stats/studies cognition and development

Who created the theory of cognitive development

Piaget

Sensorimotor stage age

0-2years

Gross motor skill example

Lift head 0-3m

Fine motor skill example

Reflexive grasp 0-3m

When do children develop object permanence according to Piaget?

8 months

Piaget’s object permanence research

Hid toy under blanket and observed if child would search for toy

Searchin for toy- sign of object permanence as would not search for it if did not have mental representation of it

After Around 8months - began searching for toy

Develop object permanence at 8months- understand that objects still exist when they can’t see them

Bower and Wishart

Lab experiment- children 1-4m

Waited for infant to reach for object then turned out light to no longer visible and observed infants with infrared camera

Infants continued to reach for object in the dark- object permanence

age of pre-operational stage

2-7years

Piaget and Szeminska class inclusion research

Children showed 20 wooden beads (18brown 2 white) and asked are there more brown beads or wooden beads?

Most Children in preoperational answered brown.

Children in pre-op don’t have class inclusion

Piaget and Szeminska conservation research

Did several conservation tasks on mass, volume, number and length

Presented children with 2 objects of equal quantities (e.g. 2 beakers of water) and asked if objects the same or different?

Change the appearance/shape of the object (e,g. Pouring water into taller beaker) and asked again if same or different

Children in pre-op incorrectly answered second question- lack conservation.

Piaget and Inhelder

Piaget and Inhelder

• A model of three mountains was placed in a table. The three mountains were different colours and topped by different features: snow, house, cross

• Children aged between 3-8 were encouraged to explore the model and see it from all sides

• A doll was placed at different points on the table and the children were asked to carry out various tasks to test their ability to ‘see’ from the dolls viewpoint

  • Given three cardboard shapes of the mountains and asked to arrange them to show what doll can see

  • Given 10 pictures and asked to select what doll can see

  • Asked to choose any picture and say where the doll needed to stand in order to see that view

• 4 yr olds nearly always chose a picture of what they could see and should no awareness that the doll’s pov would be different

• 6yr olds frequently chose a picture different to their own but rarely chose the correct picture

• Only 7-8yr olds consistently chose the correct picture

• At age 7 thinking is no longer egocentric- child can see more than their own point of view

Concrete operational stage age

7-11

Formal Operational stage age

11+

Dosen

Only 1/3 of adults ever reach formal operational stage

Fantz

Studied 2 month old babies by putting a display board above them with 2 pictures attached: sketch of human face and bullseye

Babies spent twice as long looking at human face

Innate schemas for facial recognition

Chen

Cross cultural differences in last 2 of Piaget’s stages of development and ages of all stages differ cross culturally

Roazzi and Bryant

Roazzi and Bryan: 4-5yr old children given task of estimating number of sweets in jar in a classroom.

Condition 1: working with older child. Older child gave prompts about estimating the number of sweets in box

Condition 2: 4-5yr old worked alone

Most children working alone failed to give a good estimate. Older child’s prompting estimate were closer to answer- successfully mastered the task

Gredler

Gredler has pointed to counting system in Papua New Guinea as an example of how culture can limit cognitive development . Due to the counting system along the hands and arms, with the highest number being 29, addition and subtraction are very difficult - a limiting factor of cognitive development

Research into the impacts of culture on cognitive development in Bonobo apes

role of culture has been shown in non-human species. Bonobo apes (such as Kanzi) have been exposed to a language rich culture - the apes are spoken to all the time through the use of a lexigram. Kanzi is able to communicate using a symbol system- higher mental functions can be transmitted through culture

Who introduced concept of scaffolding

Bruner

Who focussed on researching how developed cognitive abilities are in infancy and argued that babies are born with a fairly well developed understanding of the physical world?

Baillargeon

When did Baillargeon believe babies develop object permanence?

3-4months

Baillargeon’s violation of expectation research

• 24infants aged 5-6months

• Habituation/familiarisation stage: infant watches a moving apparatus a number of times - watched different sized rabbits moving along a track behind a screen

• Test events stage

  • Possible (non-magical) Events- when the small rabbit passes the window it is not visible as too small and when the tall rabbit passes it is visible

  • Impossible (magical events)- small rabbits is shown in the window OR tall rabbit it not visible

• Findings: looked at impossible event for 33.07s and possible event for 25.11 seconds

• Conclusions: infants were surprised by impossible condition. Understand object permanence at 5-6months

Baillargeon’s physical reasoning system research

Unveiling principle

• Infants showed a cover with a bulge- suggests an object underneath

• Aged 9.5months:

  • showed surprise when cover is removed and nothing under it

  • Did not show surprise if the object revealed was smaller than the bulge suggested

• 12.5months- did show surprise when object smaller than bulge suggested

• Conclusions:

  • Infants first learns concept that bulge indicates an object

  • Then later identify variables that affect the concept

What does Bremner argue?

Demonstrating object permanence (being surprised by the impossible event) does not imply that the infant has a real understanding of it.

For Piaget cognitive development involved understanding a principle not just acting in accordance to it as Baillargeon’s research shows

Who developed the stages of the development of social cognition/perspective taking?

Selman

Undifferentiated perspective taking age

3-6years

Social informational perspective taking age

6-8years

Self-reflective perspective taking

8-10years

Mutual perspective taking

10-12years

Societal perspective taking age

12-15+yrs

How did Selman develop his stages of perspective taking

Conducted research on children’s perspective taking abilities by using a series of dilemmas/scenarios which explore the child’s reasoning when faced with conflicting feelings. Dilemmas required child to take someone else’s perspective

Interviews groups of children

Holly Dilemma

Selman told the children about Holly, an 8 ur old avid tree climber who has been banned from climbing trees by her father after she fell off a tree (but doesn’t hurt herself) and Holly promised her father she will stop climbing trees.

However later Holy and her friends meet a boy whose kitten is stuck in a tree.

Holly is the only one amongst her friends who can climb trees well enough to save the kitten but she remembers the promise she made to her father

Selman then asks the children about the perspective of Holly, her father and the boy

Answers in the different stages

• Undifferentiated perspective taking - Holly’s father will not be made because what is right for Holly is right for others. Father will feel as she feels

• Social informational- Holly’s father will be mad until Holly shows him the kitten and then he will change his mind - he might have a different opinion but ultimately hers is correct and he will realise this when he understands everything

• Self-reflective - Holly’s father will not be mad because he will understand why Holly saved the kitten - Holly’s perspective is induced by her father being able to ‘step into her shoes’ and understand why she saved the kitten

• Mutual perspective taking- Holly thought it was important to save the kitten but her father rightly told her not climb the tree- he will not punish her when he understands all viewpoints- steps outside immediate situation to view both Holly and her dad’s perspectives simultaneously

• Societal- Holly’s father will not be mad because of the humane way to treat animals- his decision is based on wider social norms

Selman’s Orginal research and selman’s and Gurracharri’s research

original research- cross-sectional sample of 225 participants of various ages ranging from 4.5-32yrs.

First analysis 2 yrs later, 48 boys re-interviewed - 40 of the boys had made gains in their level of perspective taking and none had regressed

Selman and Gurracharri- interviewed Same 41boys 3yrs later - as children age their interpersonal score increases (perspective taking abilities become more advanced)

research confirmed the progressive developmental stages as no boys regressed and none skipped any stages

his earlier cross-sectional research was not simply result of indicating differences in social cognitive ability in children in different groups

not a one of off occurrence, suggested progress through stages as you get older

Fitzgerald and White

maturity of perspective taking skills positively correlated with pro-social behaviour and negatively related to aggression

Selman- research in importance of perspective taking

• Selman- children with poor perspective taking skills have more difficulty forming relationships.

• However issues with causation as popular children may get more opportunities to interact with other children and this may be the cause of higher levels of perspective taking

Maxi study

Wimmer and Perner

• Tell 3 and 4 year olds this story (acted out using matchsticks and dolls to make it more understandable):

• Maxi’s mum bought some chocolate to make a cake and Maxi saw her put it in the blue cupboard. He goes out to play

• Maxi’s mum uses some of the chocolate and puts it back in the green cupboard

• Maxi comes back and the children were asked ‘which cupboard will Maxi look in for the chocolate?’

• Findings:

  • Most 3 yr olds said green cupboard- but Maxi THINKS it’s in the blue cupboard (false belief)- ToM not present at 3

  • 4yr old- blue, correct answer

• Suggested that theory of mind and therefore social cognition undergoes a shift and becomes more advanced at age 4

Sally-Anne studies

Baron-Cohen

• Children told the story using 2 dolls, Sally and Anne

• 20 children with autism (mean age 12) and 27 non-autistic children (mean age 4)

• Told the story about Anne moving Sally’s ball whilst Sally is gone

• They children are then asked some control questions to make sure they understood (e.g. ‘where is the marble really?”)

• Then asked belief question: where does sally think the marble is?

• Autistic - 20% correct

• Non-autistic - 85% correct

• Impairments in ToM may explain ASD

The eyes task

Baron-Cohen

• participants are shown pictures of people’s eyes and asked to select one or two emotions that might be represented

• Adults with ASD- mean score of 16.3

• Non-autistic adults- mean score of 20.3

• Suggests that individuals with autism demonstrated more challenges with identifying facial expressions in other people’s eyes

Perner

Perner et al- ToM appears earlier in children from large families, with older siblings as they are challenged to think about the feelings of others when resolving conflicts.

Rizzolatti et al

• accidentally discovered mirror neurons when researching motor activity in Macaque monkeys using electrodes inserted into neurons

• When one of the researchers reached for his lunch, the monkeys motor cortex became active in the exact same way as if it was reaching for the food itself

• Further investigation revealed that the same brain cells fired when the monkey reached itself or watched some else reach

Lacaboni

• Research into mirror neurons and understanding intention

• Used fMRI to examine 23 participants as they watched videos of a hand picking up a teacup

  1. Condition 1- teacup on table with pot of tea and plate of cookies. Context: drinking tea

  2. Condition 2: table messy and crumby: context- cleaning up tea

  3. Condition 3- cup alone. No context

• The mirror neurons in the premotor cortex fired more strongly in the conditions with context

• Indicates that mirror neurons are interested in not just the motion but the motivation/intention behind it

Haker

Haker- used an FMRI to assess the brain activity of participants while they were shown a film of somebody yawning

it was found that when ps yawned in response, there was considerable activity in Brodman’s area, an area in the frontal lobe believed to be rich in mirror neurons

this study suggests the importance of mirror neurons in social cognition as contagious yawning is seen as an example of human empathy and these regions of the brain believed to be rich in mirror neurons activate when this was shown

Cheng

recorded EEG activity while men and women watched either a moving dot or a moving hand- only hand activity should arouse mirror neurons because they are activated when we observe another person involved in an action. Females displayed significantly stronger responses than males when watching hand actions, compared to similar responses across genders for the moving dot.

suggests gender differences in social sensitivity have a biological basis (MN) rather than social basis

Buccino et al

Buccino et al- Western ps showed weaker mirror neuron responses when watching someone use chopsticks compared to an action they were familiar with (e.g. a fork). However if they practiced using chopsticks their mirror neurons activity would likely increase when watching others use them

Supports neuroplasticty

mirror neuron cells may be a result/by product of social interaction rather than a cause

Hughes

90% of children between 3.5 and 5years old could hide a doll in a 3D model of intersecting walls so that two policeman could not see it, but the child could

Siegler and Svetina

Tested 5 year old children who undertook a number of class inclusion tasks and found that those who were given a logical explanation for why their answers were incorrect improved on subsequent class inclusion tasks

Rose and Blank

Children made less errors on conservation tasks when they were asked only one question after the transformation