Chapter 7
The prefrontal cortex, which does not finish developing until late adolescence or early adulthood, is involved of the following functions?
- self control - reasoning - decision making
Due to the lack of full development of the prefrontal cortex, adolescents have trouble with which of the following?
-Reasoning -Decision making -Self-control
Two aspects of attention that develop in early childhood are:
-executive attention -sustained attention
Refers to the focusing of mental resources on select information
attention
Sustained attention is known as
vigilance
occipital lobe
vision
At which age are joint attention skills frequently observed?
11 months
frontal lobe
A region of the cerebral cortex that has specialized areas for movement, abstract thinking, planning, memory, and judgement
parietal lobe
A region of the cerebral cortex whose functions include processing information about touch.
cognitive control
Effective control of thinking in a number of areas, including controlling attention, reducing interfering thoughts, and being cognitively flexible.
What memory is demonstrated to infants early on?
Implicit memory
implicit memory
Memories we don't deliberately remember or reflect on consciously
When is expertise more likely to occur?
Middle adulthood
fuzzy trace theory
States that memory is best understood by considering two types of memory representations: (1) verbatim memory trace, and (2) gist. In this theory, older children's better memory is attributed to the fuzzy traces created by extracting the gist of information.
gaze following
The automatic, reflexive action by which one individual's eyes move when another individual's eyes move, so that both end up looking at the same object
processing speed
The speed with which an individual can perceive auditory or visual information and respond to it.
working memory
a newer understanding of short-term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory Ex: making decisions, solving problems, and comprehending problems
Autism
a disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by deficient communication, social interaction, and understanding of others' states of mind
The concept of use it or lose it refers to
a lack of use that may result in elimination of the ability
Concepts
a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people
hippocampal atrophy
a wasting or decrease in the hippocampus size causing seizures.
executive function
conscious control of thoughts, emotions, and actions to accomplish goals or solve problems
Another name for explicit memory
declaritive memory
elaboration
engagement in more extensive processing of information, benefiting memory
reminiscence bump
enhanced memory for adolescence and young adulthood found in people over 40
temporal lobe
hearing
cognitive function
how attitudes influence our thoughts
prefrontal cortex
part of frontal lobe responsible for thinking, planning, and language
executive attention
involves action planning, allocating attention to goals, error detection and compensation, monitoring progress on tasks, and dealing with novel or difficult circumstances
Metamemory
knowledge about memory
semantic memory
memory for knowledge about the world
episodic memory
memory for one's personal past experiences
explicit memory
memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare"
research have found that autistic children tend to do ___ reasoning in false-belief tasks and ____ on reasoning tasks requiring an understanding of physical causality.
poorly; better
executive functioning refers to a number of higher-level cognitive processes linked to the development of the brains ___.
prefrontal cortex
source memory
recall of when, where, and how information was acquired
prospective memory
remembering to do things in the future. Stronger when there are cues. E.g. an older person may require to write down to take pills three times a day.
Working memory is closely linked to ___ memory.
short term
Contemplative science
study of how various types of mental and physical training might enhance children's development
Aerobic Fitness
the ability of the heart, lungs, and blood vessels to supply oxygen to the working muscles and the ability of the muscles to utilize oxygen to continue work or exercise
joint attention
the ability to focus on what another person is focused on
sustained attention
the ability to maintain attention to a selected stimulus for a prolonged period of time
Automaticity
the ability to process information with little or no effort
perceptual categorization
the grouping together of objects that have similar appearances
dual-process model
the idea that two modes of thinking exist within the human brain, one for intuitive emotional responses and one for analytical reasoning
What is infantile or childhood amnesia?
the inability to retrieve memories from much before age 3
cognitive neuroscience
the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory, and language)
memory
the persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information
Encoding
the processing of information into the memory system
Theory of Mind (ToM)
the understanding that others have thoughts that are different from one's own
Metacognition
thinking about thinking
critical thinking
thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather, it examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions.