PSYC-263: Quiz #4 L9,10,11

Less perception and more cognition

start as bundles of reflexes

• sensorimotor

  • hold mental representations - object permanence

• pre-operational

  • manipulate (multiple) representations

• concrete

  • abstract representations

• formal

end as swiss scientists

What develops in stage theories?

• knowledge structures: How children think about something (how to solve addition problem)

• NOT content: What children know about something (not memorizing 2+2=4)

• Schemas: Organized ways of making sense of experience (specific=students, public transportation, etc.)

• Change with age

  • action-based (motor patterns) at first

  • later move to a mental (thinking) level

2 mechanisms of change in Schemas

• Assimilation - fitting new info into old scheme; translate info into a form you can understand; using current schemes to interpret external world; used during equilibrium

• Accommodation - old scheme doesn’t work, may make new scheme to fit new info; change current knowledge structure; prompted by disequilibrium

What happens during sensorimotor?

• major goal = mental representations

  • object permanence

Characteristics of preoperations

• believe in magical thinkings

• Animism - give inanimate things human qualities

• Centration - focus on only one factor

• dominate by perceptual cues

• fail class inclusion tasks

• don’t know about permanence of states and traits

• Egocentric - can’t see someone else’s POV

• can’t manipulate multiple mental representations

Egocentrism: 3 mountains task

• children was shown two sides of a mountains and asked to answer what the interviewer was seeing, children described what they saw

• preschoolers choose own pov

• problem

  • does not equal perceiving and remembering

  • does equal simultaneous manipulation of 2 pov

• reliable task

Liquid conservation

• 2 glasses are asked to be filled equally then 1 is poured into a different shorter and wider container and asked if they are equal

• some children failed and said they are not equal

• some children succeeded and said they were still equal

Criteria for being a “conserver”

• reversibility

• identity

• compensation

Number conservation

• candies are put into 2 rows and asked who has more, then they are spread out and asked again

• some children failed and said the spread out row has more

• some children succeeded and said they are still equal

Are there universals in motor development

• yes: children everywhere reach, sit, walk

• but also no: nothing is obligatory

Yes: Children everywhere reach, sit, walk

• same basic skills despite highly variable experiences

• acquire skills that all cultures value

AND No: Nothing is Obligatory

• crawling is a major milestone on assessment scales. but can be missing!

• infants skip crawling

  • 17% British infants (Robson 1984)

  • 29% Jamican infants; others crawl at same age as they walk (Hapkins and Westra 1989,1990)

  • 40% US infants in 1900 (Trettien 1900)

• Milestons are only a metaphor

Developmental Milestones Approach

• certain skills are important markers of development

• universal age-related sequence

  • all infants acquire all skills in the sequence

  • no skipping or going backwards

• notion of onset ages

  • specific day acquisition

  • guided by group averages

Milestone Metaphor is Poor Way to Think About Development

• Skills on the charts are arbitrary

  • based on Gesell’s sample: 500 infants around Yale University, British or German background, middle-class, 2-parent homes

  • play with objects, record behavior

  • found average age for skills = norms

• Milestone metaphor ignores cultural differences

• The “typical child” is no child at all

  • milestone metaphor ignores variability and individual differences

Motor Milestones

• Crawling

  • many different types

Standards Hands/Knees Crawling

• alternating hands and knees touching the ground

“Army” Belly Crawling

• stomach touches ground

• pulling motion

Hands/Feet “Bear” Crawling

• not on milestone charts

• alternating hands and feet, knees dont touch the ground

“Crab” Crawling and Bum Shuffling

• Locomotion is idiosyncratic

• very different

• scooting motions, crab like

Knee Walking

• locomotion is creative

• hopping and alternating knees

• no hands

Combination Crawling

• infants find unique moves

• combo of all

• pulling, scooting, hopping, etc

• if it moves their body, babies are likely to do it

Formal Routines in Some Cultures in Africa, India, & Caribbean (Hopkins, 1976; Hopkins & Westra 1989,1990)

• massaging or head, spine, butt

• suspension and stretching

  • by head or legs

• practice sitting or stepping

More Practice Speeds Onset Ages

• special practice in lab experiments (Zelazo et al 1972)

• everyday childrearing practices (exercise, stretching, how babies are held, carried, bathed, laid down, massage, etc)

Mali Bath and Exercise

• grandma bathing baby

• baby seems upset and not handled normally like in the US

• outside, in a bowl, with a sponge'

• stretches baby and aspirated baby → multiple times a day

Formal Handling and Timing of Motor Skills (Hopkins & Westra 1989,1990)

• tested 3 groups of mother-infant pairs living in England

  • Jamaican mothers who exercise infants

  • Jamaican mothers who dont exercise infants

  • British mothers who dont exercise infants

• same prenatal and neonatal care, living situations, SES, etc

• looked at age that infants sit, crawl, and walk

  • not much difference

Expectations and Childrearing Practices

• Cameroon and German mothers (Keller, Yovsi & Voelker 2002)

• What looks strange depends on your experiences and expectations

Special Practice Leads to Special Skills (Myrtle McGraw 1930s-1940s)

• Studied twins Jimmy and Johnny

• Johnny trained 8hrs a day 5 days a week from birth to 2.5 yrs old

• Jimmy in nursery playpen, routine schedule, no special training

• Johnny was no different than Jimmy with basic skills

  • they differed with specialty skills

• Most infants develop normally without special training

Summary

• no universal milestones

• timing of motor skills can change

• normal environment is enough

• environment can change timing of skills

• BUT, children can learn amazing skills

Ethical guidelines

• informed consent

• debriefing

• risks/benefits ratio

Informed Consent

• explain details

• sign before start

• can stop any time

• easy language

• Zimbardo prison experiment (1970s)

  • all male college students were split into two roles; cops and prisoners

  • experiment got out of control, students were taking role too seriously

• Preschoolers and infants

  • cant have them leave worse than they came

  • cant give consent on their own

Debriefing

• explain purpose

• especially important in studies involving deception

• Milgram shock experiment (1960s)

  • deliver shock (not real) to a person learning words

  • study to see how far ppl would go

  • had to be told that shocks were not actually real- the debrief

• Ceci’s children’s eyewitness testimony

  • children’s ability to recall events

  • children were told ridiculous stories and were asked about the story

    • found that children were suggestible

      • honest misremembering

Risks/benefits ratio

• damage to participant vs. benefit to researcher + participant

• too much risk = danger

  • mental, physical, emotional damage

• too much benefit = coercion

  • info, physical benefits

• Twins Del and Rey by Wayne and Marsena Dennis (1930s)

  • Great Depression

  • Nature vs. Nurture

    • swaddled → fell behind development → paralyzed

• Sheldon Cohen’s research on colds

  • people were given cold virus or placebo in a hotel

  • then people were put under stressful events and it was seen who got sick

IRB

• Institutional Review Board

• for all federally funded research

• what about institutions that DONT get federal money?

  • can choose to bring people together to make an IRB

Research with Child Participants

• more extensive guidelines

  • legally are minors

  • incompletely developed cognitive capacity

  • limited experiences

  • after 9 yrs old, child can give asent- saying yes but no legal standing

Committee on Ethical Conduct in Child Development Research 1990

• 14 principles that researchers should abide by when conducting research with children

• non-harmful procedures, informed consent, parent consent, additional consent, fair incentives, anonymity

Major theories of cognitive development

• Piaget’s theory- structures and stage

• Information-processing theories- processes

• Core knowledge theories- innate abilities

• Sociocultural theories- social context and people

• likely to agree with some aspects of some theories and disagree with other aspects

Jean Piaget: Great Observer

• swiss scientist- published in 1930s, translated to English in 1960s (competent infant)

• Book “Origin of Intelligence”- observations of own 3 children

• work still present in today’s world

Ways to study children

1. Observations both naturalistic and experimental

2. concentric clinical method- asking and interviewing children in flexible and structured way

• how does thinking change over time

“Child constructs Reality”

• Constructivist theory

  • “Construct reality” = making sense of the world

  • child is building own knowledge

  • child is active in own learning

• child as a “scientist”- active learners

• both continuous and discontinuous aspects

Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

• sensorimotor: 0-2 yrs

• preoperations: 2-7 yrs

• concrete operations: 7-12 yrs

• formal operations: 12+

• Piaget didnt care about ages, just stages!

  • stages move forwards, no backward and no skipping