Psychology - Cognition and Development

Cognitive Development

How thinking develops

Social Cognition

How thinking develops around social situations and interactions

Piaget's Theory

Saw intelligence as a process in itselfIt is not a static stateIt continually changes by adapting itself to its new environmental stimuliHumans adapt to their environment

There are 4 stages of cognitive development

Some go through them at different paces but all in the same order

Key summary of the theory

Constructivism: children continually construct their own reality through interactions with the environmentPsychological development was the result of both inbuilt processes and experienceUniversal theoryThe existence of schemaUse of clinical method

Piaget's schema

Piaget believed that a schema is an innate building block, which helps an infant to make sense of the world around them A schema is both a category of knowledge as well as a process of acquiring that knowledge

Equilibrium

The world around us makes sense

Disequilibrium

Something in our environment does not make sense We need to change an existing schema

Equilibration

The force which drives the learning process as we do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge (accommodation)

Accommodation

The process of modifying an existing schema to fit a new experience

Assimilation

The process whereby a new experience is understood in terms of an existing schema

Supporting research for schemas - Fantz (1961)

Infants as young as 4 days show a preference of a schematic face rather than a jumbled up oneHowever, this is based on inferences as none of the studies have made it clear whether the infant just has a liking for symmetry rather than facesThis is important because an innate preference for faces would have an adaptive advantage that would elicit a caring response

Usefulness - Application to education

In the early years classroom, children may use discovery learning to investigate properties e.g. sand and waterAt A-levels students may undertake flipped learning

Piaget's stages of cognitive development

Each child goes through the stages in the same orderChild development is determined by biological maturation and interaction with the environmentThese stages are innateNo stage can be missed out but there are individual differences in the rate at which children progress through stages

Piaget's 4 stages

1) Sensorimotor Stage 0-2 years2) Pre-operational Stage 2-7 years3) Concrete Operational Stage 7-11 years4) Formal Operational Stage 11+

1) Sensorimotor Stage 0-2 years

Baby explores the world around them using senseThe main achievement during this stage is object permanenceIt requires the ability to form a mental representation (i.e. a schema of the object)

Object Permanence

Knowing that an object still exists even when it is hidden

Supporting Research - Piaget

Investigated object permanence by hiding objects under a coverHe found that young infants up to 5 months of age showed no signs of searching for hidden objects that they had previously been interested in But by 8 months old the same children searched for the object even when hiddenPiaget suggested that object permanence occurs at around 8 months old

Research to challenge - Bower and Wishart (1972)

Disputed Piaget's finding and demonstrated that a child between 1-4 months continued to search for an object even when the lights were switched off in their controlled observation

2) Pre-operational Stage 2-7 years

The child is now mobileThey have some reasoning skills but there are issues with conservation, egocentrism and class inclusionErrors in these stages are the characteristics of the pre-operational stage

Conservation

The ability to understand that properties of objects stay the same, despite changes in appearance

Lack of Conservation

The inability to realise that some things remain constant or unchanged despite changes in visible appearancePiaget believes this is an example of centration. The pre-operational child has not decentered and is therefore centering on just one dimension.

Research to Challenge Conservation - Rose and Blank (1974) and Samuel and Bryant (1984)

Suggests that the children in Piaget's conservation tasks may have been confused by the questions asked, i.e. they were asked two questions by the experimenter, so they may have thought that they were expecting two different answers. They found that when the children were only asked to make one judgment, they responded better to the task.

Further Research to Challenge - McGarrigle and Donaldson (1974)

Another feature of the conservation task which may interfere with children's understanding is that the adult purposely alters the appearance of something, so the child thinks this alteration is important. McGarrigle and Donaldson (1974) devised a study of conservation of number in which the alteration was accidental.

McGarrigle and Donaldson (1974) - Naughty Teddy

When two identical rows of sweets were laid out and the child was satisfied there were the same number in each, a 'naughty teddy' appeared. Whilst playing around, teddy actually messed up one row of sweets. Once he was safely back in a box the children were asked if there were the same number of sweets.

Egocentrism

The infant has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others

Supporting Research for Egocentrism - Piaget & Inhelder (1956)

Demonstrated egocentrism in the three mountains task.At age 4 (still in the preoperational stage), a child would choose the photo that showed their own view of the mountains, but by age 7-8 (concrete operational stage) they could choose the photograph that represented the doll's view, showing that they could take another's viewpoint.

Research to challenge - Hughes and Donaldson (1978)

Carried out a study to investigate children's ability to take another person's point of view, but this time using a situation he thought would be more familiar to the child; a naughty boy hiding from a policeman.

Hughes and Donaldson (1978) - Policeman and Boy Study

Using a model of two intersecting walls and a doll of a little boy and two policeman dolls, 30 children aged between 3-5 years were asked to hide the doll so that the policemen could not see it in many different configurations. They found that pre-school children selected a correct hiding place for the doll 90% of the time.Argued that their simpler methods, which resembled a game of hide-and-seek, were more age appropriate and showed that Piaget's stage theory underestimated children's intellectual development and their ability to decentre.

Class inclusion

The understanding that some objects are also sub-sets of a larger class of objects (at the same time)

Research to challenge class inclusion - Siegler and Svetina (2006)

Found that children as young as 5 years old could successfully complete a similar type of task to that done in Piaget's original study, if they were given an accurate explanation of class inclusion.This suggests that the difficulty of Piaget's tasks meant the children couldn't show that they understood class inclusion when actually they could show this ability on tasks that were easier to understand.

Supporting Research for class inclusion

Also at this stage children have problems with

Centration - the tendency to focus on one aspect of a situation to the exclusion of others."daddy" is a father, not a brother as well/at the same timeExample: in conservation tasks, children focus on one aspect only (length) and can't manipulate two (length and number)Animism- the belief that inanimate objects are alive Seriation - children can find it hard to put things in order.

3) Concrete Operational Stage 7-11 years

The main development is the growth of conservation, at this stage, it can only be done if the objects are physically present.Egocentrism declines, with children increasingly able to see things from the perspective of others. This is called decentering.The child has better reasoning - called operations - but these are restricted to concrete ideas (physical objects in the child's presence).

More on Concrete Operational Stage 7-11 years

The child can conserve and complete class inclusion tasks and the three mountains task successfully (overcoming egocentrism -they can now decentre)However these operations cannot be carried out in the child's head - the physical (concrete) presence of the objects being manipulated is needed.Therefore the child would be able to conserve if they see the physical transformation of the objects / liquid

4) Formal Operational Stage 11+

Children are now able to manipulate ideas and can consider hypothetical situations.Children develop the ability to manipulate things in their head without the need for the object to be present.He/she can do mathematical calculations, think creatively, use abstract reasoning, and imagine the outcome of particular actions.Inferential and abstract reasoning also develop, allowing children to draw conclusions about things they haven't experienced.

Universal Theory?

Dasen (1994) showed that different cultures achieved different operations at different ages depending on their cultural context.Dasen (1994) cites studies he conducted in remote parts of the central Australian desert with 8-14 year old Aborigines. He found that the ability to conserve came later in the aboriginal children, between aged 10 and 13.However, he found that spatial awareness abilities developed earlier amongst the Aboriginal children than the Swiss children.

Vygotsky's Theory - Basic Overview

Emphasised context, culture and role of othersChildren learn from a More Knowledgeable Other (MKO)The MKO scaffolds the information to help the learnersVygotsky referred to the zone of proximal development when describing this processSpeech is fundamental to the learning

What is the difference between Piaget's and Vygotsky's main ideas?

Where Piaget saw the child as a scientist, Vygotsky saw the child as an apprentice

Zone of Proximal Development

The area between a child's current ability (what they can do without help) and what they cannot do but can be achieved with the help from adults/MKO

Scaffolding

Support and prompting, usually provided by a MKO, which helps a child achieve cognitive tasks they could not achieve aloneAn important aspect of scaffolding is that there is gradual withdrawal of support as the child's knowledge and confidence increases

Social Interaction

Vygotsky focused on the importance of two major influence on children's development of understanding:1) Social Interaction2) Language

The role of language

Culture is transmitted by semiotics the signs and symbols developed within a particular cultureLanguage is the most important semiotic systemWithout language we cannot develop our intellectual ability

Three types of speech

External speech 0-3 yearsEgocentric speech 3-7 yearsInternal speech 7 years+

External speech 0-3 years

MKO directed e.g. "What are you drawing?"

Egocentric speech 3-7 years

Child talks out loud as a way of thinking

Internal speech 7 years+

Child uses speech silently to control their behaviour

Supporting Research - Berk (1994)

Investigated the role of language in problem solvingFound that 6 years spent an average of 60% of their time talking to themselves when solving math problemsActs as empirical evidence

Contradicting Statements to Berk's 1994 Study

Cultural bias - not all countries learn in the same waySmall sample - cannot be generalisedMethodological issues e.g. consent

Supporting Research - Wood and Middleton

Designed a study to find out whether parents do support children's development of conceptsIt was concluded that the mothers who changed their help on the basis of the child's response were more likely to have a child who succeeded later in the tasks

Baillargeon v Piaget

Piaget suggested that in the sensorimotor stage, children less than 8-9 months have primitive understanding of the worldThey lack object permanenceBUT Renee Baillargeon developed violation of expectation research to test the idea that babies do have a better understanding of the world

Knowledge of the physical world/Physical reasoning system

A mechanism that allows them to interpret and learn from experience

Explanations for a lack of object permanence

1) A Lack of motivation2) A lack of motor skills3) A lack of attention4) A lack of interest

Violation of expectation

Have expectation about how objects behaveWhen these expectations are violated, the child looks at the scene for longer because they are surprisedTheir physical reasoning system (PRS) means that they pay attention to scenes which may improve their understanding of the physical world

Physical Reasoning System

We are born with it an enables us to learn details more easilyInfants have an innate understanding of an object persistenceInfants will be draw to what they think is an impossible event

Baillargeon Studies

Carrot StudyDrawbridge StudyRamp StudyBox Support Phenomenon

Box Support Phenomenon

A sample of 32 babies aged 6-7 months Seated on their parent's lap (stops demand characteristics)During the trial, a gloved hand reached out and pushed the box along the supporting surface to different resting positionsThen the gloved hand let go of the box and the box was suspended in mid air

Different resting positions of the box

A) Fully restingB) 70% on the surfaceC) 15% on the surface - impossible task

What did Baillargeon measure?

She measured how long it took the infants to examine each positionThe box on 15% of the surface was looked at the longest since the babies expected it to fall on the floor

Strength of Baillargeon's Study - Comparison with Piaget's Test of Object Permanence

Limitation of Baillargeon's Study - Cultural Issue

Mirror Neurones

Nerves in the brain that are active when specific actions are performed or observed in others, allowing observers to experience the action as if it were their own.

The Mirror Neurone System

These are special brain cells in several areas of the brain.They are unique as they fire both in response to both personal action & respond to the action on the part of others!They may be involved in social cognition allowing us to interpret other people's intention and emotions.

Discovery of Mirror Neurones - Rizzolatti et al

They were studying electrical activity in a monkey's motor cortex (the part of the brain controlling movement) when one of the researchers reached for lunch in view of the monkey.The monkey's motor cortex became activated in exactly the same way as it did when the animal itself reached for food.

Mirror Neurones and Intention - Iacoboni et al. (2004) Aim

To investigate the neural and functional mechanisms underlying understanding the intentions of others.

Mirror Neurones and Intention - Iacoboni et al. (2004) Method

23 right-handed participants with a mean age of 26 years (15 female and 8 male) watched film clips of three types of stimuli: 1) Context only (scenes containing objects)2) Grasping hand actions without a context3) Grasping hand actions performed in two different contexts. In the last condition the context suggested the intention associated with the grasping action (either drinking or cleaning). Their brains were scanned using fMRI as they watched the films.

Iacoboni et al (2004) - Results

Observing grasping actions embedded in contexts yielded greater activity in mirror neuron areas in the inferior frontal cortex, associated with grasping, than observing grasping actions in the absence of contexts or while observing contexts only.

Iacoboni et al (2004) - Conclusion

Premotor mirror neuron areas—areas active during the execution and the observation of an action—previously thought to be involved only in action recognition are actually also involved in understanding the intentions of others, which is the basis of empathy.

Gallese & Goldmann (1998)

Suggest that mirror neurons respond not just to observed actions but to intentions behind behaviour.Rather than the idea that we interpret people's actions with reference to our memory, Gallese & Goldman suggest that we simulate other's actions in our motor system and experience their intentions using our mirror neurons.

Mirror Neurons and Perspective-taking & Theory of Mind

Suggested that mirror neurons are important in other social-cognitive functions such as theory of mind and the ability of take others' perspectives.If mirror neurons fire in response to others' actions and intentions this may give us a neuro mechanism for experiencing, and so understanding, other people's perspectives and emotional states.Allows us to understand what others are thinking and feeling.

Mirror Neurons and Evolution - Ramachandran (2011)

Mirror neurons have effectively shaped human evolution.We require a brain system that facilitates an understanding of intention, emotion and perspective.We need these to abilities to live in the large complex social groups that humans chose to create

Gender Differences - Cheung (2009)

Measured MN activity in men and women whilst they watched a video of either a hand actions or dot. Only hand actions should arouse MN's.Male & female reaction to the dot = sameFemale showed stronger response to moving hand than males.This matters because it lends further support to the role of MN's and empathy + also supports the idea that women show/feel more empathy than men.

Autistic Spectrum Disorder

Associated with problems with social-cognitive abilities including perspective-taking.If ASD children can be shown to have poor mirror neuron systems then this may go along way to explaining ASD.

Mirror Neurons and ASD - Ramachandran & Oberman (2006)

Proposed the 'broken mirror' theory of ASD.They believe that dysfunction in the mirror neuron system prevent a developing child imitating and understanding social behaviour in others.It is found that children who are later diagnosed with ASD typically mimic adult behaviour less than others.

ASD and problem with mirror neurones

Problems with the mirror neuron system may lead to difficulties in social communication.This is because ASD children fail to develop the usual abilities to read intention and emotions in others

Dapretto et al (2006) - Procedure

10 high-functioning children with autism and 10 normally functioning children aged between 10 and 14. (They all gave consent)80 facial expressions, representing 5 different emotions (anger, fear, happiness, neutrality and sadness) were presented for two seconds, each in a random sequence.fMRI scans were used as participants either watched or copied the faces presented (counterbalanced within each groups).

Dapretto et al (2006) - Findings

Both groups of children observed the stimuli and imitated the facial expressions.The children with autism showed no mirror neuron activity in the inferior frontal gyrus brain region.A negative correlation was found between activity in mirror neuron brain areas and the severity of the autism.Activity in the insula and limbic structures (brain areas underlying emotional understanding) was also negatively correlated with severity of autism

However - Broken Mirror Neurone Contradiction

'Broken Mirror Neuron Hypothesis', may not be a complete explanation for autistic spectrum disorders.According to Mouras et al (2008), there has been evidence to suggest that not all AS sufferers have atypical mirror neuron patterns, and that such dysfunctional patterns of activity are present in disorders other than ASD.

Mirror Neurones - Issue with causality

Most research conducted into mirror neurons is simply correlational, where increased activity in one brain area upon completing a task is assumed to be mirror neurons. This means that mirror neurons have only ever been indirectly studied, with some researchers even questioning their existence at all, such as Hickock (2009).

Piaget V Selman

Piaget believed in domain-general cognitive development, so he believed that physical perspective-taking (such as that tested in the 3-mountains task) and social perspective-taking would occur together.
Selman proposed that the development of social perspective-taking is a separate process.

Selman

If the question mentions cognitive development use Piaget, Vygotsky, Baillargeon
If the question uses the word social use Selman, Theory of Mind, Mirror Neurons

Selman perspective-taking

The focus is on what they think (from their point of view).

Selman's Perspective-Taking Dilemmas

•Selman (1971) conducted research on children's perspective-taking abilities by using a series of dilemmas which explore the child's reasoning when faced with conflicting feelings.•A dilemma is a scenario in which you need to take on the role of various characters and come to a conclusion.•The dilemmas require the child to have to take someone else's perspective (or several different people's perspectives).

Selman's stages of perspective taking

Level 0: Undifferentiated perspective taking (3-6) Level 1: Social-informational perspective taking (4-9) Level 2: self-reflective perspective taking (7-12) Level 3: Third-party perspective taking (10-15) Level 4: Societal perspective taking (14-adult)

Level 0: Undifferentiated perspective taking (3-6)

Child cannot reliably distinguish between their own emotions and those of others.Can generally identify emotional states in others but do not understand what social behaviour might have caused them.

Level 1: Social-informational perspective taking (6-8)

Children recognise that others have perspectives that differ from their own. Recognise others have different perspectives only because they have received other information.

Level 2: self-reflective perspective taking (8-10)

Children know that their own and others' points of view may conflict even when they receive the same information. Cannot consider more than one viewpoint at the same time.

Level 3: Third-party perspective taking (10-12)

Children can consider their own and another's point of view(at the same time) and the other person can do the same. Child can assume perspective of a disinterested third person and how they will react to the viewpoint of others.

Level 4: Societal perspective taking (12+)

Child can understand another person's perspective through comparing it to the society in which they live. Child expects others to take the viewpoint of most of the people in their social group to keep order.

Supporting Research for Selman

Selman provided solid evidence that perspective-taking ability improves with age in line with his theory. Selman (1971) gave perspective-taking tasks to 60 children (30 boys, 30 girls), ages 4-6 years.Significant positive correlations were found between the age and ability to take different perspectives in scenarios like that of Holly and the kitten.Longitudinal follow-up studies have shown that perspective taking develops with age in each individual child.

Contradictory Research for Selman

The research is mostly correlational, they do not mean that perspective taking skills cause higher levels of social competence (could be the other way round?!).More popular children interact with more people, and that may lead to advances in the development of perspective-taking skills.

What is theory of mind?

Our ability to 'mind read'.Our understanding that someone else has a separate mind to our own - see things differently to ourselves.Lack of ToM has been proposed as a complete explanation of Autism/ASD

What is autism?

Autism is a cognitive mental condition, typically present from early childhood, where an individual has great difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with other people.People with autism also have problems with language and understanding abstract concepts

ToM linked to autism

- Those with autism = deficit of ToM (cannot understand the emotions of others)- May explain why those with autism have impairments in empathy, social communication and social imagination.
Other social deficits include:- Understanding that behaviour impacts how others think and/or feel,- Differentiating fact from fiction.

The Sally-Anne Study - Procedure

20 high functioning ASD children14 with Down's Syndrome CONTROLS27 No diagnosisCompleted Sally-Anne test

The Sally-Anne Study - Findings

85% of Control groups correctly identified where Sally would look.20% (4) in the ASD group could do this.

The Sally-Anne Study - Conclusion

This clearly shows that ASD involves a TOM deficit. The researchers go even further and say that TOM deficit is a complete explanation for ASD

Evaluating the Sally-Anne Study

1) ToM research used US/British samples and took a Western perspective2) Not all children with Autism lack a Theory of Mind. (20% were successful)3) The false belief tasks lack validity. Variations provided visual aids for three year olds and this improved task performance.

1) ToM research used US/British samples and took a Western perspective

Weakness: This matters because the results found may only apply to Western societies. This is a problem for the false belief tasks as they can only explain behaviour from a Western point of view, and the results are culturally biased

2) Not all children with Autism lack a Theory of Mind. (20% were successful)

Weakness: This is a weakness as we cannot be sure that TOM deficit causes autism or whether autism causes TOM deficit. Furthermore, not all of the autistic children have a TOM deficit then it cannot be a central part of autism nor the most important symptom.