MIDTERM 2 (CHAPTER 6-9)

Basic Principles of Piaget’s Theory

Believed that children are naturally curious- children want to make sense out of their experiences and, in the process, construct their understanding of the worldChildren at all ages are like scientists in that they create theories about how the world worksChildren’s theories are often incomplete and sometimes incorrect but are valuable to child because they make the world seem more predictableIn using their theories to make sense of what’s going on around them, children often have new experiences that are readily understand within the context of these theories

Basic principles of cognitive development

Children adapt to their environment as they develop by A)    Adding to their scheme (assimilation) When a child tries to fit a new experience into an existing scheme, this is known as assimilation.When schemes must be modified because of new experiences, it is called accommodation.  Accommodation allows for dealing with completely new data or experiences. B)    Refining their schemes (accommodation) But as she encounters more examples of different men, and learns that they all have different names, she will come to modify (accommodate) her schemeScheme has become more complex: organization

assimilation

occurs when new experiences are readily incorporated into a child’s exiting theories

accommodation

occurs when a child’s theories are modified based on experience

assimilation and accommodation

Assimilation and accommodation can involve ideas, but these processes begin much earlier in younger babies’ actionsusually in balance, or equilibrium- children find they can readily assimilate most experiences into their existing theories, but occasionally they need to accommodate their theories to adjust to new experiences

disequilibrium

Periodically the balance is upset and a state of disequilibrium results- children discovers that their current theories are not adequate because they are spending much more time accommodating than assimilating

equilibration

When disequilibrium occurs, children reorganize their theories to return to a state of equilibrium To restore the balance, current but no outmoded ways of thinking are replaced by a qualitatively different, more advanced theory

schemas

Cognitive development driven by equilibrium results in the formation of mental structures They are not static- do not stay the same once formed but are active, continually changing, and developingThe integration of these mental structures allows organization of information into a coherent wholeEvery schema is thus coordinated with all other schemata in a system of mutual implications and interconnected meanings

Ages of revolutionary changes in thought

2 years 7 years 11 years

Sensorimotoe stage

birth to age 2, encompassing infancy infants knowledge of the world is based on senses and motor skills- by the end of the period infants use mental representations and understand object permanence Infants perceptual and motor skills improve quicklyPiaget proposed that these rapidly changing perceptual and motor skills in the first two years of life form a distinct phase in human developmentSpans birth to 2 years old, a period during which the infant progresses from simple reflex actions to symbolic processingIn 24-month, stage, infants thinking progresses remarkably along three important fronts

sensorimotor substage 1

Exercising reflex scheme Infants learn to control and coordinate inborn reflexesBabies reflexively suck, grasp, and look around in much the same way, no matter what experiences they encounter.These reflexive behaviors are centered around an infant’s own body, and they have a very limited ability to anticipate events.

sensorimotor substage 2

Primary circular reactions Start to gain voluntary control; repeat chance behaviours which produce pleasant sensations (e.g., sucking thumb)Characterized by what Piaget referred to as primary circular reactions to stimuli.A reaction is considered “circular” because, as an infant tries to repeat a movement (e.g., putting fingers in their mouth, making a lip-smacking sound) again and again, a response that originally occurred by chance becomes strengthened into a habit.Infants in this substage begin to anticipate events: a hungry three-month-old is likely to stop crying when her mother enters the room, a signal that it’s feeding time.

Sensorimotor substage 3

Secondary circular reactions 4 to 8 monthsActions aimed at repeating interesting effects in surrounding environment, basic imitationInfants learn to sit up by themselves and become skilled at reaching for and manipulating objects (and repeating actions which they find interesting).During this stage, my daughter Keira (above) would engage in actions such as banging the table, hitting a colorful toy bird suspended above her, and repeatedly squeezing toys that make noise.At this age, an infant can’t yet adapt flexibly and quickly enough to imitate novel behaviors; they enjoy watching adults clap their hands and demonstrate pat-a-cake, but they’re not yet able to participate.

Sensorimotor substage 4

Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions 8 to 12 monthsDisplaying intentionality, engaging in goal-directed behaviourBetter imitation skillsLimited object permanenceA child’s behaviours no longer have a random, hit-and-miss quality.It’s during this stage that a child gains an understanding that objects continue to exist when they are moved out of sight (known as object permanence).For instance, if a parent hides a toy behind a blanket, an infant in this stage will push aside the blanket and grasp the toy.According to Piaget, these basic action sequences provide the foundation for future types of more complicated problem-solving.Still make A-not-B error- search for object at location A when they’ve seen it moved to location B

Sensorimotor substage 5

Tertiary Circular Reactions 12 to 18 monthsDeliberately varying their actions, thus experimentingReflect infant’s curiosityA child can figure out how to fit a shape through a hole in a container by turning and twisting it until it falls through; they can also use a stick to obtain a toy that’s out of reach.Actions at this stage reflect a child’s curiosity to learn about the way things work; in addition to hugging their stuffed bear, they might step on it, or squish it under their pillow.This leads to a more advanced understanding of object permanence.At this stage, we also see the emergence of more advanced forms of imitation – actions like stacking blocks, scribbling on paper, or pretending to talk into a toy phone.

Sensorimotor substage 6

Beginning of symbolic representation 18 to 24 monthsBasing their actions on mental representationsImportant for problem solving, symbolic play, deferred imitation, and the use of languageToddlers often arrive at solutions to problems suddenly rather than through trial-and-error behavior; this suggests that they are experimenting with actions inside their heads before executing them physically.At this stage, we also see deferred imitation (i.e., being able to replicate an action hours after having seen it performed), and the emergence of make-believe play (acting out everyday activities).

Sensorimotor stage- Adapting to and exploring the environment

Newborns respond reflexively to many stimuli but between 1- and 4-months reflexes are first modified by experiencesAn infant may inadvertently touch his lips with his thumb, which leads to sucking and the pleasing sensations associated with suckingLater, the infant tries to recreate these sensations by guiding his thumb to his mouthSucking no longer occurs only reflexively when a mother places a nipple at the infant’s mouth: instead, the infant can initiate sucking by himselfBetween 4 and 8 months, the infant shows greater interest in the world, paying for more attention to objectsAt about 8 months of age, infants reach a watershed: the onset of deliberate, intentional behaviourFor the first time, the means and ends of activities are distinctUsing one action to achieve an end is the first indication of purposeful, goal-directed behaviour during infancyBeginning at about 12 months, infants become active experimentersThese actions represent a significant extension of intentional behaviourNow babies repeat actions with different objects solely for the purpose of seeing what happens

Object performance

Understanding that objects exist independently

Sensorimotor stage- understanding objects

Piaget made the astonishing claim that infants lacked this understanding for much of the first year- he proposed that an infant’s understanding of objects could be summarized as out of sight, out of mindFor infants, objects are ephemeral, existing when in sight and no longer existing when out of sightIf a tempting object such as an attractive toy is placed in from of a 4–8-month-old, the infant will probably reach for a grasp the objectIf the object is then hidden by a barrier or covered with a cloth, the infant will neither reach nor search- the infant seems to have lost all interest in the object as if the now hidden object no longer existsAt 8 months infants search for an object that an experimenter has covered with a clothDespite this accomplishment, Piaget believed that their understanding of object permanence is incompleteAt this age, when infants see an object hidden under one container several times, then see it hidden under a second container, they usually look for the toy under the first containerThis mistake is known as the A-not-B error (because babies reach for an object at the first location, A, not the second location, B) and Piaget claimed that it shows infant’s limited understanding of objects: infants do not distinguish the object from the actions they use to locate it, such as reaching for a particular container

What age does Piaget think infants have full understanding of object permanence

18 months

Sensorimotor stage- using symbols

By 18 months, most infants have begun to talk and gesture, evidence of the emerging capacity to use symbolsWords and gestures are symbols that stand for something elseChildren also begin to engage in pretend play, another use of symbolsIn just two years, the infant progresses from reflexive responding to actively exploring the world, understanding objects, and using symbols

Preoperational stage

age 2 to 6, encompassing preschool and early elementary school children learn how to use symbols such as words and numbers to represent aspects of the world, but they relate to the world only through their own perspective. Thinking is critical The preoperational stage, which spans age 2 to 7, is marked by the child’s use of symbols to represent objects and eventsThroughout this period, preschool children gradually become proficient at using common symbols such as words, gestures, graphs, maps, and modelsAlthough preschool children’s ability to use symbols represents a huge advance over sensorimotor thinking, their thinking remains quite limited compared to that of school-age childrenPreoperational children typically believe that others see the world- both literally and figuratively- exactly as they do

egocentrism

refers to young children’s difficulty in seeing the world from another’s viewpoint Preoperational children do not comprehend that other people have different ideas and feelings

animism

Preoperational children sometimes credit inanimate objects with life and lifelike properties

centration

narrowly focused thought that characterizes preoperational children Children in the preoperational stage also have the psychological equivalent of tunnel vision: they often concentrate on one aspect of a problem by ignore other equally relevant aspectsHe demonstrated centration in experiments involving conservation which tested when children realize that important characteristics of objects (or sets of objects) stay the same despite changes in their physical appearance

what does centration cause children to do:

Fail tests of conservation (understanding that properties of objects remain the same, even when theiroutward appearance changes) Children at the pre-operational level have difficulty with tasks that require logic such as tests of conservation - the idea that certain properties of an object or substance do not change when its appearance is altered in a superficial way.Preoperational children cannot mentally undo an action; that is, they can’t imagine pouring the water from the tall cup back into the short cup to recognize it’s still the same amount of water!Piaget observed that preoperational children exhibit thought that is fixed on end states rather than the changes that transform one state into another. Exhibit egocentrism (failure to distinguish other’s viewpoints from one’s own, e.g., “3 mountain task”) and animism Pre-operational children are also egocentric in that they have trouble distinguishing between their own perspective and others’ perspectives and often talk aloud about what they are doing, even with other children, rather than engage in what we would consider to be real conversation.Pre-operational children also believe that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and intentions, and thus might yell at a rock when they stub their toe as if the rock meant to do it and will understand their anger Confuse appearance and reality A pre-operational child’s focus on perceptual salience – the most obvious features of an object or a situation – means that preschoolers can be fooled by appearance.

What are major limits to preoperational children’s thinking

Centration and egocentrism

Pretend play

Age 2: pretend/fantasy play flourishes In early pretend play in the late sensorimotor stage, toddlers only use realistic objects.For example, they might pretend to drink from a cup, but won’t use the cup for another use (e.g., pretending it’s a hat).After turning two, they become more flexible once they gain symbolic capacity.This involves understanding that one object, or person, or action symbolizes another; a child can now pretend that they are their favorite superhero, pretending that a stick is a lightsaber.Play at this age can involve solitary role play (I would pretend that I was different baseball or hockey players), or imaginary companions.On the long-running children’s television show Sesame Street, Mr. Enfleurage’s was originally Big Bird’s imaginary friend.When Big Bird insisted to grown-ups on the show that “Snuffy” was real, they never believed him.The writers eventually decided to make Snuffy visible to everyone else (including the grown-ups) out of concern that children who had been abused would decide not to tell their parents or other adults about it, because they thought they wouldn’t be believed.Having imaginary friends was once viewed as a sign of maladjustment, but this is no longer believed to be the case.In fact, research shows that children with imaginary friends are more sociable with their peers and are more advanced in understanding others’ viewpoints and emotions.Most children typically treat their imaginary friends with care and affection. Age 3: Plat becomes less self-centered Age 3: Display awareness that make-believe is different from reality At first, a child engaging in make-believe play might pretend to feed one of their dolls.Then at age three, they begin assigning make-believe intentions to objects (e.g., making a doll feed itself; making one doll feed another doll).By this age, a child grasps that pretending is a deliberate effort to act out imaginary ideas.Three-year-old enjoy pretending to be characters from their favorite movies or TV shows

Benefits of pretend play

Leads to greater social competenceLearn new rolesStrengthens cognitive skills (attention, memory, creativity)Make-believe play contributes to the development of both social and cognitive skills.To be successful at pretend play, children need to adapt different roles, coordinate their activities, and resolve any disputes that arise; this requires cooperation.Children learn about and prepare for adult roles by playing “house,” or school, stepping into the shoes of their parents or teachers.This allows children to be better able to take another person’s perspective and understand their emotions.Play may also allow children to express feelings that bother them or resolve emotional conflicts.For example, a child scared of going to the dentist might pretend that she’s the dentist and her stuffed animal is the patient; she then tells him not to worry, that it’s going to be OK.

Gender differences in pretend play

Girls: family relationshipsBoys: adventure, fantasy, use of weaponsAt a very young age, gender differences start to emerge in the types of make-believe play that girls and boys most frequently engage in.Compared to girls, boys tend to engage in more physical play involving the use of weapons

Drawing progressions

Scribbles (1.5-2)First representational forms (3-4) Children aged three and under will often draw a shape, notice that it resembles some recognizable object, and label it (although adults might not be able to tell exactly what it is!) More realistic drawings (5-6) By age three or four, children can draw primitive people.For the most part, these are stick figures, but a child this age will add facial features like eyes, a mouth, and hair.By age five and six, with their memory and fine motor skills improving, children create more complex drawings, which contain more conventional human and animal figures, with the head and body differentiated.

concrete operational stage

age 7 to 11, encompassing middle and late elementary school Children understand and apply logical operations to experiences, provided they are focused on the here and now In the concrete operational stage, which spans ages 7 to 11, children begin to use mental operations to solve problems and to reasonConcrete operational children can reverse their thinking in a way that preoperational children cannotReversible mental operations are part of why concrete operational children pass conversation tasksConcrete operational thinking is much more powerful that preoperational thinking (preoperational children are egocentric and centred in their thinking- these limitations do not apply to concentrate operational thinking

What are children in concrete opertational stage able to do

a) decentration b) reversibiliyt/conservation c) classification d) seriation e) spatial reasoning f) declining egocentrism

decentration

focusing on several aspects of a problem and relating them

reversibility/conservation

At this stage, children are better able to focus on multiple aspects of a problem rather than centering on just one.They are now able to perform the Conservation Task we watched earlier, having gained the capacity to imagine the water being returned to the original container, and realizing it’s the same amount of water, even if it’s taller when it’s in container C.

Classification

objects into classes and subclasses.For example, knowing that a greyhound is a type of dog, a dog is a type of mammal, and a mammal is a type of animal, etc.  Collections become quite common in middle childhood.

Seriation

ability to put items in order (e.g., by height, weight) When Piaget asked younger children (aged four or five) to arrange a series of sticks in order from shortest to longest, they usually made several errors.Six and seven-year-olds were much more efficient and orderly when doing this task (e.g., “This one is the shortest, this one’s the second shortest,” etc.)

Spatial reasoning

Can draw maps of neighbourhood or school with accurate landmarksDrawing a map of a large-scale space requires considerable perspective-taking skill; because the entire space cannot be seen at once, children must infer its layout by relating its separate parts.Younger school-aged children (aged five and six) include landmarks on the maps they draw, but their arrangement is not always accurate.By age eight to ten, maps become better organized, showing landmarks along an organized route of travel.

declining egocentrism

E.g., can think about how others perceive themUnderstand that a person can feel one way but act anotherDuring the concrete-operational stage, children can also take intentions into account when judging behavior.For instance, if somebody tried to injure someone deliberately on the playground (e.g., threw a rock at a person and missed), they still deserve the same punishment as someone else who injured someone.And if a person hurts someone else completely by accident, they don’t deserve to be punished.

mental operations

strategies and rules that make thinking more systematic and more powerful Some apply to numbers, others apply to categories of objects, others apply to spatial relations among objectsAnother important property is that they can be reversed- each operation has an increase that can undo or reverse the effect of an operation (applies to all mental operations)

What is concrete operational thinking limited by?

limited to the tangible and real, to the here and nowConcrete operational children take an earthbound, concrete, practical-minded sort of problem-solving approach, one that persistently fixates on the perceptible and inferable reality right there in front of himThinking abstractly and hypothetically is beyond the ability of concrete operational thinkers

Formal Operational Stage

age 11 and up, encompassing adolescence and adulthood Adolescents or adults think abstractly, speculate on hypothetical situations, and reason seductively about what may be possible In the formal operational stage, which extends from roughly age 11 into adulthood, children and adolescents apply mental operations to abstract entities; they think hypothetically and reason deductivelyAdolescents explore the possible-what might be and what could beUnderstand that reality is not the only possibility- they can envision alternative realities and examine their consequencesReality is the foundation of concrete operational thinking whereases formal operational adolescents use hypothetical reasoning to probe the implications of fundamental changes in physical or biological lawsFormal operations also allow adolescents to take a more sophisticated approach to problem solvingFormal operational thinkers can solve problems by creating hypothesis (sets of possibilities) and testing themBecause adolescents thinking is not concerned solely with reality, they are also better able to reason logically from premises and draw appropriate conclusions

abstract reasoning

adolescents’ reasoning is no longer limited to the real and concrete but readily extends to ideas and concepts that are often quite removed from reality

hypothetical reasoning

adolescents solve probelms by constructing hypotheses and creating tests for these hypotheses

deductive reasoning

adolescents are better able to reason logically from premises, even when those premises contradict everyday experience

Piaget’s contributions to child development

The study of cognitive development itself Before Piaget, child-development scientists paid little attention to cognitive developmentPiaget showed why cognitive processes are central to development and offered some methods that could be used to study them A new view of children Piaget emphasized constructivism, the view that children are active participants in their own development who systematically construct ever more sophisticated understandings of their worldsTheis view now pervades thinking about children, but it began with Piaget Fascinating, often counterintuitive discoveries One reason why Piaget’s work attracted so much attention is that many of the findings were completely unexpected and became puzzles that child-development researchers couldn’t resist trying to solve

Weakness of Piaget’s theory

Piaget’s theory of underestimates cognitive competence in infants and young children and overestimates cognitive competence in adolescentsPiaget’s theory is vague concerning processes and mechanisms of changePiaget’s stage model does not account for variability in children’s performancePiaget’s theory undervalues the influences of the sociocultural environment on cognitive development

Sociocultural perspective- Vygotsky’s theory

According to the sociocultural perspective, children are products of their culture- children’s cognitive development is brought about not only by social interactions, but it is inseparable from the cultural contexts in which children live Vygotsky saw development as an apprenticeship in which children advance when they collaborate with others who are more skilledAccording to Vygotsky child development is never a solidary journey, instead children always travel with others and usually progress most rapidly when they walk hand in hand with an expert partnerOf particular importance is attaining use of language, because then the child can engage in dialogues about culturally important tasks with the more experienced partnerTo Vygotsky and other sociocultural theorists, the social nature of cognitive development is captured in the concept of intersubjectively, which refers to mutual, shared understanding among participants in an activitySuch interactions typify guided participation, in which cognitive growth results from children’s involvement in structured activities with others who are more skilled than theyThrough guided participation, children learn from others how to connect new experiences and new skills with what they already knownGuided participation is shown when a child learns a new video game from a peer, or an adolescent learns a new karate move from a partnerHe never had the opportunity to formulate a complete theory of cognitive development like that of Piaget, but his ideas are influential because they fill some gaps the Piaget’s account of cognitive developing

How are cultural contexts organize cognitive development?

First culture often defines which cognitive activities are valued: In western cultures children are expected to learn to read but not to navigate using the stars Second, culture provides tool that shape the way children think- the cognitive skills that children use to solve arithmetic problems, for example, depend on whether their culture provides an abacus Third, higher-level cultural practices help children to organize their knowledge and communicate it to others- for instance, in most North American schools, students are expected to think and work alone rather than collaborate Thus, culture penetrates human intellectual functioning and its development at many levels, and it does so through many organized individual and social practices

What were Vygotsky's major contributions

concepts of zone of proximal development, scaffolding, and private speech

Zone of proximal development

What a children can do with assistance and what they can do alone The zone refers to the difference between the level of performance a child can achieve when working independently and the higher level of performance that is possible when working under the guidance of more skilled adults or peersThe idea of a zone of proximal development follows naturally from Vygotsky’s basic premise that cognition develops first in a social setting and only gradually comes under the child’s independent control

Scaffolding

refers to a teaching style that matches the amount of assistance to the learner’s needs Early in learning a new task, when a child knows little, teachers provide a lot of direct instruction but as the child begins to catch on to the task, the teacher provides less instructions and only occasional remindersTeachers need to scaffold (rather than do the task for the child) as a necessary component to the child’s learning to perform a task aloneIn scaffolding, as the child becomes capable of doing more of the task himself, the amount of assistance decreases until eventually he performs the task completelyAs the child does the task more often, the parent needs to provide less structure.Giving help but not more than is needed-clearly promotes learningScaffolding is an important technique for transferring skills from others to the child, both in formal settings, such as schools, and in informal settings

Private speech

comments not directed to others but intended to help children regulate their own behavior) an intermediate step toward self-regulation of cognitive skillsFirst, children’s behavior is regulated by speech directed at them or other peopleWhen children first try to control their own behavior and thoughts without other present, they instruct themselves by speaking aloudFinally, as children gain ever greater skill, private speech becomes inner speech, Vygotsky’s term for thoughtVygotsky theorized that children’s language use during tasks was not egocentric and nonsocial btu was in fact communicative- communicating with the selfIf children use private speech to help control their behavior, then we should see children using it more often on difficult tasks than on easy tasks and more often after a mistake than after a correct responseThese predictions are supported by research that documents the power of language in helping children learn to control their own behavior and thinking

Vygotsky’s perspectives implications for helping children

Teachers should provide an environment that will allow students to learn on their ownA teacher needs to determine a child’s current knowledge and provide the experience- in the form of a suggestion, questions, or activity- that propels the child to more sophisticated understanding

Vygotsky and collaborative learning

This collaboration takes the form of peer tutoring, in which students teach each other’sTutors often acquire a richer and deeper understanding of the topic they teach; tutees benefit too in part because teaching is one-on-one but also because tutees are more willing to tell a peer when an explanation is not clearAnother form of cooperative learning involves groups of students working together on projects or to achieve common goalsThese activities help students to take responsibility for a project and to become good team playersStudents also learn how to consider different viewpoints and how to resolve conflictsCooperative learning has benefits for students: they do learn- achievement scores increase- and cooperative learning improves student’s self-concepts- students feel more competent and they learn social skills such as how to negotiate, build consensus, and resolve conflicts

Information-processing theories

Just as computers consists of hardware (such as a central processing unit) and software) the programs that the computer runs) information processing theory proposes that human cognition consists of mental hardware and mental softwareThe mental hardware has three components: sensory memory, working memory, and long-term memory

sensory memory

where information is held very briefly in raw, unanalyzed form (no longer than a few seconds)

working memory

the site of ongoing cognitive activity In a personal computer, RAM holds the software that we’re using, and stores data used by the softwareWorking memory includes both ongoing cognitive processes and the information that they requireWorking memory also briefly stores the results of these analyses while they are used by other cognitive processes to give meaning to words and sentences

long term memory

a limitless, permanent storehouse of knowledge of the world Like a computer’s hard drive, a permanent storehouse of programs and dataIncludes facts, personal events, and skillsInformation in long-term memory is rarely forgotten, though it is sometimes hard to accessCoordinating all these activities is the central executive (executive functioning) which refers to the executive network of attention and resembles a computers operating systemExecutive function includes three related components: inhibiting inappropriate thoughts and actions; shifting from one action, thought, or task to another; and updating

How information processing changes with development

a) better strategies b) more effective executive functioning c) increased autonomic processing d) increased speed of processing

type of developmental changes- better strategies

older children us faster, more accurate, and easier strategies As children develop, they use strategies that are faster, more accurate, and easierOlder children usually use better strategies to solve problemsAs children get older and more knowledgeable their mental software becomes more sophisticated and more powerfulParents and teachers often help children learn more effective strategies- by structuring children’s actions and providing hints, adults demonstrate new strategies and how best to use themChildren also learn new strategies by watching and working with more skilled childrenChildren also discover new strategies on their own

type of developmental changes- more effective executive functioning

older children are more skilled at inhibiting, shifting, and updating The components of executive functioning improve steadily during childhoodAs children develop, they are better able to inhibit inappropriate thoughts or actionsConsequently, thinking in older children and adolescents is more sophisticated because better inhibition means fewer disruptions from irrelevant stimulation and therefore more efficient working memoryWith development, children become more flexible at shifting from one task to another- older children are better able to move smoothly from practicing arithmetic facts to writing a short storyUpdating also improves with ageThese age-related improvements in executive functioning fuel many cognitive-development changes, including improved reasoning and mastery of academic skills

type of developmental changes- increased autonomic processing

older children execute more proceses automatically (without using working memory) Cognitive activities that require virtually no effort are known as automatic processesUnmastered skill can easily occupy much of the capacity of working memory whereas when a skill has been mastered, individual steps are no longer stored in working memory, which means that more capacity is available for other activatesWhen faced with complex tasks involving many processes, older children are more likely to succeed because they can perform some of the processes automatically whereases younger children must think about all or most of the processes, taxing or even exceeding the capacity of their working memory

type of developmental changes- increased speed of processing

older children can execute mental processes more rapidly than younger children As children develop, they complete most mental processes at an ever-faster rateImproved speed is obvious when we measure how fast children of different ages respond on tasks4–5-year-old are generally 1/3 as fast as adults and 8–9-year-old are ½ times as fast as adultsAge differences in processing speed are critical when a specified number of actions must be completed in a fixed period

Connectionist theories

IP theories that view the mind as a system of networks of processors A specific difference, however, is that while IP theories describe cognition in terms of functioning and processes, connectionist models focus on the specific networks of neural processingBased in part in neuropsychology, such models of cognition are still computer-like models of the mindNeurons are viewed as registering signals and passing on data, combining into networks of systems to process informationRather than processing symbolic representations to generate cognitive function, however, connectionist theories see the mind as networks of precursors generating regularized patternsConnectionism thus arises from a computer-model view of the mind, but one looking more at networks within the brain and mapping function to brain structuresConnectionism is now often utilized in explanations of cognition and in linguistic theory because of this applicabilityIt has also been argued that consciousness can be explained by such models with information coded and processed in the brain to create our overall phenomenological experienceArgued to provide a unifying framework for understanding infant learning and development as with other theories there are some with connectionist models

Advantage of connectionism theory

it can explain issues such as the problems of over-regularization in children’s language Over-regularization is where children produce incorrect grammatical functions such as goad instead of wentUse of goed is explained by a network trained to add the ed ending to the present tense simplify doing so even though the English language does not always follow this structure

Core knowledge theories

In this view, different types of knowledge are like different kinds of cars- they come in countless numbers of makes, modals, and colors, but deep down they are alike- they all have an engine, four wheels, doors, windows, and so onIn contrast to this view, core-knowledge theories propose distinctive domains of knowledge, some of which are acquired very early in lifeIn this view knowledge is more like the broader class of vesicles: much knowledge is general, represented by the large number of cars but distinct specialized forms of knowledge also exist, represented by buses, trucks, and motorcyclesCore knowledge theories were created in part to account for the fact that most children acquire some kinds of knowledge relatively easily and early in liedSome forms of knowledge are so important for human survival that specialized systems have evolved that simplify learning those forms of knowledgeThe nature of these mental structures, or modules is very much a matter of debateSome core-knowledge theorists believe they are like the math or graphics co-processor on a computer: they’re pre-wired to analyze one kind of data very efficiently but nothing elseThe language module would be sensitive to speech sounds and would be pre-wired to derive grammatical rules forms equines of wordsCore-knowledge theorists believe that children’s theories are focused on core domains rather than being all encompassing as Piaget proposedAlso, in creating their theories children don’t start from scratch instead a few innate principles provide the starting pointBoth these ideas of mental structures may be right, that is some forms of knowledge may be better described as modular, but others are more consistent with the child as scientist view

Domains of knowledge and specialized mental structures

Language was the first core domain identified by scientistsMany child-development researchers agree that young children rapidly acquire knowledge of objects, people, and liking things and they create informal or naïve theories of physics, psychology, and biologyLike language acquiring knowledge in each of these domains has been central to human existence

Renee Baillargeon Assessment of object permanence

using a procedure in which infants first saw a silver screen that appeared to be rotating back and forth When they were familiar with this display one of two new displays was shownIn the realistic event a red box appeared in a position behind the screen, making it impossible for the screen to rotate as far back as it had previously. Instead, the screen rotated until it contacted the box, then rotated forwardIn the unrealistic event, the box appeared but the screen continued to rotate as before, the screen rotated back until it was flat then rotated forward again revealing the boxThe illusion was possible because the box was mounted on a movable platform that allowed the box to drop out of the way of the moving screenHowever, from the infant’s perspective it appeared as if the box vanished behind the screen, only to reappearthe disappearance and reappearance of the box violated the idea that objects exist permanently; consequently, an infant who understands the permanence of objects should find the unrealistic event a truly novel stimuli and look at it longer than the realistic eventfound that 4 ½ month old consistently looked longer at the unrealistic event than the realistic eventInfants apparently thought that the unrealistic event was novel, just as we are surprised when an object vanishes from under a magician’s scarfEvidently then, infants have some understanding of objects permanence early in the first years of life

Violation of expectations methods

shows babies an “expected” event (follows physical laws) followed by “impossible” event (violates physical laws) E.g., Baillargeon’s impossible event testStudy results- capable of representation as young as 3 ½ monthsIf an infant takes great interest in an impossible event (like in the video clip above), it suggests that they know that an object continues to exist when out of sight and are taken aback when it doesn’t appear where it should have.

Understanding Objects

Understanding that objects exist independently is just a start; objects have other important properties and infants know many of themBy six months, infants are surprised when an object that is released in mid-air doesn’t fall, when an object remains stationary after being hit, or when an object passes through another solid objectAt this age, infants are surprised when a tall object is completely hidden when placed behind a shorter object, apparently because it violated their expectations about concealmentInfants distinguish prosperities of liquids and solidsThese demonstrations attest to the fact that the infant is indeed an accomplished naïve physicistThe infants’ theorems are far from complete; physical properties can be understood at Manu different levels and some prosperities of objects aren’t learned until after infancyThe important point is that infants rapidly create a reasonable accurate theory of some basic properties of objects, a theory that helps them to expect that objects such as toys will act in predictable ways

Understanding objects-categorization

By 6 months, can categorize on basis of size, shape, color (based on visual tracking)18 months: physically sort objects into categoriesMove from perceptual (based on similar appearance) to conceptual (based on common function)Categorization helps infants make sense of their experiences by reducing the enormous amount of information they encounter every day.Infants’ knowledge of category membership is tested by showing infants objects from one category (e.g., cars), then switching to another category (e.g., planes).Babies will look longer at a picture of an item that doesn’t belong to the category that several preceding items belonged to, suggesting that they are aware that the new object belongs to a different category. By 18 months, most toddlers have gained the ability to physically sort objects into different categories (e.g., by shape, color, or type of object, such as toy dinosaurs vs. toy cars).Perceptual categorization involves recognizing that an item belongs to a category based on its physical appearance (e.g., recognizing that several different objects with wheels are all vehicles).Conceptual categorization involves being able to mentally make the connection that certain items belong to a category because they have a common function (e.g., socks, shirts, and pants all look different, but they are all items that can be worn).

Understanding objects- counting

Wynn (1992) 5-month-old have knowledge of basic number concepts (e.g., can discriminate between “one” and “two”)In Wynn’s procedure five-month-olds are first shown a toy animal on a stage, followed by a screen coming up to hide the animal.Next, the infant sees a hand come in from the side and add a second stuffed animal behind the screen.The screen then drops, revealing either both objects (expected condition) or only one object (unexpected condition).Five-month-olds stare longer at the unexpected condition, suggesting that they expected there to be two objects (1 + 1 \= 2), and were surprised that there was only one.Wynn obtained similar findings when she started with two objects and removed one of them, then revealed either one (expected) or two (unexpected) objects.This research doesn’t indicate that infants these young can count, per se, but rather that they can recognize that two quantities are different from each other.Follow-up research has found that the same brainwave patterns occur in infants who are surprised by the wrong number of objects as in adults who have detected errors in adding or subtracting.

Understanding objects- cause effect relationships

“Theory theory” After observing an event, children draw on innate concepts to explain, or theorize about, its causeE.g., physical vs. psychological causesThe awkwardly named “theory theory” views children as little scientists, who derive a theory about why an event has occurred, then test their naive theory against experience, revising it when it cannot adequately account for new information.As they get older, children can distinguish between physical causes and psychological causes for events.For example, if a boy jumps off a chair and tries to fly, but falls to the ground, he might arrive at a physical explanation, that he was too heavy to fly.Or suppose that a girl accidentally pours orange juice (instead of milk) on her cereal – oops!  She might then offer a psychological explanation, that she thought the container had milk in it.This idea of children being little scientists is like Piaget’s, but theory theorists claim that because children start with innate knowledge that directs their development, their reasoning advances quickly, with sophisticated cause-effect explanations evident much earlier than Piaget proposed.

When does knowledge of living things occur?

understanding of the difference between animate and inanimate objects, infants and toddlers use motion to identify animate objectsBy 12 to 15 months, children have determined that animate objects are self-propelled, can move in irregular paths, and act to achieve foalsBy preschool years, children’s naïve theories of biology have come to include many of the specific properties associated with living things

4 year olds theories of biology elements

Movement: children understand that animals can move themselves, but inanimate objects can only be moved by other objects or by people Growth: children understand that, from their first appearance, animals get bigger, and physically more complex but then inanimate objects do not Inheritance: children realize that only living things have offspring that resemble their parents Illness: preschoolers believe that permanent illnesses, such as color, blindness or food allergies are more likely to be inherited from parents but that temporary illnesses such as a sore throat or a runny nose, are more likely to be transmitted through contact with other people. They also understand that people can become ill when they eat contaminated food Healing: children understand that, when injured, animate things heal by regrowth, whereas inanimate things must be fixed by humans

Movement

children understand that animals can move themselves, but inanimate objects can only be moved by other objects or by people

Growth

children understand that, from their first appearance, animals get bigger, and physically more complex but then inanimate objects do not Research in naïve biology suggests that pre-operational children (age two to seven) don’t exhibit animism to the extent that Piaget believed.During this stage, children come to learn many of the differences between animate and inanimate objects, including movement (e.g., animate objects can move by themselves, but inanimate objects must be moved by other objects or people), and growth (e.g., a real baby shark is going to grow up to be a mommy shark or a daddy shark, but a baby teddy bear is not going to grow up).

Inheritance

children realize that only living things have offspring that resemble their parents Inheritance refers to the knowledge that living things have offspring that resemble their parents.A four-year-old child understands that if a baby pig was to be adopted by a cow, it would still grow up to look and behave like a pig.At this age, a child’s theories aren’t yet complete – for instance, they don’t know that genes are the biological basis for inheritance.

illness

preschoolers believe that permanent illnesses, such as color, blindness or food allergies are more likely to be inherited from parents but that temporary illnesses such as a sore throat or a runny nose, are more likely to be transmitted through contact with other people. They also understand that people can become ill when they eat contaminated food

Healing

children understand that, when injured, animate things heal by regrowth, whereas inanimate things must be fixed by humans Finally, pre-operational children also learn that living things can heal by themselves when they are injured, but inanimate objects need to be repaired.For instance, hair will grow back on person who gets his hair cut but must be repaired on a doll.

Commitment to teleological explanation

A fundamental part of young children’s theory of living things children believe that livings things are parts of living things exist for a purpose One view is that teleological explanations are based on children’s knowledge that objects such as tools and machines are usually made with a purpose in mindChildren may follow a similar logic in thinking that living things were designed with a specific purpose in mindThis teleological thinking has echoes of animistic thinking: children attribute their own intentions and goals to other living objects

Young children’s theories of living tins are also rooted in

essentialism- children believe that all living things have an essence that can’t be seen but that gives a living thing its identity

Where do children get the knowledge of living things

Some of it comes just by watching animals, which children love to doParents also contribute- when reading books about animals to preschoolers, they frequently mention the prosperities that distinguish animals including self-initiated motion and psychological properties (such talk helps to highlight important characteristics of animals for children)

Understanding people domain

which refers to our informal beliefs about other people and their behavior Just as naïve physics allow use to predict how objects act, and naïve biology allows us to understand living things, naïve psychology allows us to predict or understand how people actA cornerstone of folk psychology is the idea that people behavior is often intentional designed to achieve a goalMany studies yield results where infants can identify the goal from the adult’s actionsThe regions of the brain the control goal-related motions often become active in the infant’s brain before the adult achieves a goal, as if the infant knows what goal the adults have in mindFrom this early understanding of intentionality, young children’s naïve psychology expands rapidlyBetween ages 2 and 5 children develop a theory of mind, a naïve understanding of the relations between mind and behavior

Henry Wellman

believes that children’s theory of mind moves through several phases during the preschool years In the earliest phase, preschoolers understand that people can have different desiresIn the next phase children know that people can have different beliefsIn the third phase, children understand that different experiences can lead to different states of knowledgeThe next phase represents a fundamental shift in children’s theory of mind: children understand that behavior is based on a person’s beliefs about evens and situations even when those beliefs are wrongChildren’s understanding of the influence of such false beliefs is revealed in tasksIn the final phase, children understand that people may feel one emotion but show another

development of theory of mind

o   specialized module coming online in the preschool years that automatically recognizes behaviors associated with different mental states such as wanting, pretending, and believingThis view was prompted, in part, by the finding that children with autism, a disorder in which individuals are uninterested in other people and have limited social skills, lag typically developing children in understanding false beliedProbably through some combination of these forces, preschool children attain a theory of mindAfter these years, their naïve psychology moves beyond theory of mind and embraces an ever-expanding range go psychological phenomenaThe important point is that children’s folk psychology flourishes in the preschool years, allowing them to see that other people’s behavior is not unpredictable but following regular patternsWhen this understanding is joined with their theories of naïve biology and naïve physics, young children have extensive knowledge of both the physical and social worlds, knowledge that they can use to function successfully in those worlds

Theory of mind

the ability to think about how other people’s mental states affect their actions Becomes more sophisticated from age 3-5Come to realize that other people have different desires and beliefsThe term naïve psychology refers to children’s understanding of the relationship between mental states and behaviour; how other people’s desires, beliefs, and knowledge are related to how they act.Research suggests that three-year-old are aware that they may know something that others don’t know and are also aware that other people can’t observe their thoughts.Between the age of three and four, children come to realize that beliefs and desires are different mental states, and that either or both can influence one’s behavior.For example, a four-year-old who broke a window with a careless throw of a ball might try to overcome his mother’s desire to punish him by trying to make her believe that his breaking the window was unintentional (“I didn’t mean to! It was an accident!”)Tested using false-belief tasksUniversal (most 3-year old’s make error, most 5-year-old don’tLying required TOM

Hippocampus

formation of memories The hippocampus is where memories are initially formed and stored, and it’s not fully developed at birthIn fact, it continues to develop over the first two years of life (which partially explains why, when we’re older, we can’t remember any events that happened from the first three years of our life; we’ll talk more later about “infantile amnesia”)

Prefrontal cortex

retrieval of memories An area of the prefrontal cortex is responsible for the retrieval of stored memories, and this area develops into the second year.For these reasons, the memory of infants is quite basic compared to that of toddlers and older children, but on the next slide we will examine a study suggesting that even during early infancy, memories of experiences can last for a few days.

Origins of memory

The roots of memory are laid down soon after birth- young babies remember events for days or even weeks at a time

Rovee-Collier (1997-99)

A ribbon from a mobile is attached to a 2–3-month old’s leg; within a few minutes, babies learn to kick to make the mobile morWhen the mobile is brought to the infant’s homes several days or even a few weeks later, babies would still kick to make the mobile moveIf she waited several weeks to return, most of the babies forgot that kicking moved the mobile- when that happened, she gave them a reminder (moved the mobile herself without attached the ribbon to the infant’s foot) then she would return the next day, hook up the apparatus, and the babies would kick to move the mobileHer experiments showed that three important features of memory exist as early as 2-3 months of ages An event from the past is rememberedOver time, the event can no longer be recalledA cue can serve to dredge up a forgotten memory

How does memory improve

Memory improves rapidly in older infants and toddlers- they can recall more of what they experience and remember it longerMemory is more flexible in older infants and toddlers- they can remember past events even when the context associated with those events has changedYoung children may even have better autobiographical memory (memory of their own past) than previously believed

Brain development and memory

Improvements can be traced, in part, to growth in the brain regions that support memoryThe brain structures primarily responsible for the initial storage of information, such as the hippocampus, develop during the first yearHowever, the structures responsible for retrieving these stored memories- the frontal cortex- develop much later, into the second yearPart of the hippocampus is not mature until about 20-24 months, and developmental changes continue across childhoodDevelopment of memory during the first two years, reflects growth in these two different brain regionsOnce youngsters begin to talk, we can study their memory skills using most of the Sam methods we use with older children and adultsResearch using these methods has linked age-related improvement in memory to two factorsFirst, as children grow, they use more effective strategies for rememberingSecond, children’s growing factual knowledge of the world allows them to organize information more completely and, therefore, to remember better

memory strategy

an action to promote remembering Children begin to use memory strategies earlyPreschool children look or touch objects that they have been told to remember- but looking and touching are not very effective strategies, but they tell us that preschoolers understand that they should be doing something to try to remember; remembering doesn’t happen automaticallyDuring elementary school years, children begin to use more effective strategies- 7-to-8-year old’s use rehearsal

encoding

the processing of information into the memory system Encoding is the process by which we transform what we perceive, think, or feel into an enduring memory.

storage

the retention of recorded information over time three general systems of storage: sensory memory, working memory, and long-term memory, each of which vary in terms of their capacity and length of retention

retrieval

the process of getting information out of memory storage Retrieval involves recalling information that has been previously encoded and stored in long-term memory

Rehersal

a strategy of repeating information that must be remembered As children get older, they learn other memory strategies- organization and elaborationCan be both verbal and visualChildren in grade 2 cannot use imagery strategies without assistance but by grade 6 imagery strategies were comparable to those of adultsAs children grow, they are also more likely to use external aids to memory- such as taking notes or writing down information on calendarsMechanical procedureOne way of trying to get information into your long-term memory involves repeating an item over and over and over, without thinking about what the item means, or how it relates to your pre-existing knowledge.This “brute force” method is known as maintenance rehearsal (or rote learning).A 7- or 8-year-old child might use method this when trying to remember a longer word that they have just learned in school, like parallelogram, or hypotenuse.

organization

structuring material to be remembered so that related information is placed together