PSYCH 352 Exam 4

social cognition

thinking about internal states and motivations, why people do the things they do, and about interactions with others

what core knowledge exists about people?

goal-directedness, efficiency, contingency, reciprocity, gaze direction

why humans are considered hypersocial

function in large groups, cooperation doesn’t require closer genetic similarity, cooperation is a necessary part of survival

social brain hypothesis

idea that humans evolved to better learn from other humans

parts of human intelligence

combination of a big brain, socially complex groups, and long period of maturation

basic human social-cognitive abilities

viewing people as intentional agents, perspective taking

how newborns are oriented toward social stimuli

attend to biological motion, imitate facial expressions, attend to language, orient to human faces, learn mother’s face quickly

joint attention

the ability of two people to direct attention to the same thing

social cues in joint attention

social cues that people share to express and understand what others are attending to

shared intentionality theory

idea that children’s cognition is structured by cultural context

shared intentionality theory tells us that infants and young children are

biologically prepared to develop social skills

prosociality includes

empathy, comforting, fairness, sharing, helping

minimal groups paradigm

groups are created by assigning an arbitrary and inconsequential feature

prosocial behaviors for in-group vs. out-group

increase for in-group and decrease for out-group

willingness to punish for in-group vs. out-group

increases for out-group and decreases for in-group

judgements for in-group vs. out-group

more favorable for in-group than out-group members

theory of mind

concepts of mental activity that allows people to understand and predict others’ behaviors

belief-desire reasoning

using understanding of desires and beliefs to predict and explain behavior

false-belief task

test to determine if children behave as if they understand other people don’t have the same information that they have

factors related to children’s performance on false-belief tasks

quality of attachment, parenting styles, parent-child communication, language skills, parental warmth, parents use of mental-state talk, family size

if implicit measures are used for false-belief tasks

evidence that young infants and toddlers have some understanding that other people can have false beliefs

differences in development of theory of mind in children with autism

require older age to pass many theory of mind tasks, lower level of mature proficiency, difficulty understanding social relationships

“charlie” task for kids with autism

can indicate which object the face is looking at, but not which person wants

3-year-olds with false-belief tasks

typically fail but depends on implicit vs. explicit task and upbringing

social learning

acquiring information from other people

social learning in humans

develops over early childhood, humans do more of than any other animal

types of social learning

vicarious learning, local enhancement, mimicry, goal emulation, imitation, instructed learning

vicarious learning

social learning by watching, inherent rewards of doing things like others do them

local enhancement

observing a relationship between an activity and a location

mimicry

behaviors are copied without understanding the goal

goal emulation

a person observes an action to reach a goal and does something to try to reach the same goal

imitation

a person observes actions to reach a goal, then understands the goal, and repeats important actions in order to reach the same goal

instructed learning

a teacher does something specifically to facilitate learning by others (and provides feedback)

forms of social learning that occur in infancy

mutual imitation, imitation where learner cannot see own actions (i.e. facial expression), deferred imitation

forms of social learning that occur in young children

emulation, rational imitation, over imitation, normativity as its own goal

social learning from children is

prevalent

diffusion chain study

novel info is given to someone who is instructed to give the new info to someone else, then repeat → test info of last person in chain

mirror neurons

neurons that fire when either performing or watching someone else perform an action

self concept

the way a person defines and thinks about themselves

things involved in self concept

awareness of own thoughts, differentiating self from other people and objects, visual self recognition, use of self language, self-conscious emotions

gender identification

the process of including gender as part of one’s self concept

belief in gender as a constant characteristic is associated with

showing more same-gender stereotypical behaviors

rigidity of children’s gender stereotypes tends to

peak around 5-7 years, decreases with age

gender identity has a stronger influence than sex at birth on

both explicit and implicit responses to gender concepts

gender identity is influenced by

genes and culture, language, and other forms of social learning

reading

a technological, language skill acquired differently from learning a native language

reading is accessing language representation through

an arbitrary and cultural system designed to be transportable across space and time

stages of learning to read

discriminating letters, letter-to-sound correspondences, learning to read to reading to learn, increased reading proficiency with inferences, fully fluent and less effortful reading that matches specific goals

emergent literacy

broad range of skills that supports reading and writing, begins with learning about reading

how emergent literacy typically begins

learn that written symbols correspond to spoken language and convey meaning, caregivers share picture books and read child-directed books to kids, learn a language

components of emergent literacy

language, conventions of print, knowledge of letters, linguistic awareness, phoneme-grapheme correspondence, emergent reading and writing, print motivation, other cognitive skills

associations between reading and SES

exist but are complicated and not deterministic

early reading skills that predict later reading skills

letter knowledge, phonemic awareness and phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, phonological recoding, working memory

phonemic awareness

knowledge about the separable sounds in words

phonological awareness

a large set of skills related to manipulating the sounds in a language in relationship to words

examples of phonological awareness

rhyming, counting syllables and phonemes, “tell me a word that rhymes with cat but starts with b”

rapid automatized naming

test of how many visual things (i.e. objects, digits) can be named in a short period of time

rapid automatized naming requires

serial processing, rapid access of stored lexical representation, rapid translation to articulation

phonological recoding

viewing an orthographic code and turning it into the correctly corresponding phonological code

grapheme to phoneme correspondence

similarity of spelling system to group of speech sounds in the language

italian and english grapheme to phoneme correspondence

italian: 25 phonemes, 33 letters/letter combinations; english: 40 phonemes, 1120 letters/letter combinations

working memory related to reading comprehension

reading requires holding multiple words in working memory to integrate across them for meaning

sex differences in verbal abilities

evident even in young infants, small advantages in female (though overlapping distributions). complex combination of biological and experiential influences

integrative theory of numerical development

idea that abilities to work with advanced mathematics build up from basic number representations (including core knowledge) via exploratory, social, and instructional learning

4 major acquisition in integrative theory of numerical development

increases in precision of nonsymbolic number representations; linking nonsymbolic and symbolic representations; extending range of precise symbolic numbers; including non-whole numbers among representations

approximate number system

primary cognitive system for quantities, understanding that number can generalize across type

what is the ANS useful for?

more/less decisions

relationship between ANS and later math achievement

performance on nonsymbolic number tasks predicts later symbolic performance; learning symbolic math can improve nonsymbolic number task performance

number line estimation

placing a number on a number line that includes on end anchors

symbolic numerical task

fast rounds of which-is-larger with simultaneously presented digits

conceptual math knowledge

understanding the reasoning behind operations → being able to estimate answers because of an understanding of operations (i.e. make a quantity less or more by a lot or a little)

procedural math knowledge

strategies used to reach exact answers to equations

conservation of number

understanding that spatial arrangement doesn’t affect quantity

how children acquire number concepts through counting

one-to-one, stable order of number names, cardinal principle of quantity, abstraction across items and types, order irrelevance

addition strategies

sum and min strategies, fact retrieval, decomposition

sum strategy

counting out loud from 1 using objects

min strategy

start with larger number and count from there

fact retrieval

retrieve memorized sums

decomposition

transforming into multiple simpler problems

relationship between mental arithmetic and executive function

carrying out procedures requires holding information in working memory

dyscalculia

difficulty with math skills, sometimes domain-specific or domain-general, sometimes related to instruction, sometimes related to individual differences

stereotype threat

people perform worse on math tests after being reminded that one or more of their identity groups are not typically good at math

sex differences in math achievement are due to

biology, culture, self concept, social input, culture across development, interactions of biology and culture that change across development

evolutionary educational psychology

study of evolved skills and motivation interacting with educational settings and achievement

video deficit

decreased learning from videos compared to live presentation

relationship between physical activity and acacdemic performance

seen in kids, adults, and older adults

psychometrics

science of figuring out how to measure mental abilities and traits

factor analysis

quantitative approach to defining which individual question responses or scores tend to go together → may be driven by the same underlying cause

general intelligence (g)

theoretical factor that influences performance on all intellectual tasks; domain-general cognitive ability

fluid intelligence

theoretical intelligence factor driven by biology; includes memory span, reasoning, and spatial intelligence

crystallized intelligence

theoretical intelligence factor driven by culture and experience; includes verbal comprehension and social relations

positive manifold

high correlations between performance on cognitive tests that are thought to have little perceptual or strategy overlap

positive manifold is more evident in

people with lower IQs, older children, adults

hierarchical model of cognitive abilities

more specific cognitive abilities are related only through a more general cognitive ability → models that can explain otherwise contrasting experimental results

intelligence quotient (IQ)

number based on performance on one of several tests, meant to reflect overall intelligence

IQ tests

stanford-binet, wechsler scales, kaufman assessment battery for children, raven’s progressive matrices, developmental quotient tests

what IQs predict

academic performance (25% variability), occupational status, longevity

bias in IQ tests

could be in test and/or access to resources; IQ tests are widely misused

cause for differences in IQ

SES, proficiency in test language, stereotype threat, minority status in the particular mix of majority/minority culture, tests index majority-valued skills, culturally specific testing situations

pygmalion effect

people conform to the expectations of others with authority