Module 3 Lecture

Episodic Memory

describes events linked in time that often describe personal experiences or activities specific events, personal experiences, or activities

Procedural Memory

describes memory for motor skills, conditioned behaviors, some cognitive skills (like learning how to read), and emotional behaviors learned through classical conditioning it is often called muscle memory this information cannot be adequately described verbally; we cannot recall or retrieve procedural memories

Conservation Tasks

measure equivalent judgments

Declarative Memory

memories of facts or events it can be described verbally includes semantic and episodic memory

Neuromyths

myths that people hold about the brain, education, and learning a common example is the use of learning styles even when we gain new knowledge, it doesn't necessarily replace old, incorrect knowledge new and old knowledge coexist within your brain, making it sometimes difficult to overcome naïve, incorrect conceptual theories

Piaget's Stages

Piaget suggested that development occurs in four stages in which each stage transforms the knowledge of the previous stage that supports a better understanding of the world his stages are seen as being qualitatively different from the last and occurring in the same sequence, regardless of culture and education the evidence has not supported stage-like development or any of the properties just described it's still important to discuss Piaget because he did make some significant contributions to the field of psychology sensorimotor preoperational concrete operational formal operational

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Piaget was trained as a biologist, so his theory is deeply influenced by concepts within biology the most important contribution of Piaget's theory is that children construct their own knowledge - constructivist this was a tremendous insight and it allowed us to see children's behavior as engaging with the world rather than just being ignorant of it in his theory, children are seen as active participants in their own development - naïve but intrinsically motivated to learn learning isn't something that just happens to them they seek out experiences and react to the experiences and their environment which allows them to learn in this way, children are born ready to learn hierarchical stages central properties: - qualitative change - invariant sequence

Conceptual First Theory

a different school of thought is that concepts need a mental starting point to help children attend to the right perceptual information in the world suggests that without some sort of starting point, children wouldn't be able to find the right structure in the world - young children seem to notice "the right things" the evidence for this perspective suggests that children form categories in certain areas (natural kinds) more rapidly than others, which suggests that children are better attuned to learning in these areas - animals - people - numbers the integration of sociocultural theories has dramatically improved the scope of information processing theory by allowing it to focus more deeply and broadly the integration of information processing theory has improved methodology in rigor in sociocultural theory

Strategies

a large driver of cognitive change is an improvement in making increasingly effective plans for achieving goals, better known as strategies a purposeful plan for achieving a goal young children often use few, if any, strategies

Reflex

a reflex is an involuntary reaction to the specific stimulus infants are born with a variety of different reflexes all of which have specific functions for example - reflexes that bring things into the body sometimes (ingesting reflexes) --- these are things like breathing and swallowing - other reflexes serve to expel substances from the body --- sneezing and coughing - movement reflexes --- grasping reflex it was once believed that many reflexes disappear during maturation and development - some seem to disappear but are still there however, this does not appear to be the case major change is move from involuntary to voluntary control

Problems with Piaget's Mechanisms

although the focus on mechanisms was admirable, Piaget's mechanisms are largely descriptions of processes after the fact provide very little explanatory or predictive value

Processing Speed

another change that occurs across development is the increase in processing speed processing speed refers to the amount of time it takes to implement any action two causes: biological maturation & experience contributes to increased processing speed

Experience

another source of change is experience for example, as children gain experience with motor tasks, this experience produces benefits for similar tasks increases in processing speed will yield benefits across the cognitive system

Information Processing Theory (IPT)

another theory of cognitive development is information processing theory describes cognitive development very different than Piaget's theory the focus in information processing theory is on the mechanisms of development and how the operation of these mechanisms leads to changes and how children solve problems and reason about the world in information processing theory there is a focus on development as the result of continuous change occurring over long periods of time emphasis on thinking as a process that occurs over time emphasis on problem solving and memory continuous cognitive change

Preoperational Stage

characterized by the ability to mentally represent objects cognitive acquisitions - symbolic representation: the use of one object to stand for another however, this thought is very limited according to Piaget, there are three main limitations in this stage: - children tend to be highly egocentric --- meaning that they have a difficult time seeing the world from someone else's perspective - a second limitation here is a called centration --- this is a tendency to focus on one part of an object event or problem which often leads children to an incorrect answer - irreversibility --- an inability to work backwards to a problem

Concepts

concepts serve the function of organizing our knowledge, which in this case is going to be scientific knowledge mental representation of classes of objects - similarity - causal relations concepts also allow us to encode and retrieve information much more efficiently concepts help us to apply knowledge because we can use existing knowledge and apply it to new experiences or situations

What happens to our understanding of concepts as we gain knowledge?

conceptual change - domain-specific and domain-general - requires substantial time - much of the literature suggests interventions to induce conceptual change are unsuccessful

Sensorimotor Stage

characterized by thought and action Piaget believed that infants could not mentally represent objects or events in the world infants experience the world through senses (touch, taste, etc.) object permanence at about 4-8 months of age Piaget believed that infants needed to act within the world in order to be able to think Piaget concluded infants could not represent objects because of a task he used to measure object permanence - Piaget would show an object to a 6-month-old infant and then hide this object under a blanket in front of the infant - he observed that infants rarely reach for the object that was hidden from them - he concluded that the object was no longer existing to the infant - however, later research is shown that infants do represent objects however they have difficulty coordinating reaching and searching for objects before eight or nine months, so Piaget's methodology led him to underestimate infant intelligence

Formal Operational Stage

children are said to be able to think not only logically but also about abstract concepts in hypothetical - alternative possibilities - systematic elimination of options Piaget suggested that hypothetical reasoning was only available at this later stage research does not support this conclusion

Dead Reckoning

children can also keep track of where they are relative to a starting point, known as dead reckoning

Guided Participation

children learn from more knowledgeable individuals within cultural activities

Long-Term Memory

consists of two separate types: declarative and episodic memory

Working Memory

describes the amount of space available for reasoning humans have a finite limit for how much information they can process at one time one well-known memory model suggests there are three separate components in working memory from Baddeley (1986): - sound-based information, and it's known as a phonological rehearsal loop --- this is where language is processed --- also, text from reading which is converted from graphic symbols into sound-based information - visual information; known as the visuospatial sketchpad --- would be used to interpret a map, estimate distance, or interpret a graph - executive control system --- allows for the manipulation of information in the two other stores and is known as the executive control system follows a protracted developmental course the store of new info in memory it's often used in concert with existing info in long-term memory

Retrieval

describes the process of extracting information from memory understanding how info gets in and out of memory and how much info can be processed at one time or issues of critical importance lastly

Encoding

describes the process of representing information in memory while

Semantic Memory

describes what you might need to win on Jeopardy this includes facts, concepts, words, definitions, language rules, etc.

Importance of Developing Scientific Theories

developing scientific theories are important for scientific thinking and reasoning because it's those theories that allow you to successfully interpret data and make predictions about future events they also allow you to make sound decisions in practical matters, such as voting on policy changes we often develop naive theories when we're young, and the point of education is often to try to correct those naive theories and replace them with appropriate scientific theories changing these conceptions takes a lot of time and, in some cases, is near impossible a relevant example would be the persistence of neuromyths

Utilization Deficiency

even when children have effective strategies, they often fail to use these strategies correctly this is known as utilization efficiency

Understanding Causality

evidence suggests that infants' repeated observations of the world play a substantial role in helping to understand cause and effect Piaget was among the first to observe that even infants seem to be doing experiments to understand the physical world, getting us back to that idea of little scientists understanding causality is critical in the formation of concepts and for understanding the world recall that Piaget's theory suggested that cause and effect relations could not be understood until six or seven years of age; however, by six months, infants show clear evidence of understanding causal relations between physical events by two and a half, toddlers show sophisticated understanding of causal relations by four, children actively search for a cause when one is not obvious contrary to Piaget's theory, causal event understanding occurs early in development and sets a foundation for the construction of deeper understanding of the world

How These Processes Change Over Time

executing these processes becomes more efficient with development children use better strategies or plans for achieving a goal

Selective Attention

focusing one's attention on the important information while ignoring the irrelevant information this strategy is a bit trickier because it requires the knowledge of what matters and what doesn't

Understanding Where, When, Why, and How Many

main concepts for understanding the world: - space - causality - number

Memory and IPT

memory is also of interest to information processing theorists encoding and retrieval

Biological Maturation

one cause of change within processing speed is the increase of density in white matter in the brain myelinated neurons process information faster, allowing a child to bring in information and produce action much more rapidly as their brains mature

Landmarks

one key feature of spatial understanding is the use of landmarks children as young as six months can use landmarks to navigate their way through space at age 5, children can represent an object's position in relation to multiple landmarks as children get older, they improve their ability to use multiple landmarks to navigate more complex routes

Piaget and Developmental Mechanisms

one of Piaget's greatest contribution was to focus on mechanisms in development Piaget proposed three mechanisms that cause cognitive development: assimilation accommodation equilibration

Strategies' Change Over Time

overtime, one change in how strategies are selected selection is made on the basis of the fastest and most accurate strategy available this is important because a child can have more than one strategy for achieving the same goal retrieval is always the fastest and most accurate strategy it's like natural selection in action, because what happens is when you find a fast and accurate strategy, you're more likely to use that strategy than the one that takes a lot more work and isn't necessarily as accurate the less fast and less accurate strategies sort-of die off overtime, very similar to natural selection

Mechanisms and Processes of IPT

reasoning memory what changes?

Integration of Sociocultural Theories

recent improvement in information processing theory is an integration of social cultural theories of development sociocultural theories investigate the role of culture and development and have contributed unique and powerful mechanisms to information processing theory focus on people and culture in children's development guided participation scaffolding the integration of sociocultural theories has dramatically improved the scope of information processing theory by allowing it to focus more deeply and broadly the integration of information processing theory has improved methodology and rigor in sociocultural theory

Reasoning

refers to going beyond the given information occurs hundreds of times daily in everyday life two reasoning mechanisms are association and generalization

Spatial Understanding

refers to how we understand our location within the world Piaget was the first person to ask questions about the development of spatial understanding not surprisingly, Piaget's answers to this question were related to his ideas of cognitive stages recent investigations demonstrate that very young children can understand themselves in multiple ways, which is not limited by egocentrism what seems to matter more than age is a child's ability to move once children can move on their own, their understanding of space changes and improves dramatically cultural differences

Association

refers to linking objects or events together, usually because of a causal relation

Scaffolding

refers to receiving appropriate help that changes with the level of the learner

Memory Strategies

rehearsal selective attention limited by utilization deficiency

Rehearsal

repeating information multiple times rehearsing information is a good way to make sure that you include this information and are able to retrieve it later

Posture Changes Experience

standing frees the hands allows for different exploration of the world these changes change the way the child sees and experiences his or her world new opportunities to learn

Concrete Operational Stage

the concrete operational stage is characterized by children correctly solving conservation tasks Piaget believed that this was evidence that they could now think logically - they can solve conservation problems given concrete situations however, this logical thought was limited to two concrete objects although children begin to think systematically in this stage, according to Piaget, they can't think abstractly or systematically - thinking about hypothetical situations or concepts

Patient HM

the difference between these two memory systems is illustrated by a famous case of a patient by the initials of HM after undergoing surgery, HM lost the ability to form new memories he could not form new declarative memories, such as the names of his doctors, nurses, or others he met after his surgery he could however form new procedural memories for example, a doctor brought in a board game every day for a month although he could not recall the game or having ever played it, his skill at the game improved dramatically over the course of the month this is an interesting illustration of the disassociation between declarative and procedural memory systems

Generalization

the process of finding patterns across similar objects or events

Importance of Studying Conceptual Development

the study of conceptual development, particularly within science, is really important because it helps us understand foundational information that organizes our world

Major Milestones of Motor Development

there are two really important things to consider as you look over this figure: - there's considerable variability when children are going to reach each of these milestones --- this variability is due to many factors, including cultural differences - although it may not be obvious, learning plays a critically important role in each of these attainments the acquisition of each motor milestone brings new developmental opportunities

Myth: Cognitive Development Occurs in Stages

there is no evidence that cognitive development occurs in stages almost 50 years of developmental research has yet to demonstrate this type of change there is no evidence for Piaget's mechanisms - these mechanisms are too ill defined to test and generate no specific predictions - they are at best descriptions of broad patterns and behavior

Employing These Spatial Strategies

there's some evidence that this begins as early as a few weeks after child after children begin to crawl interestingly, there's vast cultural differences in these abilities - children who grew up in cultures where they walk vast distances unsurprisingly have much better spatial navigation skills than children in cultures like ours where they have much less freedom to move about on their own

Perceptual First Theory

this evidence supports the idea that concepts are learned through perception first, and these perceptual features form the basis of mental concepts this work begins with the observation that the world has an inherent structure and that attributes are not distributed randomly throughout the world - feathers and beaks example correlations make it easier for children to learn which attributes go together another piece of evidence to support this idea is that some members of concepts or categories seem like better examples of that category than others - these are called prototypes

Why do we need to develop concepts?

to organize information about the world cognitive efficiency (aids retrieval of knowledge) apply knowledge from past experiences to new situations

Conceptual Development

to what extent do we need concepts hardwired in at birth? there is considerable evidence that concepts are learnable and don't need to be wired in at birth perceptual first vs. conceptual first theories

Limitations to Piaget's Theory

unfortunately, the specifics of his theory haven't held up well over time there's little evidence that cognitive development changes in rapid bursts of qualitative change - thinking about development as occurring in stages provides very little explanatory value Piaget greatly underestimated the cognitive capacity, particularly of infants - infant competence undermines many of the basic principles in Piaget's theory, such as sensorimotor intelligence Piaget generally ignored the influence of education in social contexts like culture - once researchers began to look at factors like culture, they discovered that there was considerable variability when children acquired specific his descriptions provided very little explanatory value

Evolution of Concepts throughout the Lifespan

when thinking about how concepts change throughout the lifespan, some say that kids are little scientists because they appear to engage in practices and principles that are common of scientists early on, like experimenting with their environment, asking questions, formulating theories, and making predictions based on their experiences however, there is a lot more to developing scientific reasoning, so despite this early emergence of many of their precursors of skilled scientific reasoning--those things like asking questions and formulating theories—has a slow developmental trajectory and requires instruction support in practice - when you're little, you develop naive theories about how the world operates - these theories are often based on your experiences and have little to do with scientific theory - in order to develop useful scientific theories and reasoning, you would need to have a significant amount of feedback instruction and support - it's difficult to know your theory of the world is naive or incorrect unless someone tells you otherwise mechanisms for scientific reasoning: - encoding - strategy use

Assimilation and Accommodation

work in concert assimilation assimilation occurs first in this sequence and describes ones using his or her current knowledge to understand a new problem if one's current knowledge cannot solve this problem, then the second process known as accommodation modifies one's knowledge in order to support understanding of this new problem equilibration describes a balance between existing knowledge in generating new knowledge