Lecture 4 + 5 - Cognition and Memory

piaget’s constructivism

children are active agents that construct their own understandings of the world based on experiences

studied children using clinical method (flexible q&a technique meant to discover how children think about problems) … imprecise as it is not standardized

intelligence

Piaget defined it as a survival skill, a basic life function helping an organism adapt to its environment

schemas

organized patterns of action or thought that people construct to interpret their experiences

OR

set of rules/procedures that can be repeated/generalized across situations

Interactionist perspective on nature-nurture

Children actively create knowledge by building schemas from their experiences (nurture), using two inborn (nature) intellectual functions

1. Organization

2. Adaptation

organization

systematic combination of existing schemas into new/more complex ones

adaptation

process of adjusting to the demands of the environment through two complementary processes: assimilation and accommodation

assimilation

applying old schemas to interpret new ones

accommodation

adjusting existing schemas to accommodate environmental challenges

equilibration

the process of achieving mental stability where internal thoughts are consistent with external world evidence

humans motivated to reduce conflict using this

Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspective

children learn through social interactions with more knowledgeable members

• cognitive development depends on value/availability of mental tools

scaffolding

learning through guided participation and structured help from a more skilled person

zone of proximal development

gap between what a learner can accomplish independently and with the guidance of a more skilled-partner

skills within this zone are where instruction should be aimed, while outside is either mastered or too difficult still

private speech

speech to onself guiding thought and behavior

emerges at 3, increases at 5, diminishes by 7

forerunner of internalization used by adults

fischer’s dynamic skill framework

human performance is dynamic and depends on context

decentration

ability to focus on two or more dimensions of a problem at once

perceptual salience

most obvious features of an object/situation

reversibility

process of mentally undoing or reversing an action

seriation

arranging items mentally along a quantifiable dimension such as length or weight

transitivity

describes the necessary relations among elements in a series

hypothetical-deductive reasoning

reasoning from general ideas/rules to their specific implications

ex. If I buy my partner this, would they be happy?

decontextualize

separate prior knowledge and beliefs from the demands of the task at hand

adolescent egocentrism

difficulty differentiating one’s own thoughts and feelings from those of others

imaginary audience

confusing your own thoughts with those of a hypothesized audience for your behavior

personal fable

tendency to think your own thoughts/feelings are unique

postformal thought

more complex than formal-operational stage

relativistic thinking

knowledge depends on its context and the subject perspective of the knower

dialectical thinking

detecting paradoxes and inconsistencies among ideas and trying to reconcile them

information processing theory

emphasizes the basic mental processes involved in attention, perception, memory, and decision making

maturation of the nervous system plus experiences enables adults to remember more than young children

computer analogy

input devices → sensory memory

processor/RAM → working memory

output → response to stimuli

hard drive storage → long-term memory

information-processing framework

sensory register → STM → LTM

attention required for sensory memory to go into STM, rehearsal and encoding for LTM

central executive

“supervisor” aspect of WM that controls attention and information flow

phonological loop

auditory information of WM

episodic buffer

part of WM that integrates auditory and visual info.; retains chronological order

visual-spatial sketchpad

part of WM containing visual and spatial information

long term memory

divided into explicit/declarative (consciously work to rmb.) and implicit/nondeclarative (remembered unconsciously)

explicit: episodic and semantic (events vs facts)

implicit: skills/habits/procedures, priming, and conditioning

hippocampus

damage to this part leads to significant impairments in creating new episodic memories

limbic-temporal cortex

where vocabulary is stored

childhood (infantile) amnesia

retain very few autobiographical memories of events that occurred during the first few years of life

perseveration errors

continue to use the same strategy that was successful in the past despite the strategy’s current lack of success

rehearsal

repeating of items they are trying to learn and remember

metamemory

knowledge of memory and its process

influenced by children’s language skills

metacognition

knowledge of the human mind and of the range of cognitive processes

present 3- and 4-year-olds

knowledge base

knowledge of a content area to be learned 

affects learning and memory performances

scripts

general event representations that guide future behaviors in similar settings

become more detailed as children age

adaptive strategy choice model

children have multiple strategies in their “tool” box that are selected based on the task as well as their motivation and comfort level

selective optimization with compensation (SOC)

a framework of how individuals may cope with and compensate for their diminishing cognitive resources

3 processes:

1. selection — selecting what you think is most useful

2. optimization — optimize what you have in what you selected

3. compensation — seeking assistance for where you lack