Psychology - Cognition and Development

Pigeon

Cognitive Development

The development of mental processes, mostly thinking, reasoning, and understanding. This topic focuses on Childhood.

Schema

Beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processes, developed from experience

Assimilation

A form of learning where we acquire new information on a subject that does not wildly change it, thus, we assimilate it into our existing schema

Accommodation

A form of learning where we acquire radical new information on a topic where we have to create a new schema, or radically change an existing one.

Equilibration

Once undergone accommodation or assimilation, we are in equilibration, everything is balanced

Stages of Intellectual Development (Piaget)

Stages all children go through to develop understanding of the world

Sensorimotor Stage

0-2 Years, babies learn through trial and error and acquire basic language. Around 8 months, Babies form Object Permanence.

Pre-Operational Stage

2-7 Years. Toddler is mobile and can use language, but lacks adult reasoning. They lack conservation and are egocentric. Also, they can begin to understand class inclusion, but not fully.

Stage of Concrete Operations

7-11 Years. Children have better views on class inclusion and egocentrism, but they struggle to understand hypothetical ideas

Stage of Formal Operations

11+. Children become capable of reasoning formally. They can understand the form of an argument, not just the content, and they can understand abstract ideas.

Object Permanence

Knowing that when something is out of sight, it still exists

Conservation

Knowing that quantity remains the same when the appearance of an object changes, e.g water in differently shaped vessels

Egocentrism

Children’s tendency to only see the world from their point of view. Lacking the ability to take other’s perspectives

Class Inclusion

Being able to know that classes of objects have/can be subsets of larger classes. Pre-Operational children struggle to put things in more than one classes, e.g ‘dogs’ and ‘animals’

Zone of Proximal Development

The gap between a child’s current ability (unaided) and their potential (With the help of a more expert other)

Scaffolding

Helping the learner cross the ZPD, advancing as much as they can. Less scaffolding as the learner improves

Knowledge of the Physical World

Our understanding of how the world works, e.g object permanence. There is debate as to when children learn this.

Violation of Expectation Research

Research that investigates infant knowledge of the world. They may expect certain things to happen, and show surprise when it doesn’t

Social Cognition

Mental processes we use in social interaction, e.g deciding how we behave in a social situation

Perspective-Taking

Being able to understand the role/point of view of another human being in a social situation

Theory of Mind

Our personal understanding of what others think and feel

Autism

A spectrum disorder. Autistic people face challenges with social interaction/communication, and repeated/restrictive behaviours. It can cause learning disabilities in some

Mirror Neurons System

Consists of mirror neurons in several areas of the brain. They fire in response in our own actions and to the actions of others. They allow us to interpret intention and emotion of others

Piaget- Conservation Test

* Water in 2 same containers
* One is fully poured into a taller (thinner) container
* If subject says the taller container has more water, the dumb-ass has no skills of conservation

Piaget- Egocentrism Test

* Three mountains
* A doll is placed in a set
* The child is asked to see what the doll sees (E.g a mountain, house, etc)
* If the child can’t see from the doll’s perspective, dumb-ass is egocentric

Baillargeon (1987 - VOE)

* 3 month old children
* Looked at a possible and impossible event
* Children stared longer at the impossible until habituated
* Suggests object permanence develops sooner than Piaget suggested

Selman- Perspective Taking

* 30 Boys, 30 Girls
* 20 4, 5, and 6 Year Olds
* ‘Holly’s dad does not want her to climb trees. Holly’s kitten is stuck up a tree’
* Child was asked to describe how each person feels after Holly does/doesn’t climb the tree
* Level of Perspective Taking correlates with age

Wimmer and Perner- False Belief

* Maxi puts chocolate in a blue cupboard and leaves
* Maxi’s mother puts Maxi’s chocolate in the green cupboard
* When Maxi comes back, where will he look?
* 3 Year old Dumb-asses say Green
* 4 Year old geniuses say Blue

Baron-Cohen- Sally-Anne Study

* Sally puts her marble in a basket and leaves
* Anne, the bitch, puts it in a box
* Where will Sally look?
* 85% of the control group were correct
* 4 Autistic Children were correct (4/20)

Rizzolatti et al - Mirror neuron discovery

* Studying electrical activity in a monkey’s motor cortex when a researcher reached for food in view of the monkey
* The monkey’s cortex activated the same way for this as if the monkey did it themselves
* The same brain cells that fired for each event

Gallese and Goldman - Intention of mirror neurons

* Suggests they activate not just for observed action but also intention
* They suggested we stimulate others’ actions in our motor system and experience their intentions using neurons

Ramachandran - Evolution in mirror neurons

* Suggests mirror neurons are so important they shaped human evolution
* Without cognitive abilities we would be unable to live in large groups with complex social roles

Oberman and Ramachandran - Broken mirror

* Neurological deficits that include dysfunction in the mirror neuron system prevent a developing child imitating and understanding social behaviour in others
* Manifests in infancy when children mimic adult behaviour less
* This can lead to challenges in social communication as children and struggle with empathy