Developmental Psych Exam 2

Piaget’s Constructivist Theory

“Child as a scientist”, Children construct knowledge for themselves in response to their experiences in the world

Children generate hypotheses, perform experiments and draw conclusions from their observations

Active Child

Piaget’s Continuous View

A child’s continuous interactions with the world leads to a constant state of equilibrium or disequilibrium in a continuous feedback loop

Equilibrium

When children balance assimilation and accommodation to create a stable understanding

A good match between schemes and the world

Disequilibrium

When new information leads people to perceive their understandings as inadequate

Mental structures are changed/adapted through accommodation and assimilation. THis reorganization leads back to a state of equilibrium

Accommodation

Adapting/updating existing concepts in response to new experiences

Adjusting mental schemes or creating new ones to incorporate new information

Assimilation

Incorporating new information into existing concepts or mental structures

Piaget’s Discontinuous View

Development occurs in four universal stages that happen in the same order for all children

Stages include qualitative changes in children’s mental structures

Sensorimotor Stage

Children start with basic reflexive behaviors that they modify over time through voluntary control, repetition and circular reaction

Primary Circular Reaction

Motor movements focusing on ones own body such as waving hands or vocalizing

Secondary Circular Reaction

Motor movements focused on external objects such as grabbing objects or shaking hands while grasping an object

Tertiary Circular Reaction

Motor movements focused on new/novl variations such as hitting something with an object or seeking out new objects

A Not B Error

Children in the sensorimotor stage look for objects where they were last found even when hiding location is changed. This is updated around one year of age

Object Permanence

Children in the sensorimotor stage may forget about an objects existence when it is out of sight. “Out of sight out of mind” principal but is not always accurate as children remember caregivers. Updated around one year of age

Deferred Imitation

When children in the sensorimotor stage repeat a persons behavior a substantial amount of time after the behavior has occurred, can be minutes to even days.

Preoperational Stage

Focuses on centration, one level of thought or concentration. Children’s thoughts in this stage are often rigid, from their own p.o.v.

Symbolic representation, when one object stands for another. Ex a stick is used as a sword

Representational & sociodramatic play or drawings

Centration

Tendency to focus on a single, perceptually striking aspect of an object

One level of thought or categorization

Conservation of Mass, Liquid or Number

Children in the preoperational stage often fail conservation tasks as they have an egocentric viewpoint of the world and can not think from other perspectives. Centration makes it hard to understand conservation related tasks and concepts as children cannot focus on height AND width, instead they focus on one category

Concrete Operational Stage

Children in this stage can understand operations that have support from the real world but cannot handle abstract ideas. Succeed in conservation and seriation tasks with visuals, struggle with the same tasks presented in a story without visuals

Formal Operational Stage

The ability to think abstractly, reason hypothetical and use deductive reasoning

Very similar to the scientific method, children formulate and test what is possible and include different outcomes

Not universal, people are at varying degrees in this stage

Piaget’s Correct Ideas

Active exploration

Ties between cognition and action

Continuous feedback loop for updating schemas

Piaget’s Incorrect Ideas

Stages are not as rigid or discontinuous and are open to more individual variability

More cultural variance than originally expected/proposed, not as universal

Core Knowledge Theories

Children have some innate knowledge and rapidly acquire additional information in these domains, specifically of evolutionary importance

Kids are born with general learning abilities and specialized learning mechanisms

Domain Specific but combines nativism and constructivism

Core Knowledge Studies

Focusing on the innate understanding of continuity. Children will stare for longer at a discontinuous object ex a line broken into 2 pieces. Infants also look longer at objects that violate their expectations

Children also have an understanding of what counts as an animal and understand that animals can self loccomote

Sociocultural Theories (Vygotsky)

Emphasizes the importance of people and culture on development

Children are social learners that will be motivated to participate in activities relative to the time/place they live

Guided Participation (Sociocultural)

More knowledgeable people organize activities in a way that allows for less knowledgeable people to learn

Social Scaffolding (Sociocultural)

Providing a temporary framework to support a childs thinking at a higher level than what is individually possible for that child

Private Speech (Vygotsky)

Children develop self regulation & problem solving skills by telling themselves what to do aloud

Intersubjectivity (Vygotsky)

A mutual understanding that people share during conversation

Joint Attention (Vygotsky)

Social partners can focus on a common referent in an external environment

Zone of Proximal Development

The range of what a child can do on their own with trial and error. Can do some things on their own and can do other things only with maximal help from a parent/caregiver

Dynamic Systems Theory

Focusing on how development is a process of constant changes over time where children are internally motivated to learn about the world.

Actions contribute to development throughout life

Soft Assembly

Soft Assembly

Integrating attention, memory, emotions and actions to adapt to a continuously changing environment. Many elements interact in different ways

Disappearing Step Reflex

Reflex disappears when children go through a growth spurt causing their legs to be heavier. According to Thelen, the reflex can be strengthened with practice or in water to remove additional weight from growth spurt.

Information Processing Theories

Focuses on the structure of cognitive systems and mental activities used to deploy attention and memory to solve problems

Believes development occurs continuously in small incraments but is open to more individual variability

Encoding (Info Processing)

Holding on to information that is important or draws our attention

Task Analysis (Info Processing)

Identification of the goals needed to perform a task. Realizing obstacles and potential strategies or solutions

Overlapping Waves Theory (Info Processing)

Each child uses a variety of approaches to problem solving. Problem solving improves with development

Visual acuity

How clear/sharp an object is. How much visual information infantas can pick up

Preferential Looking Technique

Assessing which image an infant prefers based on how long they look at it. Infants prefer high contrast patterns over solid color objects as that is what they can more easily discriminate between

Optical Expansion - Depth Perception

As objects move closer they cover more of the background

Binocular Disparity - Depth Perception

Differences in the image of an object in each eye resulting in 2 different visual signals being sent to the brain

Stereosepsis - Depth Perception

The visual cortex combines differing neural signals caused by binocular disparity, resulting in depth perception

Monocular/Pictorial Cues

Cures from one eye, relative size and interposition

Gaze Tracking

Synching visual attention by following the gaze of another person

Face Preferences

Babies have a preference for faces and face oriented or “top heavy” images. Primarily look at eyes but switch to watching lips as speech develops. Babies prefer same race faces and have a harder time discriminating faces outside of their race

Perceptual Constancy

Perception that objects are a constant size, shape and color in spite of physical differences

Object Segregation

Identification of separate objects in the visual field

Intermodal Perception

Combining information from two or more sensory systems

Infants look longer at visual stimuli that matches up with auditory stimuli

Perceptual Narrowing

Fine tuning of perceptual systems, experience causes infants to be less sensitive to distinctions

Infants prefer their mothers voice and language. Infants are more flexible to languages but as they grow they fine tune their auditory system to understanding their native language(s)

Music Perfecption in Infants

Infants perceive music similarly to how adults do

Infant Touch Systems

Oral exploration dominates infants physical touch experiences until they are able to grasp and grab, even then they often bring objects to their mouths

Motor Milestones

Emphasis on stability and motor control. Motor skills develop as voluntary movement centers of the brain mature and build on reflexes. Same motor sequences are often seen due to same genetic blueprint for brain maturation

Motor Milestones - Problematic

There are many levels between genes and behavior

Many brain structures are involved in complex tasks so it is hard to say that just one structure matures

We now know that learning and experience has a big impact on brain development

Longitudinal Motor Study

Reaching is not a natural reflex and infants will go about reaching for an object a variety of ways. Motor movements for reaching improve as time goes on. Ficused on manual and postural skills

Affordances

Possibilities for actions that are offered by objects

Ex: Small objects like a rattle can be afforded the actions of being picked up, shaken, hit on surfaces or thrown etc

Adolph Example of Affordances & Differentiation

Crawlers vs walkers determining which slope is too steep to go down. Crawlers went down head first and explored steeper angles. Walkers were more hesitant and looked for alternative positions such as scooting but would not try steeper slopes

Knowledge learned from crawling didn’t transfer over when the infants started walking, new perception-action behaviors emerge when actions become stable

Perceptual Learning

Learning through experiences that improve our sensory systems

Statistical Learning

Detecting statistical patterns and frequencies in ones environment. Important for picking up on stress cues when learning languages

Rational Learning

Integrating prior beliefs/biases with what actually occurs in the environment

Using prior experiences to predict what will happen in the future

Object Knowledge

Understanding the existence and properties of objects

Physical Knowledge

Understanding the laws/rules of nature and your environment

Social Knowledge

Understanding of social and cultural rules, morales and languages etc. Learned through interactions with others