Cognitive Development Flashcards

Flashcards for Cognitive Development Lecture

Cognitive Development

The changes in thought processes that occur as we age, including sophisticated thought production and the ability to comprehend and organize information.

Schema

Mental ideas or representations of what something is and how to deal with it; the basic building blocks of intelligent behavior.

Assimilation

The process of taking in new information and fitting it into an existing mental idea about objects or the world.

Accommodation

Occurs when an item cannot be assimilated into an existing mental idea (schemata).

Object Permanence

The understanding that objects still exist even if they cannot be seen or touched.

Goal-Directed Behavior

Behavior which is carried out with a particular purpose in mind.

Egocentrism

The belief that others see the world in the same way that they do.

Animism

The belief that everything that exists has some kind of consciousness or awareness.

Transformation

The understanding that something can change from one state to another.

Symbolic Thinking

When children develop symbols to represent objects or events.

Centration

When children can only focus on one aspect of a task at a time.

Conservation

The idea that an object does not change its weight, mass, volume, or area when the object changes its shape or appearance.

Reversibility

The ability to follow a line of reasoning back to its original starting point.

Classification

The ability to organize information into categories of common features that sets them apart from other classes or groups.

Abstract Thinking

A way of thinking that does not rely on being able to see or visualize things in order to understand concepts.

Hypothetical-deductive reasoning

The ability to develop strategies to solve problems, identify a range of possible solutions to problems, develop hypotheses and systematically test solutions.