer 16

• Studying Lesions: Phineas Gage and accidents where part of brain is destroyed and functioning changes
• Neuroimaging: rainbow brain photos taken via fMRIs
• Experiments: experimental manipulations are “manualized” for inspection and replication

Question 17

Teratogens

Answer 17

chemicals in environment that effect cognitive development (such as lead, mercury, thalidomide)

Question 18

Development of perception, attention, memory in infancy

Answer 18

BIRTH to 2 YEARS

• perception: acquiring info about the world
• attention: deploying mental resources to task(s)
• memory: retention of info, explicitly or implicitly

Question 19

Visual preference paradigm

Answer 19

: (Habituation) infants demonstrate a preference of looking at one stimulus over another are shown to make a discrimination between the two.
- preference is measured as a function of duration of looking at each
- infants prefer complex stimuli

Question 20

Hearing, taste, smell, touch

Answer 20

• Hearing: pre-birth, HR changes as function of loudness, by 6mo acuity is like adults, localization of sound improves by 11mo
• Taste, Smell, Touch: even newborns show “mature” abilities to make discriminations and show preference, demonstrating sensitivity

out the womb ready to perceive!

Question 21

Nature of visual pattern discrimination, including of faces; facial scanning

Answer 21

:FANTZ - children in his paradigm had preferences for facial recognition interest; shows that we are born ready to see faces

• Salaptek and colleagues tracked eye movement in infants to see how they scanned faces, ie looking at eyes first

Question 22

Development of perceptual constancy

Answer 22

: (Bower, 1960s)
- demonstrated in early infancy
- shape + size, idea that we know a door is a rectangle and we can still tell its a rectangle when it turns sideways and looks like a rhombus or whatever

Question 23

Depth perception

Answer 23

(Gibson & Walk, 1960s) → the visual cliff experiment

• Children can perceive depth as soon as they are able to crawl on their own
• Adaptive advantage if you rely on sight mostly for sensing (rats will walk out on the plexiglass because they can sense it with their whiskers)

Question 24

“Cross-modal” perception (e.g., visual and auditory stimuli)

Answer 24

(Spelke, 1976)

• Two viewing options–one that matches auditory stimuli and one that does not. 4 month old infants looked at the “matching” view often, though not all together reliably”
• (two films of people doing things, which one matches the hello baby peekaboo)
• matching of infant knowledge

Question 25

Infants and imitation

Answer 25

• (Meltzoff and Moore,1977) > experiment where infants imitated the facial expressions of adults
• We come into the world with these abilities to imitate→ kind of a complex skill → pre wired or predisposition
• can do it even at 12-21 days old
• Related to mirror neurons → set the occasion for adaptive skill of ability to mimic and imitate the people around us

Question 26

Memory and brain anatomy

Answer 26

• hippocampus is where “memory consolidation” occurs
• stores and retrieves memory
• as infant, hippocampus is underdeveloped (leads to what Freud might call “infantile amnesia”)

Question 27

Development of attention + distinct phases

Answer 27

• (Colombo, 2002)
• Attention is allocating mental resources to adapt to environment
• Resource allocation → nervous system functioning gets transferred to attention and taking in a stimulus

Distinct Phases of Attention:
- (Birth-10 weeks): increase in amount of time attending to visual stimulus, infant becomes increasingly alert
- (10 weeks-5mo): amount of time attending to stimulus declines, as infant gets better at disengaging and directing attention to another stimulus…”visual-spatial orienting”
- (6mo-1yr): “Object perception” - analysis and recognition of stimuli, detection of patterns gradually improves; time of attention can increase as infant becomes self-directed

Question 28

Infants’ memory for relationships between behavior and consequence

Answer 28

• (Rovee & Fagan, 1976): mobile studies; by 3-months, infants recall relationships between behavior and consequence
• baby kicking leg pulled string that moved the mobile→at least 24hrs later, following training for 9 mins per day for 3 days. This was tried at different lengths of time

Question 29

Memory for recognition and recall in infancy

Answer 29

• RECOGNITION (Fantz, 1964): Visual Paired Comparison task (VPC) where even young infants demonstrate that they can tell when they are presented with a novel stimulus (when familiarized with one stimulus) by looking longer at the new thing (Ex: used to cow, baby carriage image becomes new and interesting)
• RECALL (Bauer, 2002): “Elicited imitation task” where infant had to engages in behaviors such as inserting toy into another thing and pressing a plunger to achieve outcome of car rolling out
• 9mo infants demonstrated recall after 1mo delay

Question 30

Intellectual disability – definition and criteria

Answer 30

Def: Intellectual (“cognitive”) functioning is determined through an “..individually administered and psychometrically valid, comprehensive, culturally appropriate, psychometrically sound measure of intelligence” (APA)

Criteria:
1. substandard intellectual development (like poor performance on IQ test) 70-75
2. substandard adaptive behavior (has substantial challenges in things like working with changes in environment)
3. All of this manifests in developmental period (childhood)

Question 31

Causes of intellectual disability

Answer 31

• Genetic conditions (DS–extra chromosome 21)
• Prenatal and perinatal events: Like lack of oxygen from wrapped umbilical cord (perinatal hypoxia)
• Teratogens
• Physical injury
• Malnutrition

Question 32

Levels of severity of intellectual disability

Answer 32

MILD: (85% of ID pop): Can learn reading writing and math skills between 3rd and 6th grade levels. May have jobs and live independently

MODERATE: (10% of ID pop): May be able to learn some basic reading and writing. Able to learn functional skills such as safety and self help. Require some type of oversight/supervision

SEVERE: (5% of ID pop): Prob not able to read or write, although they may learn self-help skills and routines. Require supervision in their daily activities and living environment

PROFOUND: (1% of ID pop): Require intensive support. May be able to communicate by verbal or other means. May have medical conditions that require ongoing nursing and therapy

Question 33

Semantic memory vs episodic memory

Answer 33

semantic: General knowledge/data

episodic: specific events

(both explicit)

Question 34

Object coherence

Answer 34

unity of objects partially hidden from view (Kellman & Spelke, 1983)
- habituation task with 4-mo-olds
- infants looked longer at the situation with the “broken rod” showing that they were surprised when the rod, hidden by the block, was not one

Question 35

Object identity

Answer 35

:knowing that an object is the same object when you leave and come back to it (Xu and Carey, 1996)
- study where infants were habituated to certain object that were then occluded behind a screen. When it was removed and there was an unexpected outcome:
- 12mo infants looked longer (noticed!) but 9mo did not
- Infants’ knowledge of objects is fragile and emerges gradually…but we may come into the world with some understanding of objects

Question 36

Categorization

Answer 36

: mentally grouping objects together
- Infants (3-4 mo) will looks at novel class of animals longer than novel animals from a familiar class (eimas & quinn, 1994)-> (comparing a cat and another kind of cat to a cat and a cow for example)
- Subsequent researchers suggest that ability to categorize is very much dependent upon the classes of stimuli used in the paradigm and how they are presented (eg similar and dissimilar toys, baldwin et al)
- Ability to categorize in an increasingly complex way gradually emerges throughout infancy (e.g. older infants –”casual” variables (Booth, 2008)

Question 37

Knowledge of number

Answer 37

(Wynn, 1992): Habituation task–5-mo-old infants looked at a different “than expected” number (e.g. one star) of objects, vs multiple stars
- infants can also see differences between 8 and 16 dots, but not so much 12 vs 16. Big groups far apart in number they can tell, but not details

Question 38

Statistical learning

Answer 38

How we makes sense of the world through sensitivity to patterns and probabilities (Fiser & Aslin, 2002)

• In stat learning, individuals, including infants, scan complex environments and pick up on regularities. This learning ,mechanism plays heavily into infant development as relates to perceptual and language development

Infants may associate a voice and orient toward it bc they know that there is an increased probability that the mother’s voice means she will come into the room and provide things – this is learned from statistical learning
Plays a role in language development and acquisition

Question 39

Longitudinal Design

Answer 39

Longitudinal Designs: researcher gathers a group of participants and follows them over time, noting changes in whatever is being studied as the group ages
- expensive, subjects drop out, problematic, BUT help with control for long term characteristics of participants

Question 40

Cross-sectional Design

Answer 40

: different groups of participants of different ages are tested and compared
- cheaper and faster, BUT can have cohort effects and there isn’t a control across age groups as much.

Question 41

Prenatal Development

Answer 41

1. First trimester (embryonic and fetal)
   - Development of NS occurs from head to tail.
   - Synapses are developing in the spinal cord by the 5th week of gestation.
   - By 6th week: movement
   - By 10th week: yawning, thumb sucking, swallowing, grasping.
2. Second trimester
   - Reflexes including breathing and swallowing
   - Brainstem
3. third trimester
   - Cerebral cortex develops
   - Habituation and familiarity with mothers voice and oder of her own amniotic fluid
   - Cortex is relatively underdeveloped at birth and matures greatly over the first few years