Adolescent Development: Cognitive Transitions
At the heart of brain plasticity are which of the following two concepts?
"Use it and improve it." "Use it or lose it."
Male brains are about ______% larger than female brains.
10
Julissa is in Piaget's formal operational stage. What is the best estimate for her age?
14
By what age do adolescents become just as proficient as adults in basic cognitive abilities?
15
Research on autobiographical memory indicates that most people can remember back to when they were only about ______ years old.
2 1/2
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about ______% of teen drivers reported texting while driving.
40
Gains in social cognition are related to advances in which of the following?
Achievement Autonomy Intimacy Sexuality Identity development
Identify the two types of brain plasticity.
Adult Developmental
Which of the following best describes how adolescents view social conventions?
Arbitrary
Studies on information processing have focused on which of the following areas?
Attention Memory Organization
______ is an approach to understanding adolescent risk taking in which behaviors are seen as the outcome of systematic decision-making processes.
Behavioral decision theory
Brandon is 16 years old and his brother, Blake, is 26 years old. Which of the following statements about risky behavior is true?
Brandon is more likely than Blake to focus on the potential rewards of risky behavior.
Which of the following is the most common approach for reducing adolescent risk taking?
Classroom-based education programs
Which of the following adolescents is most likely to engage in risky sexual behavior?
Derick, who is highly responsive to social rewards
______ is a technique used to produce images of the brain that shows connections among different regions.
Diffusion tensor imaging
Select the two situations with the highest risk for adolescent drivers of getting in an automobile accident.
Driving alone Driving with teenage passengers
Which of the following situations best represents multidimensional thinking?
Enumerating all of the factors that contributed to the current political situation
Which of the following interventions in adolescence has been shown to enhance an individual's performance on standardized tests of intelligence?
Extended schooling
Which of the following is a consequence of the increase in emotional reactivity that occurs during adolescence?
Feeling threatened
______ is a technique used to produce images of the brain, often while the subject is performing some sort of mental task.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Which of the following is an outcome of synaptic pruning?
Increased efficiency Better organization
Which of the following strategies had led to the greatest declines in the rate of teen smoking?
Increasing the cost of cigarettes
Which statements about brain maturation in adolescents is true?
Individuals undergo brain maturation differences that are likely caused by both genetic and environmental factors. Individuals experience large differences in the timing and extent of brain maturation.
Which of the following best explains the primary benefit of plasticity?
It allows us to learn from experience.
What happens to an individual's ability to understand sarcasm during adolescence?
It improves considerably due to improved thinking abilities.
Why is myelin important?
It increases the efficiency of brain circuits.
Which of the following best characterizes how sensitivity to others' mental states changes in adolescence?
It increases, though these increases are variable for different adolescents.
Which of the following strategies would be most effective in decreasing adolescents' engagement in risky behaviors such as reckless or drunk driving?
Making the legal penalties for these behaviors much more severe
Which two adolescents are most likely to engage in risk-taking behavior?
Marley, who is very negatively emotionally aroused Sarah, who is very positively emotionally aroused
At what point do mental abilities reach a plateau?
Mid-to-late adolescence
Which of the following are adolescents still developing after the age of 15?
More sophisticated cognitive skills
Which of the following is the most important to adolescents' understanding of sarcasm?
Multidimensional thinking
_____ are specialized chemicals that carry electrical impulses between neurons.
Neurotransmitters
Which of the following is an example of an adolescent behavior that affects brain development?
Participating in a training program Practicing with a musical instrument Using drugs
Lee Ann is 16 years old. She is planning to throw a birthday party for her best friend. If Lee Ann is like most teenagers, which of the following is she most likely to consider when deciding whom to invite?
Personality
Theorists who adopt a cognitive-developmental view of intellectual development have a ______ perspective.
Piagetian
Which of the following concepts illustrates why the adolescent brain is more vulnerable to damage from physical and psychological harms than the adult brain?
Plasticity
______ is the capacity of the brain to change in response to experience.
Plasticity
Which of the following describes a teaching intervention that pushes students toward the limits of their skills?
Scaffolding
Which of the following skills are necessary for hypothetical thinking?
Seeing the future consequences of an action Providing alternative explanations of events Planning ahead
Which of the following is an adolescent development expert most likely to argue?
Sex differences in brain development should not be used to justify the creation of single-sex schools.
Liv, age 16, has developed the ability to see things as relative. How will this most likely affect Liv's relationship with her parents?
She may question everything her parents say.
According to Vygotsky, which of the following types of tasks fall within the zone of proximal development?
Slightly above-level
Which of the following tasks depends most heavily on working memory?
Solving complex mathematical problems in your head
When does synaptic pruning begin?
Soon after birth
Which of the following are measured to yield a "Neural Maturation Index" developed by Truelove-Hill and colleagues to assess overall brain development in adolescence?
Synaptic myelination Synaptic pruning
Which of the following is a standardized intelligence test?
The WISC-IV
Which of the following is a criticism of classroom-based education programs designed to teach adolescents about the dangers of various activities?
They may inadvertently increase risk-taking behaviors.
Which of the following contributes to the adolescent's ability to have more sophisticated and more complicated self-conceptions and relationships?
Thinking in multiple dimensions
Tanner is 12 years old and Tyrone is 15 years old. Which of the following statements about processing speed is true?
Tyrone will process information faster than Tanner.
Which of the following is an example of a social convention?
Waiting in line to buy concert tickets
Having complex discussions about politics and religion requires ______.
abstract thinking
____ plasticity refers to relatively minor changes in brain circuits as a result of experiences during adulthood after the brain has matured.
adult
Imagining that your behavior is the focus of everyone else's attention results in a belief in ______.
an imaginary audience
In which of the following activities would hypothetical reasoning serve an important function?
argument
_____ memory is the ability to recall personally meaningful events
autobiographical
One study of delinquent youths found that adolescents' criminal activity was more strongly related to their ______.
beliefs about the potential rewards of the activity than to their perceptions of the activity's riskiness
In adolescence, children become ______.
better arguers
Cognitive abilities, such as thinking about people, social relationships, and social institutions, are called social ______.
cognition
An important criticism of Piaget's theory is its claim that ______.
cognitive development proceeds in a stage-like fashion
According to Piaget's ______ stage, children are able to do mentally what earlier they did physically.
concrete operational
Piaget's third stage of cognitive development is called the _____ stage.
concrete operational
Compared to children, adolescents are able to think ______, which means to think about not only how things actually are but also what might have been.
counterfactually
The ______ is the receiving part of the neuron, and the ______ carries information away from the cell body to other cells.
dendrite; axon
Paying attention to two sets of stimuli at the same time is called ______.
divided attention
The neurotransmitter ______ plays an important role in our experience of reward, while ______ plays an important role in the experience of different moods
dopamine; serotonin
The increase in speed of information processing occurs mainly in _____
early adolescence
Adolescent ______ can be described as periods of extreme self-absorption.
egocentrism
Being able to introspect may lead to periods of extreme self-absorption, referred to as adolescent
egocentrism
At 14, Ashleigh often lashes out at her siblings and peers, even when they are simply teasing her. Ashleigh's behavior reflects an increase in ______.
emotional reactivity
When presented with others' points of view, adolescents generally ______.
evaluate them against other theoretically possible beliefs
As she has moved through adolescence, 18-year-old Lara has experienced significant gains in self-control and advanced thinking. These gains reflect changes in ______.
executive function
More advanced thinking abilities, enabled chiefly by the maturation of the prefrontal cortex, especially in adolescence, are called ______.
executive functioning
True or false: Educating adolescents in how to make "better" decisions is the best approach for reducing risk taking.
false
True or false: Gains in logical thinking fully explain the decline in risk taking between adolescence and adulthood.
false
True or false: Maintaining a personal fable of uniqueness undermines adolescents' self-esteem.
false
True or false: Piaget's theory has stimulated very little research on how young people think.
false
True or false: The reminiscence bump only applies to significant, life-altering events, such as one's first love or first time living away from home.
false
According to Piaget's theory, middle to late adolescents are in the ______ period of cognitive development.
formal operational
The _____ stage is Piaget's fourth and final stage of cognitive development.
formal operational
According to Piaget, cognitive development proceeds through ______ stages.
four
In most cultures, adolescents believe that ______ should not be restricted.
freedom of religion
brain ____ refers to patterns of brain activity
function
The simultaneous recruitment of multiple brain regions working as a "team" is referred to as ______.
functional connectivity
According to Piaget's theory, adolescent thinking is ______ the type of thinking employed by children.
fundamentally different than
After his friend Mike was accused of cheating and received an F on his paper, Caleb remarked, "If I were Mike, I would be really mad. The teacher is convinced he cheated, but I was sitting right next to him and I didn't see anything." Caleb's comments are an example of ______ thinking.
hypothetical
Hypothetical reasoning is also called "______" thinking.
if-then
The ______ perspective attempts to explain cognitive development in terms of the growth of specific components of the thinking process.
information processing
Response ______ is the suppression of a behavior that is inappropriate or no longer required.
inhibition
IQ stands for ______.
intelligence quotient
Children's brains are characterized by a large number of relatively "local" connections, but as individuals mature through adolescence into adulthood, more distant regions become increasingly (interconnected/disconnected)
interconnected
When we are ______, we are thinking about how we view ourselves.
introspective
Maturity of the prefrontal cortex tends to take place in (early/late) adolescence.
late
Dopamine and serotonin production are regulated by the ______ system of the brain.
limbic
One explanation for an increase in risk taking during adolescence is that the ______ system matures more rapidly than the prefrontal cortex.
limbic
Better connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and the _____ leads to improvements in our ability to regulate our emotions and coordinate our thoughts and feelings.
limbic system
The ______ is an area of the brain that plays an important role in the processing of emotional experience, social information, and reward and punishment.
limbic system
____ memory involves being able to recall something from a long time ago.
long term
Advances in social cognition, particularly theory of mind, lead adolescents to become better at ______.
lying
Thinking about thinking itself is called
metacognition
Trey is studying for a science exam and needs to remember the eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Trey comes up with the following mnemonic to help him remember: My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Nectarines. Trey's strategy is an example of ______.
metacognition
Theory of ______ is the ability to understand that others have beliefs, intentions, and knowledge that may be different from one's own.
mind
According to research on sex differences in brain development, the similarities in brain structure and function are far (more/less) striking than the differences.
more
Adolescents are (more/less) likely to see things as relative.
more
Adolescents take (more/fewer) risks than adults.
more
In most species of mammals, including humans, individuals become (more/less) social around the time of puberty.
more
Working memory may be (more/less) important than long-term memory for the sort of problem-solving likely encountered in adolescence.
more
Changes in the production of dopamine and serotonin make adolescents ______.
more likely to engage in sensation seeking more sensitive to rewards more emotional more responsive to stress
Compared to children, adolescents more often demonstrate ______ thinking.
multidimensional
Children tend to think about things one aspect at a time, while adolescents tend to think about things in ______.
multiple dimensions
The process through which brain circuits are insulated with myelin is called
myelination
____ which involves the growth of cells that coat the axons in neurons, improves the efficiency of information processing.
myelination
_____ are also called nerve cells.
neurons
Adolescents are more likely than children to use mnemonic devices. This reflects gains in ______
organizational strategies
Most adolescent risk taking occurs when ______ are present.
other teenagers
An adolescent's belief that he or she is unique and therefore not subject to the rules that govern other people's behavior is called the
personal fable
Jerome recently got his own car. When friends ride in the car, Jerome is reckless. He speeds excessively, flies through stoplights, and cuts drivers off by weaving in and out of traffic. Jerome's friends are now reluctant to ride with him, complaining that he is too dangerous and something bad is going to happen. Jerome just laughs them off, saying, "Seriously? I know how to drive. I'm never going to crash because I know what I'm doing. People who wreck don't know what they're doing." Jerome is demonstrating characteristics of the ______.
personal fable
During adolescence, pruning of the ______ is dramatic.
prefrontal cortex
The ____ is the area of the brain most important for sophisticated thinking abilities, such as planning, thinking ahead, weighing risks and rewards, and controlling impulses.
prefrontal cortex
Marcus is 3 years old. He is in Piaget's ______ stage of cognitive development.
preoperational
Piaget's second stage of cognitive development is the ______ stage.
preoperational
The main health problems of adolescence are the result of behaviors that can be
preventable
Research suggests that educational interventions should occur ______.
prior to mid-adolescence
In Vygotsky's theory, the level of challenge that is still within the individual's reach but that forces an individual to develop more advanced skills is known as the zone of
proximal development
According to behavioral decision theory, decision making is ______ process in which individuals calculate the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action and behave in ways that maximize the benefits and minimize the costs.
rational
For the child, what is possible is what is (possible/real) ; for the adolescent, what is real is just a subset of what is (possible/real)
real:possible
Improvements in intuitive decision-making abilities are associated with
reduced risk taking.
While children view things in black-and-white terms, adolescents see things as (relative/concrete)
relative
Adults generally remember details about the people, places, and events they encountered during adolescence better than those from other years, a phenomenon called the
reminiscence bump
The suppression of a behavior that is inappropriate or no longer required is called ______.
response inhibition
Structuring a learning situation so that it is just within the reach of the student is known as
scaffolding
Eighteen-year-old Monica is described by her family and friends as a daredevil. She likes to drive fast, she takes few precautions in her sexual relationships, and she is always looking for an adrenaline rush. Last year, Monica's parents spent nearly a day looking for her when she decided to go kayaking on a flooded river and ended up losing her kayak and swimming in 60-degree water for hours. Monica ______.
scores high in sensation seeking
Martin is able to focus on his mother's voice among many in a crowded room. Martin is demonstrating ______ attention.
selective
When we are ______, we are thinking about how others think about us.
self-conscious
Individuals who are high in reward and ____ seeking are more likely to engage in various types of risky behaviors than their peers.
sensation
Many of the most widely prescribed antidepressants affect the amount of ______ in the brain circuits that control mood.
serotonin
Adolescents view _____ conventions as the means by which society regulates people's behavior.
social
The growth of ______ thinking during adolescence is directly related to the young person's improving ability to think abstractly.
social
The social norms that guide day-to-day behavior are called
social conventions
Most adolescents agree that individual rights should ______ be subject to restrictions.
sometimes
Repeated activation of a specific collection of neurons ______ the connections among neurons.
strengthens
Brain _____ is the physical form and organization of the brain.
structure
As an adolescent, Mario is more likely to recognize ______ than are children and adults.
subtle changes in others' facial expressions
Between the tip of one neuron's axon and another neuron's dendrite, there is a tiny gap called a(n) ______.
synapse
The gap in space between neurons, across which neurotransmitters carry electrical impulses, is called the
synapse
More-intelligent adolescents have a more dramatic and longer period of production of _____ before adolescence and a more dramatic pruning of them after.
synapses
Changes in specific aspects of IQ performance during adolescence are correlated with ______ in brain regions known to play a role in those specific types of learning.
synaptic pruning
The process through which unnecessary connections between neurons are eliminated, improving the efficiency of information processing, is called
synaptic pruning
When asked to describe herself, 16-year-old McKenzie replies, "I'm shy in big groups of people. But when I'm with my friends, I'm extroverted and outgoing." McKenzie's description reflects ______.
the ability to think in multiple dimensions
Jessie storms down the stairs 20 minutes before she needs to leave for school. She points at her face and yells, "There is no way I'm going to school today! Look at these pimples. Everyone will notice and make fun of me!" Jessie is demonstrating the concept of ______.
the imaginary audience
Gerald arrived at the coliseum to buy concert tickets for himself and his girlfriend. Upon noticing a line with hundreds of people, Gerald pushes his way toward the front, mumbling, "I don't have time for this. I have places to go. People need to get out of the way and let me grab the tickets and go." Gerald is demonstrating ______.
the personal fable
Synaptic pruning in adolescence can best be compared to ______.
trimming a rose bush
True or false: Research indicates that differences between the genders in brain structure and function are very small.
true
Cells called " _____ " provide support and protection for neurons and compose a fatty substance, called myelin, that surrounds the axons of certain neurons.
white better
Compared to children, adolescents are more likely to approach a problem ______
with an appropriate strategy in mind
______ memory is the ability to remember something for a brief period of time.
working
When all other things are equal, children believe that is (OK/wrong) to exclude peers from social activities.
wrong
