Cognitive Development

What is cognition?

The process of acquiring knowledge or understanding.

What is the Piagetian Theory?

The qualitative stage theory that explains how cognition changes over time.

What are the stages of cognitive development according to Piaget?

Preoperational, Concrete operational, and Formal operational stages.

At what age does Concrete Operations occur in children?

Between ages 7-11.

What skill allows children to attend to multiple attributes of an object?

Decentration.

What is reversibility in cognitive development?

The ability to understand that objects can be changed and returned to their original state.

What is an example of conservation skills?

Understanding that the quantity of liquid remains the same despite changes in its shape or container.

What is hierarchical classification?

The ability to organize objects into classes and subclasses.

What is seriation?

The ability to order items along a quantitative dimension.

What is the age range for Formal Operations?

From age 12 to adulthood.

What type of reasoning is developed in Formal Operations?

Abstract and hypothetical reasoning.

What is hypothetico-deductive reasoning?

The ability to make and test hypotheses to answer questions.

What does the Information Processing Perspective focus on?

Cognitive development as a result of growth in components of the thinking process such as attention and memory.

How does attention develop in children?

Attention becomes more selective, flexible, and planful.

What is metacognition?

Thinking about thinking; an awareness of one's own thought processes.

What strategies improve working memory?

Rehearsal, organization, and elaboration.

How does long-term memory change as children develop?

Long-term memory improves and knowledge base grows larger and more organized.

What differentiates Piaget's theory from the information processing perspective?

Piaget's is a stage theory while the information processing theory is continuous.

What is concreteness fading?

The process of moving from concrete representations to abstract ones.

What is the imaginary audience?

A phenomenon where adolescents believe they are the focus of everyone else's attention.

What is the Personal Fable?

An adolescent's belief in their own uniqueness and immunity to the risks that affect others.

What are the two types of thinking involved in creativity?

Divergent thinking and convergent thinking.

How does creativity develop throughout life?

Creativity is often viewed as a strength of childhood but increases through adolescence and into adulthood.

What cognitive processes underlie creativity?

A bigger long-term memory bank, faster information processing, and more selective attention.

Why do we care about cognitive development?

Understanding how children think helps us teach them and recognize their challenges.

What improves as children age with respect to working memory?

Both the ability to retain information and the use of strategies to manipulate that information.