Theories of Cognitive Development (CH 4) Flashcards
1
Q
What are the 3 advantages of knowing theories?
A
- Provide framework for understanding important phenomena
- Raise crucial questions about human nature
- Lead to a better understanding of kids
2
Q
What was Piaget’s theory?
A
-Cognitive development involves a sequence of 4 stages that are constructed through the process of Assimilation, Accomodation & Equilibrium
3
Q
What were the 4 stages that Piaget described?
A
- Sensorimotor (Birth- 2 yrs)
- Preoperational (2-7 yrs)
- Concrete Operational (7-12 yrs)
- Formal Operational (12 & up)
4
Q
What was Piaget’s view on the child’s Nature?
A
- Constructivist= kids constructing knowledge for themselves in response to their experience
- Involves 3 Constructive processes
- Kids are motivated to learn
5
Q
What are the 3 Constructive process that Piaget described?
A
- Generating Hypothesis
- Performing experiment
- Drawing conclusions from observations
6
Q
What role does Nature & Nurture play in Piaget’s theory?
A
- Nature= maturing brain & body, ability to perceive/ act & learn via experience & to integrate observations into coherent knowledge
- Nurture= Nurturing from parents, caregivers, & every experience encountered
7
Q
What is the Assimilation Process of Piaget’s theory?
A
-The Incorporation of incoming info into concepts that they already understand
8
Q
What is the Accommodation Process of Piaget’s theory?
A
-The improvement of their current understanding in response to new experiences
9
Q
What is the Equilibrium Process of Piaget’s theory?
A
- The balance of assimilation & accommodation to create a stable understanding
- Consists of 3 phases= Equilibrium, Disequilibrium, Advanced Equilibrium
10
Q
What is the Equilibrium phase of the Equilibrium Process of Piaget’s Theory?
A
-The satisfaction with understanding of particular phenomena
11
Q
What is the Disequilibrium phase of the Equilibrium Process of Piaget’s Theory?
A
-The realization of short comings & not being able to create a superior alternative
12
Q
What is the Advanced Equilibrium phase of the Equilibrium Process of Piaget’s Theory?
A
- Having a more sophisticated understanding which eliminates short comings
- Broader range of observations can be understood
13
Q
Why is Piaget’s Theory considered to be discontinuous
A
- His theory is depicted as stages
- The transition between stages is a discontinuous intellectual leap from one coherent way of understanding to higher way
14
Q
What are the 4 central properties of Piaget’s Theory?
A
- Qualitative change
- Broad applicability
- Brief transitions
- Invariant sequence
15
Q
What is the Qualitative Change property of Piaget’s Theory?
A
- Kids at different ages think qualitatively in different ways
- Kids in the early development of cognitive development conceive morality in terms of consequences of behavior vs kids in the latter conceive it in person’s intent
16
Q
What is the Broad Applicability property of Piaget’s Theory?
A
-Thinking characteristics of each stage influences thinking across diverse topics & contexts
17
Q
What is the Brief Transitions property of Piaget’s theory?
A
- Before entering a new stage is the brief transitions period
- Fluctuate between characteristics of new & old stage & the thinking characteristics of the old one
18
Q
What is the Invariant Sequence Property of Piaget’s theory?
A
-Every kid progresses though the same order of stages (no skipping)
19
Q
What is the 1st stage of Cognitive Development according to Piaget?
A
- Sensorimotor stage (birth-2 yrs)
- Intelligence is expressed through sensory & motor abilities to perceive & explore the world around them
- Infants construct rudimentary forms of fundamental concepts (space, time, etc)
20
Q
What is the 2nd stage of Cognitive Development according to Piaget?
A
- Preoperational stage (2-7 yrs)
- Able to present experiences in language & mental imagery which helps them remember longer & in the formation of sophisticated concepts
- They aren’t able to perform certain mental operations that consider multiple dimensions simultaneously which hinders them to form certain ideas
21
Q
What is the 3rd stage of Cognitive Development according to Piaget?
A
- Concrete Operational stage (7-12 yrs)
- Kids can reason logically about concrete objects & events
- BUT can’t think in purely abstract terms
- Can generate systematic scientific experiments to test beliefs
22
Q
What is the 4th stage of Cognitive Development according to Piaget?
A
- Formal Operational (12 & up)
- Able to think deeply about concrete, abstract, & purely hypothetical situations
- Able to preform systematic scientific experiments to test beliefs
23
Q
What behaviors are demonstrated during birth to the first month in the Sensorimotor stage according to Piaget?
A
- Flailing, sucking, grasping
- Then they start to have the ability to modify their reflexes to make them more adaptive & effective per situation
24
Q
What behaviors are demonstrated during the first few months to the middle of their first year in the Sensorimotor stage according to Piaget?
A
- Organization of separate reflexes to larger behaviors that are mostly centered around body
- Then they’re are increasingly curious about the world & they shift to repetitions of actions that bring pleasure/ interesting results
25
What behaviors are demonstrated during 8 months to the end of the first year in the Sensorimotor stage according to Piaget?
- Lack object permanence
- Then they start to look for hidden objects bc they mentally represent the objects continuing presence
- May have A-not-B error which is where they reach for the place where the object was last shown rather than looking at the new location
26
What behaviors are demonstrated during the last 18-24 months in the Sensorimotor stage according to Piaget?
-They're able to form enduring mental representations which is the first sign of Deferred Imitation
27
What behaviors are demonstrated in the Preoperational Stage according to Piaget?
- Development of symbolic representations= the use of an object, word, though to stand for another
- Kids rely more on conventional symbols
- Egocentricism
- Centration= limitation in thinking where kid focuses in on a single perceptually striking feature & ignoring the rest
28
What behaviors are demonstrated in the Concrete Operational stage according to Piaget?
- Kids are starting to reason logically about concrete features of the world
- Development of conservation concept
- Still can't think in hypothetical terms which in term causes difficulty in performing unsystematic experiments & drawing incorrect conclusions
29
What behaviors are demonstrated in the Formal Operational stage according to Piaget?
- They're able to think abstractly & reason hypothetically
- Able to create systematic experiments
- THIS STAGE IS NOT UNIVERSAL
30
What are the weaknesses of Piaget's theory?
- It's vague about mechs that give rise to kid's thinking & that the mechs that produce cognitive growth
- Infant's & younger kids are actually more cognitively competent than what Piaget thought
- It understates the contribution of the social world to cognitive development
- The stage model depicts kid's thinking as being more consistant than it actually is
31
What are Information Processing Theories?
- They emphasize precise characteristics of mechs that give rise to the child's thinking & that produce cognitive growth
- They're a class of theories that focus on structure of the cognitive system & mental activities that are used to deploy attention & memory to solve problems
32
What is Task Analysis?
-A researching technique that's used to identify goals, relevant info in the environment & potential processing strategies for a problem
33
How does Information Processing Theories view the kid's nature?
- Cognitive development occurs continuously in small increments
- Happens at different ages on different tasks
- Child has limited capacity of processing systems
- Child as problem solver
34
How is the child limited according to Information Processing Theories?
-Their thinking is limited by memory capacity, speed of thought, availability of useful strategies & knowledge
35
How does a child surpass processing limitations according to Information Processing Theories?
- Expanding amounts of info that is processed at one time
- Increasing processing speeds
- Acquiring new strategies & knowledge
36
Why does Information Processing Theories view the child as a problem solver?
- Children are active problem solvers
- Problem-solving involves strategies for overcoming obstacles & attaining goals
- Kid's flexible cognitive helps them attain their goals
37
What are central to Information Processing Theories?
-Distinguish Working Memory, Long Term Memory, Executive Functions
38
What is Working Memory?
- Actively attaining to gathering, maintaining, processing info
- Limited capacity & length of time where it can retain info in an active state w/o updating activities (varies w/ age)
39
How does Working Memory Function in a child's brain & what parts of the brain mature?
- The capacity of WM increases during childhood, infancy & adolescence bc of the increases knowledge of content
- Maturational changes in the brain also influence this increase (Prefrontal C, Frontal L, Primary Motor C, Parietal L, Hippocampus, Occipital L, Cerebellum, Temporal L)
40
What is Long Term Memory?
- Knowledge that people accumulate over their lifetime
- Retains unlimited amount of info for unlimited amount of time
- Includes factual, conceptual, attitudes, reasoning, strategic knowledge
41
What is Executive Function?
- Involves the control of cognition which is located @ Prefrontal Cortex
- Increases during preschool & early elementary years
- Inhibits habitual responses
- Related to benefits that children derive from instruction in order for them to gain other skills
- 3 Functions overall
42
What are the 3 functions of the Executive Function?
- Inhibiting rising temptations
- Enhancing WM= selectively attending to most important info
- Cognitively flexible= gives kids the ability to imagine someone else's perspective in an argument even if they're different
43
What are the 3 types of capabilities of Memory Development?
- Basic processes
- Strategies
- Current knowledge
44
How does the Basic Processes ability help with Memory Development?
- Associating events w/ one another
- Recognizing objects as familiar
- Recalling facts/ procedures
- Generalizing from one instance to another
- Encoding!
45
What plays a key role in Memory Development and why?
- Improved processing speed bc it helps with problem solving, learning
- Improved processing speed increases more rapidly at young ages & continues to increase in adolensence
46
What happens in the brain when processesing time is imrpoved?
-Myelination & increased connectivity amoung brain regions which allows for more direct transmissions
47
How do Strategies help in Memory Development?
-Ages between 5-8 being to use memory strategies like rehearsal
48
How does Current Knowledge help with Memory Development?
- Improves recall of new material by making it easier to integrate it w/ exisiting understanding
- Improves memory through improving encoding
- Content knowledge indicates what is/ is not useful & guides memory in useful directions
49
What is the Overlapping Waves Theory?
- It's the informational Processing approach that emphasizes the variability in children's thinking & problem solving in wide range of contexts (arithmetic, time-telling, reading, spelling, scientific experimentation, biological understanding, tool use)
- Most kids use 3 different strategies
50
How do the strategies of Overlapping Waves Theory progress at the child gets older?
-Youngest children will use the simplest strategy (1) but sometimes use 2 or 3
-W/ age & experience strategies that produce more effective outcome will be used regularly
By mid age, strategies 3 & 5 are added but 1 is no longer used
51
How does planning Improve Problem Solving?
-Prefrontal Cortex along w/ experiences that reduce overoptimism lead to increases in frequency & quality of planning
52
What are Core Knowledge Theories?
- Approaches that show kids as having some innate knowledge in domains of special evolutionary importance
- Also in domain specific learning mechs for rapidly & effortlessly aqcuiring aditional info in those domains
53
How do Core Knowledge Theories view kid's nature?
- Depicts kids as active learners
- Come into this world w/ general learning abilities but w/ also specialized learning mechs/ structures
- This allows them to quickly & effortlessly acquire info of evolutionary importance
54
What does Piagetan & Information Processing Theories have in common?
- Agree that children enter the world equipped w/ only general learning capabilities
- These allow them to slowly increase their understanding of all types of content
55
What basic understandings do children have according to Core Knowledge Theories?
- They're domain specific (limited to particular area)
- Allows them to distinguish between living & non living things, know that inanimate objects are stationary & know that animals move on their own
56
What is the Theory of Mind Module?
- Produces learning about ones own & other people's mind
- Different mechs for learning about faces, language, movement, etc
- These different mechs produce development in each domain
57
Who are Nativists?
-Those that emphasize INNATE knowledge
58
Who are Constructivists?
-Those that emphasize the generation of increasingly sophisticated domain-specific theories on top of innate foundation
59
What are the 4 Core knowledge systems of Nativism?
- The representation of inanimate objects & their mechanical interactions
- The representation of minds of people & other animals are capable of goal-oriented actions
- Represents #s of objects & events
- Represents spatial layouts & geometric relations
60
What is Language Acquisition device?
- Specialized learning mechs that enables kids to rapidly master complicated systems of grammar rules in human language
- Since it's universal it is a characteristic of domains that are important
61
What does Constructivism emphasize?
- Kids actively organize their understanding of most important domains into informal theories
- So they'll have naive theories about physics, biology, psychology all of which share important characteristics w/ formal scientific theories
- Of course these theories grow more compex w/ age & experience
62
What characteristics do the naive theories that kids develop have in common with formal theories according to Constructivism?
- Identification of fundmental units for dividing relevant objects & events into few basic categories
- Explaination of many phenomena in terms of fundemental principles
- Explaination of events in terms of unobservable causes
63
What are Socio Cultural Theories?
- Emphasize that much of cognitive development takes place through direct interactions between kids & others who want to help kids gain skills, knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, valued by their culture
- Emphasize guided participation, intersubjectivity, social interaction= social scaffolding
64
What is Guided Participation?
-Process where older/ more knowledgable people organize activities in ways that allow less knowledable people to learn
65
What are Cultural Tools?
-Symbol systems, artifacts, skills, values, & many other ways in which culture influences our thinking
66
How does Socio Cultural Theories view kid's nature?
- Potray kids as social learners intertwined w/ people who help them gain skills & knowledge
- Emphasizes gradual continuous changes
- View language & thought as internally integrated
- 3 phases of its role in the development of kids ability to regulate their behavior
67
What are the 3 phases of the kid's regulation of their own behavior according to Socio-Culture Theories?
- Behavior is controlled by other's statements
- Behavior is controlled by own private speech (they tell themselves what to do)
- Behavior is controlled by internalized speech (thought, mostly occurs 4-6 yrs)
68
Why are children considered to be teachers & learners according to Socio-Culture Theories?
- They start to have an inclination to teach as young as 1 yrs old
- Inclination to learn & carry on culture & survive
69
How are children a product of their own culture according to Socio-Cultural Theories?
- The processes that produce development are the same across all cultures BUT the content that are being taught to them (skills, values, systems, etc) are different
- Kid's memories of their own experiences reflect their culture
70
What is Intersubjectivity?
- Mutual understanding that people share during communication
- Evident as early as 6mos bc they start to learn behaviors by observation
- Involves Joint-Attention
- Infants @ 8-18 mos often tend to imitate & learn new labels from competent adults
- This continues to develop beyond infancy= increased ability to consider perspectives, teach & learn of other people
71
What is Joint Attention?
- Process where social partners intentionally focus on common referent in external environment
- So infants would look @ objects that are targets of their social partners gaze
- Contributes to increased abilty to learn language, evaluate competence of others & who to imitate
72
What is Social Scaffolding?
- More competent people provide framework that supports kid's thinking @ a higher level
- Higher quality of S.S = Increased learning
- Involves EXPLICIT instruction & explanation vs in guided participation where adults organize activities so that kids take on roles
- Help's kids w/ autobiographical memories (explicit memories of events that took place @ specific times & places)
73
What are Dynamic Systems Theories?
- Focus on how changes in actions occur over time in complex physical & biological systems
- "Dynamic"= depict development as a process where change is the only constant
- All points in development, thought, action change from moment to moment in response to current situations &childs immediate past as well as longer term history in similar situations
74
How do the Dynamic Systems Theories view child's nature?
-Emphasize child's innate motivation to explore environment, develop precise analysis of problem-solving, focus on infants & toddlers early competence, formative influences of other people
75
What is Motivators of Development according to Dynamic Systems Theories?
- Infancy & onwards kids are strongly motivated to learn more about the world around them
- INSIST on practicing new skill even if they already possess a more effective skill
- Interest in social world is a crucial motivator of development bc @ 10-12 mos they're already apparent on the emergence of intersubjectivity
76
What is the Centrality of Action according to Dynamic Systems Theories?
- Actions contribute to development throughout life (reaching & grabbing in infancy)
- Actions influence categorization
- Actions effect vocab acquisition & generalization of memory
- Thinking shapes actions, actions shapes thinking
77
What are the 2 issues of Dynamic Systems Theories?
- Self Organization
| - Mechanisms of change
78
What is Self Organization according to Dynamic Systems Theories?
- View development as process of self organization
- Integrates attention, memory, emotions, actions needed to adapt to continous changing enviornment
- Soft-Assembly= components & their organization must change from moment to moment
79
What are the Mechanisms of change according to the Dynamic Systems Theory?
- Changes occur through mechanism of variation & selection that are analogous= produce biological evolution
- Variation= use of behaviors to pursue same goal
- Selection= increasingly frequent choice of behaviors that are effective in meeting goals
- Both variation & selection= influenced by successes, efficiency, novelty
