Chapter 9

Cognitive Control Processes and the Multistore Model

• Term “working memory” allows us to “work” with information

  • Because of cognitive control processes/executive functions

• Working memory

  • Attention: What we focus on and when

  • Inhibitory control/self-regulation -- Purposely not attending to information

  • Set-shifting -- Moving from one strategy to another

Developmental Differences in “Hardware” -- Information Processing Capacity

• Capacity of the short-term store

  • Memory span -- The number of rapidly presented and unrelated items that can be recalled in exact order

    • Forward digit span

    • Backward digit span

• Age differences are highly reliable

  • Used as general intelligence in IQ assessments

Developmental Differences in Memory Span -- Knowledge Base

• Domain-specific processing efficiency → Larger memory span

Developmental Differences in “Software” -- Strategies

• Strategies

  • goal-directed and deliberately implemented mental operations used to facilitate task performance

• Strategic memory -- Processes involved as one consciously attempts to retain or retrieve information

  • Memory strategies (mnemonics)

  • Rehearsal

  • Organization

  • Elaboration

Developmental Differences in Organization and Elaboration

• Semantically organization

  • List 1 -- Boat, match, hammer, coat, grass, nose, pencil, dog, cup, flower

  • List 2 -- Bed, knife, dream, boat, drowsy, truck, fork, tired, spoon, car

• Elaboration

  • To add to the information that we hope to remember

  • Rarely used before adolescence

    • Larger knowledge base to link information together

  • Elaborative interrogation

Strategies -- Production and Utilization Deficiencies

• Strategies devised by children increase in complexity and efficiency with age

  • Production deficiency -- Failure to spontaneously generate and use known strategies that could improve learning and memory

• Utilization deficiency -- When children experience little or no benefit when they use a new strategy

  • Why?

Multiple Strategy and Variable Strategy Use

• Children of all ages have been found to use multiple and variable strategies in solving problems

• Young children are less effective problem-solvers than older children

  • Transfer utilization deficiency

The Dimensional Change Card Sort

• Measure of cognitive flexibility/task switching/set shifting

Development of Planful Attentional Strategies

Attentional Strategies

• Selective Attention -- Ignoring Information that is clearly irrelevant

• Cognitive Inhibition -- Dismissing irrelevant information

The Development of Number and Arithmetic Skills

• Early arithmetic strategies usually involve counting out loud

  • Counting involves the principle of cardinality

    • Specifying that the last number in a counting sequence specifies the number of items in a set

• Counting on their fingers is an early strategy that children use to solve arithmetic problems

Development of Arithmetic Skills

• The sum strategy

  • What is ‘2 + 3 =?’

  • Count out the first number ‘1, 2’, and then count out the second, starting from the cardinal value of the first (‘... 3, 4, 5’)

  • Not effective where higher numbers are involved (’22 + 8 =?’)

• The min strategy

  • What is ‘8 + 3 = ?’

  • Start with the cardinal value of the larger number and count up from there (‘8.... 9, 10, 11’)

• Decomposition strategy

  • What is ‘13 + 3 = ?’

  • ‘13 = 10 + 3, 3 + 3 = 6, so 10 + 6 = 16’

• Fact retrieval (answer retrieved from long-term memory)

• Robert Siegler’s adaptive strategy choice model

Evaluating the Information-Processing Perspective -- Pros and Cons

• Pros

  • How cognitive processes (e.g., memory, attention) change with age and influence children’s thinking

  • Led to Important instructional changes that enhance academic

performances

• Cons

  • This perspective ignores neurological, evolutionary, and sociocultural influences on cognitive growth

  • Fragmented approach to cognitive development

  • Focus on specific cognitive processes but no broad, comprehensive theory of intellectual development