Studied by 10 people
constructivism
children “construct” their own knowledge by interacting with the environment
nature vs nurture
genetics vs environment
4 properties of Piaget’s theory
Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete and Formal
Sensorimotor
0-2 yrs, learn to distinguish self from world; object permanence
Preoperational
Key achievement: conservation- they will take the one that’s more
2-7 years, mental representation of objects
Concrete Operational
7-12 yrs, more advanced reasoning but not yet abstract
Formal operational
12+, mature thinking, abstract reasoning
A not B error
the idea that babies will look for hidden object in the same spot each time
Deffered imitation
the repetition of other peoples behavior a substantial time after it originally occurred
pre operational
biggest acquisition are symbolic representations, biggest weaknesses are egocentrism(perceiving the world solely from one's own point of view) & conservation \n problems(the tendency to focus on a single, perceptually striking feature of an object or event) \n
Naughty Teddy experiment contributions
The demands of a task shapes a response, children may be answering what the adult wants them to say
Piaget Contributions
Children are not stupid, they just think differently about the world
Children’s thinking undergoes qualitative shifts
Children are active learners. They “construct” knowledge by interacting with the environment
We can do experiments to test how children think
Piaget Criticisms:
Some of children’s thinking occurs in specific areas of knowledge (domains)-not general stages
Qualitative shifts occur within specific areas of cognition and not all at the same age
Children also learn from others and thinking is shaped by culture
We now have much more sophisticated methods for experiments
Information-processing theories
“Child as general purpose problem solver”
Cognition improves because of increase in memory and problem solving
Focus on domain general processes (executive function, processing speed)
Task analysis
the research technique of specifying the goals, obstacles to their realization, and potential solution strategies involved in problem solving
Working memory
memory system that involves actively attending to, maintaining, and processing information
Executive functioning
control behavior and thought processes
Inhibition:
as when resisting the temptation to play with ones phone when an important test looms
Explanations of memory development
Processing speed
Rehearsal:
the process of repeating information multiple times to aid memory of it
Problem solving:
the process of attaining a goal by using a strategy to overcome an obstacle
Core knowledge theory
“Child as well-adapted production of evolution”
Born with innate, domain specific knowledge and learning mechanisms
Nativits= emphasize knowledge, aka “core knowledge systems”
Contructivist= emphasize the process of building theories
Domains
are specific to certain kinds of knowledge
example: We can't use language processing to understand all sounds (birds)
Domain specific
special abilities allows us to predict what will happen in the world
Eg. a log rolling down a hill will continue to happen
Domain-general
Memory
Attention
Inhibition
Processing speed
Problem solving
Nativism
is the belief that infants are born with substantial knowledge of evolutionarily important domains, as well as the ability to quickly and easily acquire more knowledge in these domains.
Constructivism \n
is the theory that infants build increasingly advanced understanding by combining rudimentary innate knowledge with subsequent experiences. \n
core-knowledge constructivists theories
Several core-knowledge constructivists proposed that young children actively organize their understanding the most important domains into informal theories
Hypothesize that children form naive theories of physics(knowledge of objects), psychology (knowledge of people), and biology(knowledge of plants and animals).
Emphasize that children's initial simple theories grow considerably more complex with age and experience.
Sociocultural theories
\n
How adults support and encourage children’s learning: Guided participation, cultural tools, social scaffolding- student’s ability to learn information through the guidance of a more informed individual
Vygotsky’s theory:
“Child as social learner”
Children are born social and learn from other people
Societies contribute to children’s development by providing cultural tools
Children learn through “guided participation” with a “more knowledgeable other” (e.g., parent)
Private speech:
in which they tell themselves aloud what to do, much as their parents might have done earlier; second phase of Vygotskys internalization of thought process where children develop self regulation \n
Children as products of their culture
Societies contribute to children’s development by providing cultural tools: e.g. Abacus- used for counting and math, iphone, writes
Intersubjectivity
the mutual understanding that people share during communication
joint attention:
a process in which social partners intentionally focus on a common referent in the external environment
Dynamic systems theories
a class of theories that focus on how change occurs over time in complex systems
Visual processing
Babies are born with astigmatism
Visual acuity
sharpness and focus of objects
color perception
Adults see color strategies, but light is continum… Babies cant tell the difference between lights in the same category. By 5 months they can differentiate major categories
\n
Contrast sensitivity
ability to perceive sharp and clear outlines of very small objects
Preferential-looking method
Present two stimuli and see which one the baby prefers to look at
Look at more complex if they can see the detail
Habituation method or Violation of expectancy
Same image over and over until the baby habituates- gets bored and looks less
Show a new image and see if the baby dishabituates- gets interested again, looks longer
Tells us whether they distinguish between the first image and the new image
Perceptual constancy:
Perceive things/people as same whole object when approach (size changes) or turn
Percieve objects as constant regardless of changes in the angle of perspective, distance, or lightning
Edge alignment
Tendency to always infer unity
Common movement
How do things move in relation to one another
Drawbridge study:
objects are permanent and solid
Face preferences and facial recognition
Prefers mom’s face
Faces in upside-down triangle symmetry
Human/monkey study
-Adults; easier for them to differentiate between two human faces than between monkey faces
-6 month olds can identify individual human and monkey faces -9-month-olds and adults cannot identify as well as 6-month-olds
Perceptual narrowing/tuning
\n
Infants form a species specific, face template by 9 months
Improve at identifying specifc faces over first weeks
At 6 months, pay attention to facial differences even of different species
Babies develop an abstract “representation” a prototype of a human face
Compare specific faces to the prototype
Depth perception and its cues
Multiple cues used to perceive depth
Different developmental timing
Optical expansion
Objects expand as it gets closer
By 1 month old
Monocular cue: only need one eye to see this
Binocular disparity, need two eyes
2 eyes send slightly different images to the retina
Difference between the images (disparity) is larger when image is closer
Brain processes this to determine distance or depth
Developed by 4 months
Dynamic (motion) cues
Babies use their own motion to determine depth
Pictorial cues
Use perspective cues from images
Infants do this by 7 months
Visual cliff test
Baby goats won’t cross to “dangerous” side– innate depth perception; but baby goats are born ready to walk!
What about human infants?
Human infants younger than 4 months cross over
Between 4-6 months they refuse to cross even if mother encourages them
Avoiding cliffs is partly determined by crawling experiences
Auditory localization
where the sound is coming from
Intermodal perception
Senses are not completely independent.. eg) sight and touch (within the mouth)
Pacifier study
2 pacifiers, one bumpy, one not; 1 month old suck on pacifier but can’t see, when they opened their eyes looked at the pacifier that was in their mouth
McGurk effect
The mind tries to put together what you hear and what you see the mouth say
By 4.5 months, infants experience this illusionMotor development
Reflexes
Stepping- baby will step when lowered on surface
Rooting- newborn’s mouth moves toward touch on cheek (finding the nipple when hungry)
Grasping- Newborns grab on to anything in their hand
Sucking- Baby will step when lowered on surface
Romanian Orphans
Examines children whose early like was spent in horribly inadequate orphanages in Romania in the late 1980s and early 1990s
Children had almost no contact with caregivers
Shortly after the collapse of the communist rule in Romania, a number of these children were adopted by families in Great Britain
To evaluate the long term effects of their early deprivation, the physical, intellectual, and social development of about 150 of the Romanian children were examined at age 6, and to compare examined a group of British born children who had been adopted into British homes before they were six months.
The question was whether human nature is sufficiently flexible that the Romanian born children could overcome the extreme deprivation of their early experience.
By age 6, while their physical development had improved, their early experience of deprivation influenced their physical development, with the extent of negative effects depending on how long their children were in the orphanages, their intellectual development followed
More prolonged damaging effects on the children's social development, the atypical social development was accompanied by abnormal brain activity
Basic Principle of Childhood Development: the timing of experiences influences their effects
Raising Children (reasons to learn about development)
Tactics learned in developmental psychology can assist in the raising of kids, and teach parents proper parenting skills.
Choosing Social Policies (reasons to learn about development)
Being able to make informed decisions on the wide variety of social questions that affect children in general
Understanding Human Nature (reasons to learn about development)
Most of the intriguing questions regarding human nature focus on infancy and childhood, and studying development offers an opportunity to learn what people are like before they are affected by influences like family and society.
Nature v Nurture (enduring theme #1)
How do nature and nurture together shape development?
This Active Child (enduring theme #2)
How do children shape their own development?
Continuity/Discontinuity (enduring theme #3)
In what ways is developmental continuous, and in what ways is it discontinuous?
Mechanisms of Change (enduring themes #4)
How does change occur?
The sociocultural context (enduring theme #5)
How does the sociocultural context influence development?
Individual Differences (enduring theme #6)
How do children become so different from one another?
Research and Children's Welfare (enduring theme #7)
How can research promote children's well being?
Longitudinal Observation
same object over time (clinical trials)
Longitudinal Experiment
Randomized control trials (covid: vaccine vs placebo) watched over- time
Cross sectional Observation
Looks at development in slices (different ages)
Cross sectional Experiment
Experiments on children
Observations Benefits
Ecological validity, natural settings, rich data set
Observations Limitations
no controls, limits interpretation, must code behaviors, adds subjectivity, can find correlations but not causality
Experiments Benefits
Can create situations elicit specific behaviors, add control conditions to aid interpretation, study cause-effect relationships
Experiments Limitations
May not measure what you think it means (internal validity) , means children may be forced into specific responses
Longitudinal Benefits
Can identify order or emergence of cognitive skills, early skills that predict later abilities, better understanding of individual differences
Longitudinal Limitations
Expensive and time consuming, repeated testing may train to the test, lose participants over time, correlations unless control conditions used
Cross-Sectional Benefits
Easier to do, less expense and time, identify distinct abilities at different ages, estimate when changes occur (e.g., between 12 and 18 months)
Cross-Sectional Limitations
More difficult to understand individual differences, less detail on transitions- e.g, may test only 6 yrs and 8 yrs
Which design is better?
Experimental designs are better, only research design that can determine causation
Reliability
can we produce the same experiment and end up with the same result (is it reliable)
Validity
are we measuring what we want it to measure
Internal Validity
are we testing what we think we are testing?
External Validity
can the results be applied to other contexts
Ecological Validity
can it happen in a real world setting (from lecture)
Correlation
Two variables are related statistically… correlation does not mean that one causes the other
ex. Rooster crows and sun rises
Causation
One variable causes the other
Direction of Causality
Which variable causes the other to change
Third variable problem (confounding variable)
might be the thing that causes both
Random Assignment to Condition
randomly assigning people to avoid biases
Dependent Variable
what is measured
Independent Variable
is the constant that manipulates the dependent variable
Control Condition
a condition that does not involve exposure to the treatment or intervention under study.
Microgenetic
specifically designed to provide an in depth depiction of the processes that produce change
similar to longitudinal
Converging Evidence
Do people testing the same thing with a different method get similar results?
Do multiple kinds of evidence, experiments point to the same conclusion
Reproducibility
Can other people run an experiment and produce the same results?
WEIRD
Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic; 90% of psychological studies are done with only 10% of the world population. Generalize large groups of individuals without considering all cultures. Problem of Generalizability.
