Week 13

Question 1

Basic-level category

Answer 1

The neutral, preferred category for a given object, at an intermediate level of specificity

Question 2

category

Answer 2

A set of entities that are equivalent in some way. Usually the items are similar to one another

Question 3

Concept

Answer 3

The mental representation of a category

Question 4

Exemplar

Answer 4

An example in memory that is labeled as being in a particular category

Question 5

Psychological essentialism

Answer 5

The belief that members of a category have an unseen property that causes them to be in the category and to have the properties associated with it

Question 6

Borderline items

Answer 6

• Borderline members are not clearly in or clearly out of the category
• Because of this categories are fuzzy and have unclear boundaries that can shift over time

Question 7

Typicality

Answer 7

some items in a category seem to be better members than others

Question 8

family resemblance theory

Answer 8

Proposed that items are likely to be typical if they have the features that are frequent in the category and do not have the features in other categories
(robins vs penguins - robins are more typical birds than penguins)

Question 9

Sensorimotor stage

Answer 9

• birth to 2 years old
• children come to represent the enduring reality of objects
• Children’s thinking is largely realized through their perceptions of the world and their physical interactions with it

Question 10

Preoperational reasoning stage

Answer 10

• 2 to 6 or 7 years old
• children can represent objects through drawing and language but cannot solve logical reasoning problems such as conservation problems
• tend to focus on a single dimension

Question 11

Concrete operations stage

Answer 11

• Piagetian stage between ages 6/7 and 12
• children can think logically about concrete situations but not engage in systematic scientific reasoning

Question 12

formal operational stage

Answer 12

• 11 or 12 through the rest of their life
• adolescents may gain the reasoning powers of educated adults

Question 13

Continuous development

Answer 13

Ways in which development occurs in a gradual incremental manner, rather than through sudden jumps

Question 14

Depth perception

Answer 14

The ability to actively perceive the distance from oneself of objects in the environment

Question 15

Discontinuous development

Answer 15

Development that does not occur in a gradual incremental manner

Question 16

Information processing theories

Answer 16

Theories that focus on describing the cognitive processes that underlie thinking at any one age and cognitive growth over time

Question 17

Nature

Answer 17

refers to biological factors - the genes we receive from our parents

Question 18

Numerical magnitudes

Answer 18

The sizes of numbers

Question 19

Nurture

Answer 19

• refers to the environment, social as well as physical that influences the development
• home, school, and people we interact with

Question 20

Object permanence task

Answer 20

• The Piagetian task in which infants below about 9 months of age fail to search for an object that is removed from their sight and
• if not allowed to search immediately for the object, act as if they do not know that it continues to exist.

Question 21

Phonemic awareness

Answer 21

Awareness of the component sounds within words

Question 22

Piaget’s theory

Answer 22

Theory that development occurs through a sequence of discontinuous stages: the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages

Question 23

Qualitative changes

Answer 23

Large, fundamental change (as when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly)

Question 24

Quantitative changes

Answer 24

Gradual, incremental change, as in the growth of a pine tree’s girth

Question 25

Sociocultural theories

Answer 25

• founded in large part by Lev Vygotsky
• emphasizes how other people and the attitudes, values, and beliefs of the surrounding culture influence children’s development

Question 26

Endophenotypes

Answer 26

• A characteristic that reflects a genetic liability for disease and a more basic component of a complex clinical presentation

Question 27

Event-related potentials (ERP)

Answer 27

• Measures the firing of groups of neurons in the cortex
• As a person views or listens to specific types of information, neuronal activity creates small electrical currents that can be recorded from non-invasive sensors placed on the scalp
• ERP provides excellent information about the timing of processing, clarifying brain activity at the millisecond pace at which it unfolds.

Question 28

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

Answer 28

• Entails the use of powerful magnets to measure the levels of oxygen within the brain that vary with changes in neural activity
• neurons in specific brain regions “work harder” when performing a specific task, they require more oxygen
• fMRI specifies the brain regions that evidence a relative increase in blood flow
• fMRI provides excellent spatial information

Question 29

social brain

Answer 29

• The set of neuroanatomical structures that allows us to understand the actions and intentions of other people
• hypothesized to consist of the amygdala, the orbital frontal cortex (OFC), the fusiform gyrus (FG), and the posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) region, among other structures

Question 30

autism

Answer 30

• A developmental condition that usually emerges in the first 3 years and persists throughout the individual’s life
• the presence of profound difficulties in social interactions and communication combined with the presence of repetitive or restricted interests, cognitions and behaviours

Question 31

amygdala

Answer 31

helps us recognize the emotional states of others and also experience and regulate our own emotions

Question 32

orbital frontal cortex (OFC)

Answer 32

supports the reward feelings we have when we are around other people

Question 33

the fusiform gyrus (FG)

Answer 33

detects faces and supports face recognition

Question 34

posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) region

Answer 34

recognizes the biological motion, including the eye, hand and other body movements and helps us interpret and predict the actions and intentions of others