PSYC1001 Week 3 Lecture 2 Developmental 5

Sona Participation

• There are ongoing studies on sonar that require participants.

• Ideal for students to participate to choose studies and time slots.

• Helps in achieving required hours before the busy assessment period.

Revision of Previous Lecture

• The previous lecture focused on social emotional development.

• Discussed the "stranger at the door" task:

  • Children from the ever-institutionalized group were more likely to leave with a stranger compared to those never institutionalized.

  • This behavior indicated indiscriminate friendliness due to atypical caregiving experiences.

Today's Lecture Overview

• Today's topics include:

  • Memory Development

  • Introduction to Cognitive Development

• Learning Objectives:

  • Understand that memory development is continuous and gradual, focusing on the amount rather than the type of memory.

  • Explore Piaget's theory of cognitive development, specifically the sensory motor and preoperational stages.

Memory Development

• Challenges in studying memory development in infants:

  • Rapid development creates difficulty in creating age-appropriate tasks.

  • Prior research used different tasks for different ages, complicating comparisons between developmental stages.

• Two key tasks for testing memory development:

  • Mobile Conjugate Reinforcement Task (2-6 months): Measures memory of operant relationships; kicking foot spins mobile.

  • Train Task (6 months to 2 years): Pressing lever leads to train moving on track.

• Importance of consistent type of memory measurement across tasks for accurate comparison.

Task Differences

• Mobile Task: Rate of reinforcement directly influenced by the baby's kicking speed.

• Train Task: Movement speed remains constant irrespective of how often the lever is pressed.

Memory Testing Methodology

• Initial learning phase where researchers observe the learning association.

• Children are tested after being removed from the learning environment:

  • Measured by the rate of kicking or lever pressing when they return; higher rates indicate retention of memory.

Results of Memory Testing

• Graph illustrating retention based on age and task:

  • Clear linear increase in memory retention with age.

  • At around six months, children can perform both tasks, with overlapping memory retention times suggesting similar memory types.

Cognitive Development

• Cognition defined as the process of acquiring and working with knowledge.

• Key Question: What do infants know at birth? Are they blank slates?

• Piaget's perspective:

  • Children must learn and construct knowledge through experiences.

  • Influence on developmental psychology and educational practices.

Piaget's Theory Characteristics

• Children learn through schemas as mental models.

• Knowledge is constructed through interaction and experience.

• Two key processes: Assimilation (fitting new information into existing schemas) and Accommodation (updating schemas with new information).

Developmental Stages according to Piaget

• Stages are sequential and characterized by distinct cognitive abilities:

  • Sensory Motor Stage (0-2 years): Understanding the world through senses and motor actions.

  • Preoperational Stage (2-7 years): Symbolic thought emerges, yet still egocentric and limited in cognitive perspectives.

Sensory Motor Stage

• Cognition relies heavily on sensory experiences and actions.

• Lack of object permanence is a milestone that develops around the age of one.

Preoperational Stage

• Children represent objects symbolically (e.g., through language or play).

• Identified characteristics:

  • Egocentric thinking leads to challenges in understanding other perspectives (e.g., 3 Mountains Task).

  • Centration: Focus on one aspect while neglecting others, resulting in failures in conservation tasks:

    • Conservation of Volume: Misunderstanding that height changes do not affect volume.

    • Misjudgment in conservation of number and area tasks.

Piaget's Tasks Illustrating Egocentricity

• Three Mountains Task: Assess children's perspective-taking abilities.

• Conservation Tasks: Focus on understanding that changing an object's appearance doesn’t change its amount.

Critiques of Piaget's Theory

• Lack of scientific rigor, relying heavily on observations of his children rather than controlled studies.

• Evidence of domain-specific cognitive abilities challenges the idea of uniform cognitive stages:

  • Children grasp conservation tasks at different ages depending on the domain.

• New research methods, such as eye-tracking, suggest infants have object permanence earlier than Piaget proposed.

• Simpler perspective-taking tasks reveal younger children can understand others' viewpoints earlier than previously believed.

Summary of Cognitive Development Insights

• Major cognitive changes occur throughout infancy and childhood.

• Evidence suggests cognitive development might be more gradual than Piaget's distinct stage assumptions.

Homework Instructions

• Watch a five-minute clip on Solomon Ashe's conformity study before next week’s tutorial.

• Read the target reading in the tutorial resources for a research proposal.

• Take brief notes on the aim, research question, method, and results of the study.

• Complete notes independently; AI usage is discouraged.

• Note-taking template available on Moodle to assist in organizing notes.

Tips for Reading Research Articles

• Start with the abstract to get a quick overview.

• Skim the article to understand the general gist before in-depth reading.

• Focus on the last paragraphs of the introduction and start of the discussion for key findings.