PSYC 2070 Exam 2 (LSU)
Children's Understanding of Numbers (Challenging Piaget)
(1) Piaget argued that until around the age of 7, children have little understanding of numbers. (2) Recent studies suggest that children may have a universal, genetically endowed, innate ability to count.
Cultural Issues (Challenging Piaget)
(1) Some development is universal, and some appears to be subject to cultural variations. (2) Children in other cultures may differ from Westerners in their demonstration of certain cognitive skills.
Timing of Mastery of Object Permanence (Challenging Piaget)
(1) Some developmentalists question the stage concept, thinking that development is more continuous. (2) Piaget's notion that development is grounded in motor activity ignores the importance of infants' sensory and perceptual abilities. (3) Recent work shows object permanence may occur as early as 3 months of age. (4) Piaget underestimated the skills of infants and young children in part because of his narrow methods of experimentation.
Evaluating Vygotsky's Contributions
1. Vygotsky's view has become increasingly influential in the last decade. 2. It helps explain a growing body of research attesting to the importance of social interaction in promoting cognitive development. 3. The zone of proximal development is not precise and not easily testable. 4. His theory is silent on how basic cognitive functions such as attention and memory develop. 5. His broad focus on culture ignores how specific information is processed and synthesized.
Three system approach
1. sensory store 2. short term memory 3. long term memory
Tertiary circular reactions (12-18 months)
Children begin a period of trial-and-error experimentation during the fifth substage. For example, a child may try out different sounds or actions as a way of getting attention from a caregiver.
Vygotsky's view of cognitive development
Culture in which we are raised significantly affects cognitive development
coordination of secondary circular reactions (8-12 months)
During this substage, the child starts to show clearly intentional actions. The child may also combine schemas in order to achieve a desired effect. Children begin exploring the environment around them and will often imitate the observed behavior of others.
Ingredients of critical thinking
First, thinkers must identify and challenge the assumptions underlying a statement or contention. Second, they must check for factual accuracy and logical consistency among statements. Third, they need to take into account the context of a situation. Finally, they need to imagine and explore alternatives.
scaffolding
The assistance or structuring provided by others has been termed as scaffolding
Secondary Appraisal
The person's answer to the question, "Can I handle it?"—an assessment of whether the coping abilities and resources on hand are adequate.
Osteoporosis
a condition in which the bones become brittle, fragile, and thin, is often caused by a lack of calcium in the diet.
autobiographical memory
a memory of particular events from one's own life
working memory
a set of memory stores that actively manipulate and rehearse information
dualistic thinking
a. Something was either right or wrong; people were either good or bad; others were either for them or against them.
(Schaie) Reintegrative stage
a. period of late adulthood during which people focus on tasks that have personal meaning.
(Schaie) Achieving stage
applying their intelligence to attain long-term goals regarding their careers, family, and contributions to society.
Obesity
as a BMI at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex. 17% of US Children are obese
The Sensorimotor Stage
being the initial major stage of cognitive development. This stage can be broken down into six substages,
Decentering
can take multiple aspects of a situation into account
Accommodation
changes in existing ways of thinking, understanding, or behaving in response to encounters with new stimuli or events.
Type A behavior pattern
characterized by competitiveness, impatience, and a tendency toward frustration and hostility.
Type B behavior pattern
characterized by non-competitiveness, patience, and a lack of aggression.
The Rise of Concrete Operational Thought - 7-12
characterized by the active, and appropriate, use of logic.
Piaget's Stage of Preoperational Thinking - 2-7
children's use of symbolic thinking grows, mental reasoning emerges, and the use of concepts increases.
control strategies
conscious, intentionally used tactics to improve cognitive processing.
central executive
controls the functions of short-term memory, coordinating the processing of material, determining problem-solving strategies, directing attention, and selecting strategies for remembering in short-term memory.
Beginnings of thought
develops between 18 and 24 months of age. In this substage, the infant develops the ability to use primitive symbols.
sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
disorder in which seemingly healthy infants die in their sleep.
Simple Reflexes
encompassing the first month of life. During this time, various inborn reflexes are at the center of infants' physical and cognitive lives, determining the nature of their interactions with the world.
Scripts
general representations in memory of a sequence or series of events.
deferred imitation
in which a person who is no longer present is imitated later, children are able to pretend that they are driving a car, feeding a doll, or cooking dinner long after they have witnessed such scenes played out in reality.
goal-directed behavior
in which several schemas are combined and coordinated to generate a single act to solve a problem.
attention
information processing involving the ability to strategically choose among and sort out different stimuli in the environment.
Hardiness
is a personality characteristic associated with a lower rate of stress-related illness.
Mental representation
is an internal image of a past event or object.
automatization
is the degree to which an activity requires attention.
conservation
is the knowledge that quantity is unrelated to the arrangement and physical appearance of objects.
Encoding
is the process by which information is initially recorded in a form usable to memory.
Retrieval
is the process by which material in memory storage is located, brought into awareness, and used.
Assimilation
is the process by which people understand an experience in terms of their current stage of cognitive development and way of thinking
Centration
is the process of concentrating on one limited aspect of a stimulus—typically its superficial elements—and ignoring others.
postformal thought
is thinking that goes beyond Piaget's formal operations.
Egocentric thought (Two Forms)
lack of awareness that others see things from a different physical perspective and failure to realize that others may hold thoughts, feelings, and points of view that differ from theirs.
proximal development
level at which a child can almost, but not fully, perform a task independently, but can do so with the assistance of someone more competent.
Problem Focused Coping
managing a threatening situation by directly changing it to make it less stressful.
Chunk
meaningful group of stimuli that can be stored as a unit in short-term memory.
Psychosomatic Disorders
medical problems caused by the interaction of psychological, emotional, and physical difficulties.
procedural memories
memories relating to skills and habits, such as how to ice skate or ride a bike.
declarative memory
memory for factual information such as names, dates, and facts
(Schaie) Responsible stage
middle-aged adults are mainly concerned with protecting and nourishing their spouses, families, and careers.
polyphasic activities
multiple activities carried out simultaneously.
First habits and primary circular reactions
occurs from 1 to 4 months of age. In this period, infants begin to coordinate what were separate actions into single, integrated activities.
Secondary Circular Reactions (4-8 months)
occurs from 4 to 8 months of age. During this period, a child begins to act upon the outside world.
Schemas/schemes
organized patterns of functioning that adapt and change with mental development.
operations
organized, formal, logical mental processes.
operating efficiency hypothesis
people are able to remember material better with age because they process information more quickly and use more effective, suitable strategies.
Piaget's Formal Operational Stage
people develop the ability to think abstractly.
Intuitive thought
preschoolers' use of primitive reasoning and their avid acquisition of world knowledge. From about age 4 through 7, curiosity blossoms.
relativistic thinking
rather than believing that there are absolute standards and values, they begin to see that different cultures, societies, and individuals can have different standards and values, all of them equally valid.
whole-language approach to reading
reading is viewed as a natural process, similar to the acquisition of oral language.
code-based approaches to reading
reading should be taught by presenting the basic skills that underlie reading.
Propositional thought
reasoning that uses abstract logic in the absence of concrete examples.
cognitive architecture
refers to the basic, enduring structures and features of information processing that are relatively constant over the course of development.
Storage
refers to the maintenance of material saved in memory.
memory modules
representing different memory systems in the brain.
primary circular reactions (1-4 months)
schemas reflecting an infant's repetition of interesting or enjoyable actions—just for the enjoyment of doing them—which focus on the infant's own body.
retrieval cues
stimuli that permit people to recall information.
(Schaie) Executive stage
take a broader perspective, becoming more concerned about the larger world.
Planning
the ability to allocate attentional resources on the basis of goals that one wishes to achieve.
symbolic function
the ability to use a mental symbol, a word, or an object to stand for or represent something that is not physically present.
Emotion Focused Coping
the conscious regulation of emotion.
Acquisitive Stage (Schaie)
the first stage of cognitive development, which encompasses all of childhood and adolescence
functionality
the idea that actions, events, and outcomes are related to one another in fixed patterns.
Egocentrism
the inability to take others' perspectives, is the hallmark of preoperational thinking.
Primary Appraisal
the individual's assessment of an event to determine whether its implications are positive, negative, or neutral.
Sensory Store
the initial, momentary storage of information, lasting only an instant.
infantile amnesia (false)
the lack of memory for experiences occurring before age 3
Long term memory
the memory component in which information is stored on a relatively permanent basis.
Reversibility
the notion that transformations to a stimulus can be reversed.
Object Permanance
the realization that people and objects exist even when they cannot be seen.
rehearsal
the repetition of information that has entered short-term memory.
short-term memory
the short-duration, limited-capacity memory component in which selected input from the memory store is worked on.
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI)
the study of the relationship among the brain, the immune system, and psychological factors
Metamemory
the understanding and knowledge that children and adults have about memory and the processes that underlie it.
identity
the understanding that certain things stay the same, regardless of changes in shape, size, and appearance—for instance, that a lump of clay contains the same amount of clay whether it is clumped into a ball or stretched out like a snake.
critical thinking
thinking that makes use of cognitive skills and strategies that increase the likelihood of solving problems, forming inferences, and making decisions appropriately and successfully.
Emotional Insulation
through which people unconsciously try to block emotions and thereby avoid pain.
transformation
to describe the process by which one state is changed into another.
Defensive Coping
unconscious strategies that distort or deny the true nature of a situation.
Information Processing Approach
we can best understand cognitive development by considering the processes by which individuals acquire and use the information to which they are exposed. How humans take in, use, and store information
