Experimental Designs+Cognition in ado/adult Flashcards
One method to study infant brain development
Advantage, disadvantage and a supporting study
EEG can be used to do is, EEG uses electrodes on the scalp to measure brain activity and connectivity between regions. It has a strong temporal resolution but low spatial resolution. ERPs can also be used in the same way but this time to measure brain activity during one particular event. Benefit is that it is very reliable, disadvantage is that ERPs require many trials, therefore it may be more difficult to get a young infant to focus over many trials.
Levin et al 2017 used EEG to examine connectivity differences in the language areas between children at high risk of autism and those at low risk. Showed significant under connectivity for the former group.
One method to study infant cognition, advantage/disadvantage and one study using it
Habituation = examines infant ability to discriminate between 2 stimuli through measuring their rate of interest decline, but also measure the rate of interest towards novel stimulus. Greater engagement with Novel stimulus is thought to indicate learning.
Advantage: easy to implement
Disadvantage: May lack ecological validity and relies on interpretation
EX: Hamlin et al 2007
Also EEG/ERPS.
How do executive functions change through adulthood -> describe Two studies one for EF in general, one for working memory, and explain the three factors of EF and how these change with age
+ describe what ef are/useful for
Executive functions improve during adolescence and adulthood, shown by STEINBERG et al 2018 = used the Stroop task and Tower of London task, cross culturally in 10-3- yo = there was consistent improvement with age.
Working memory also continues to improve as shown by Kingberg et al 2012 = with age, people were better at performing visual spatial memory tasks, and brain activity monitory showed stronger superior frontal cortex and parietal cortex activity for those that performed better/were older.
Three factors involved in EF are shifting, inhibiting and updating, however children seem to use a combination of inhibiting and switching, which is then differentiated into the three modules by age 15 = Lee et al 2013
EF are necessary to perform goal directed actions in an integrated manner, therefore key to learning and evolving in the social world.
Describe the 3 main cognitive changes that happen from childhood to adolescence/adulthood
- White matter increases during adolescence
- Grey matter volume decreases, which reflects a reducing in brain plasticity compared to childhood. Some synapses are selectively removed = Goddings et al 2014
- Frontal and Temporal lobes develop last, and therefore continue developing throughout ado = gogtay et al 2004
How do social and emotional abilities change in adolescence
Social: Social factors influence adolescent more for ex peer influence : steingberg et al 2015 observed greater activation of reward regions when adolescents were given an award in front of peers vs alone.
Social: Adolescent are more egocentric when having to gauge a social situation (Dumontheil 2010)
Emotions: Adolescents show greater activation of emotion related cortical regions, particularly amygdala during emotion related tasks such as looking at emotional faces (Hare et al 2008)
Emotions: Lower executive functions abilities may be linked to lower emotional control (Frank et al 2014) supported by Casey et al 2008 = the relationship between limbic system and prefrontal regions are not as strong in adolescents as in adults.
