Psyc 122 final exam - cognitive development

Constructivist theory

Children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore the world

stage theory

child development is progressive

schemas

actions or mental representations that organise knowledge

assimilation 

when children use their existing schemas to deal with new information or experiences 

accommodation

when children use adjust their schemas to take new information and esperinces into account

Factors of sensorimotor stage

Learn how reflexes can be used to interact with the environment, accidental movements can learn to be avoided, discovery of intentional movement, cant understand objects still exist when not in view until 2 (aprox)

Factors of pre-operational stage 

discover to talk and use language, discover make believe play, begin to imitate others, recognise other perspectives and how to co-ordinate two perspectives, can form and utilise mental representations, CANT consider multiple conflicting representations 

Concrete operational stage

logical thinking emerges, only in regards to concentrated information

Formal operational stage

Further development in logical thinking (abstract, systematic and seinctific) learn hypotheticals and made up rules

Deductive reasoning 

Logical reasoning where a conculsion follows from a sequences of premises (sernario), underlies the process of deriving predictions from general laws and theories, Based on self evident truth or agreed upon data 

Logical syllogism

to answer specific questions you use general knowledge to help, provides a premise and additional facts to allow reader to use deductive reasoning to reach a conclusion

• africa is hot, is chad hot?, yes its in africa

inductive reasoning

making general conclusions based on specific observations - moving from the particular to the general

Theory of mind

ability to understand other peoples mental states and predict subsequent behaviour

• occurs at 7ish  

Lean interpretation - why infants look

infants aren’t thinking of other peoples mindsets, they are just using heuristics (patterns detected)

Rich interpretation - why infants look

infants have the ability to represent others beliefs

dual system interpretation - why infants look

infant eye movements are coordinated by an efficient but rudimentary cognitive system, as opposed to a flexible one

Fluid and crystallised intelligence theory

general intelligence is a collection of 100(+-) abilities working together, FG and CG seperate these abilities into two categories that have different trajectories over the corse of development 

fluid intelligence

drives our ability to think quick, solve novel problems and encode short-term memories

• source of intelligence used when someone doesn’t already know what to do

• independant of education

Crystallised intelligence

stems from learning: eg, tests of knowledge, vocabulary and acquired skills

• personality factors are central to its development: eg, motivation, education and cultural opportunities