PSYB20H3 Unit 6-9 Study Guide

Cognition

The mental processes involved in thinking, understanding, learning, and remembering.

Cognitive development

The growth and change in these mental processes as a person grows.

Intelligence

The ability to adapt to and make sense of the world through mental processes.

Equilibrium

A state of balance where a child's mental structures are in harmony with their experiences.

Disequilibrium

When new experiences don't fit existing mental structures, leading to confusion and cognitive growth.

Organization

Grouping similar information into categories (like understanding that both dogs and cats are animals).

Adaptation

Adjusting thinking to fit new experiences.

Assimilation

Adding new information into existing schemas (e.g., calling a horse a 'big dog' because it has four legs).

Accommodation

Changing existing schemas to incorporate new information (e.g., learning that a horse is different from a dog).

Sensorimotor Stage

Infants learn through sensory experiences and motor actions (looking, touching, etc.).

Reflexes

Infants use reflexes like sucking and grasping to interact with the world.

Primary Circular Reactions

Infants repeat actions that feel good to them, such as sucking their thumb.

Secondary Circular Reactions

Infants begin to repeat actions that affect the world around them, like shaking a rattle.

Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions

Infants start to combine actions to achieve goals, like pushing an obstacle to reach a toy.

Tertiary Circular Reactions

Infants experiment with new actions to see different outcomes, like dropping objects in different ways to observe what happens.

Mental Representations

Infants begin to form mental images of objects and people and develop object permanence.

Object permanence

Understanding that objects continue to exist even when they can't be seen or heard.

A-Not-B Task

Infants look for a hidden object in its original location (A), even after they saw it moved to a new location (B).

Baillargeon's Object Permanence

Research showed that infants may understand object permanence earlier than Piaget thought.

Preoperational Stage

Children start using language and symbols but are limited in their logical thinking.

Animism

Belief that non-living things have feelings or intentions (e.g., 'The tree is sad').

Egocentrism

Difficulty understanding other people's perspectives.

Three Mountain Task

Children struggle to understand that someone else may see a different view of a scene.

Centration

Focusing on one feature of a situation, ignoring others.

Conservation Tasks

Children don't understand that certain properties (like volume) remain the same despite changes in appearance.

Concrete Operational Stage

Logical thinking begins, but it is limited to concrete (real) situations.

Reversibility

Understanding that some things can be reversed.

Decentering

Considering multiple aspects of a situation.

Formal Operations Stage

Abstract thinking and problem-solving improve.

Hypothetico-deductive reasoning

Thinking logically about hypothetical situations.

Inductive reasoning

Making generalizations from specific observations.

Systematic problem solving

Solving problems in an organized and logical manner.

Robbie Case

Expanded on Piaget's ideas by focusing on working memory and how it improves as children grow.

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

The difference between what a child can do independently and what they can do with help.

Scaffolding

The support a teacher or more knowledgeable person provides to help a child learn within their ZPD.

Private Speech

Talking to oneself as an important tool for helping children think through problems.

Information Processing Perspective

Compares the mind to a computer, emphasizing how we take in, process, and store information.

Sensory Store

Holds sensory input (like sights and sounds) for a very brief period.

Short-Term Store (Working Memory)

Holds a limited amount of information for a short time, and is used for processing and thinking.

Long-Term Store

A more permanent storage area for information, like memories and learned knowledge.

Executive Function

The ability to plan, organize, and control cognitive processes.

Attention

The focus on specific stimuli or thoughts.

Inhibitory Control

The ability to control impulses and resist distractions.

Set-shifting

The ability to switch attention between different tasks or thoughts.

Memory Span

The maximum number of items you can remember at once.

Span of Apprehension

The number of objects a person can be aware of at one time.

Domain-Specificity

The idea that memory capacity can vary depending on the type of information.

Rehearsal

Repeating information to keep it in memory.

Elaboration

Adding extra information or making connections to better remember something (e.g., linking a name to an image).

Production Deficiency

A child may know a strategy but fail to use it.

Utilization Deficiency

A child uses a strategy, but it doesn't work as well as expected.

Siegler's Adaptive Strategy Choice Model

Children adapt their strategies over time, selecting the best strategy based on experience and the demands of the task.

Attention Span

The length of time a person can focus on a task.

Selective Attention

The ability to focus on one thing while ignoring others.

Cognitive Inhibition

The ability to control thoughts and actions that are irrelevant to the task.

Implicit Cognition

Automatic, unconscious thought processes (e.g., gut reactions).

Explicit Cognition

Deliberate, conscious thought processes (e.g., problem-solving).

Metacognition

Awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes, like knowing when you understand something and when you don't.

Fuzzy Trace Theory

This theory suggests that people remember events in two ways: as verbatim traces (exact details) and gist traces (general meaning). Over time, gist traces are used more and are more reliable.

Schemas

Mental frameworks that help organize and interpret information.

Scripts

A type of schema that represents knowledge about a sequence of events (e.g., knowing what happens at a restaurant—ordering food, eating, paying).

Event Memory

Memory of specific events (e.g., remembering your birthday party).

Autobiographical Memory

Memory of personal life events (e.g., remembering your first day of school).

Infantile Amnesia

The inability to remember events from early childhood (before age 3-4).

Retrieval

Bringing information from memory into awareness.

Free Recall

Recalling information without any specific cues.

Cued Recall

Recalling information with hints or prompts.

Suggestibility

Children's memories can be influenced by leading questions or suggestions, which can make them remember events that didn't happen or alter their recall of true events.

Language

Language is a system of communication that uses symbols (such as words or sounds) to convey meaning and express ideas.

Language vs. Communication

Language is a structured system of symbols used for communication, while communication can involve any method of sharing information (e.g., gestures, facial expressions, sounds) without being tied to language.

Child-Directed Speech/Motherese

Child-directed speech (or motherese) is the way adults simplify and exaggerate language when talking to babies (e.g., higher pitch, slow pace, exaggerated tones) to help them learn language.

Learning (Empiricist) Perspective

Focuses on the role of environmental influences (like reinforcement and imitation).

Nativist Perspective

The idea that all humans are born with an inherent understanding of grammar.

Linguistic Universals

Common features found across all languages.

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

A hypothetical brain mechanism that helps children learn language.

Universal Grammar

The idea that all humans are born with an inherent understanding of grammar.

Language-Making Capacity

A child's ability to figure out the rules of language.

Sensitive Period Hypothesis

There's a critical period during childhood when language learning is most effective.

Phonology

Perceptual Narrowing for Phonemes: As infants grow, they become better at recognizing the sounds (phonemes) in their native language, and lose the ability to differentiate sounds not used in their language.

Morphology

Study of the structure of words and how they are formed (e.g., adding "-ed" to show past tense).

Semantics

Understanding words (comprehension) comes before using them (production).

Free Morphemes

Words that can stand alone (e.g., "book").

Bound Morphemes

Prefixes or suffixes that must be attached to a root word (e.g., "-ed" in "walked").

Syntax

The rules governing sentence structure and word order.

Pragmatics

Sociolinguistic Knowledge: Understanding how language is used in social contexts (e.g., tone of voice, politeness).

Cooing

Early vowel sounds (e.g., "oo," "ah") made by babies.

Canonical Babbling

Repeating consonant-vowel combinations (e.g., "ba-ba").

Holophrase

A single word used to express a complex idea (e.g., "milk" meaning "I want milk").

Naming Explosion

Rapid increase in vocabulary (usually around 18-24 months).

Fast-Mapping

Quickly learning the meaning of a word after hearing it once or twice.

Overextension

Using a word too broadly (e.g., calling all animals "dog").

Underextension

Using a word too narrowly (e.g., using "dog" only for the family pet).

Mutual Exclusivity

The idea that each object has only one name.

Syntactical Bootstrapping

Using sentence structure to infer the meaning of words.

Telegraphic Period

Using two- or three-word combinations that follow basic grammar rules (e.g., "want cookie").

Grammatical Morphemes

Small changes in words to modify meaning (e.g., "-ing" in "running").

Overregularization

Applying regular grammar rules to irregular cases (e.g., saying "goed" instead of "went").

Transformational Grammar

Understanding how sentences can be transformed into different forms (e.g., turning "The dog bit the man" into "The man was bitten by the dog").

Negative Sentences

Learning to form sentences with negation (e.g., "I don't like that").

Complex Sentences

Using conjunctions to combine ideas (e.g., "I like cookies and cake").