Module 5

What were the results from Goodman's study? (free recall, suggestible questions, photo ID)

1. Free recall -Children left out information (particularly the younger group) -Rarely included false information 2. Suggestible questions -Younger children more suggestible than older -However, only 5% error rate vs. 0.3% error rate for older. 3. Photo ID -4 yrs 61% incorrect -7 yrs 38% incorrect

What are the 4 primary principles that must be used in order for thinking to be appropriately critical? (critical thinking)

1. Thinkers must identify and challenge the assumptions underlying a statement or contention. 2. They must check for factual accuracy and logical consistency among statements. 3. They need to take into account the context of a situation. 4. They need to imagine and explore alternatives.

What is a limitation of the IP approach of the analogy relating to the human brain?

A limitation of this approach is that it doesn't really parallel the way the human brain processes information - traditional computers are *sequential* (they do one thing at a time) BUT the human brain does things *simultaneously*.

How does capacity contribute to memory improvements with age?

Adults have larger memory spans.

The graphs shown in the powerpoint which show the different executive functioning task measures all look very similar - thus, the pattern of developmental change is fairly the same for every task. What are the age significances we see in the graphs? ALSO, what were the 4 tasks measured by the 4 graphs?

Age 8 children are relatively slow at tasks, then at age 13-14 we get faster, and then we stabilize around our 20s. Visual search (finding the L in the Ts), Mental rotation, Mental addition, and Tapping (how fast you can tap your fingers)

How does having an overall larger content knowledge on something help children's memorization?

As the amount of material on a given topic stored in memory grows, it becomes easier to learn new, but related, material. The process of memorizing becomes more efficient, as prior memories provide a context for new information. Also, when children are familiar with info that is being remembered, they are more likely to employ control strategies effectively.

How does knowledge contribute to memory improvements with age?

As we get older, we acquire more knowledge about many topics. So, when learning a new topic, our prior knowledge (retrieved from memory) helps us understand new things)

This is information processing that involves the ability to strategically choose among and sort out different stimuli in the environment. This is the first step in IP

Attention

Some stimuli act as _______ stimuli due to their physical characteristics. *ex: a loud noise or sudden movement

Attention-getting stimuli

Some stimuli are _______; it is their meaningfulness that sustains attention. *these depend on age and experience.

Attention-holding stimuli

This is memory of particular events from one's own life.

Autobiographical memory

This is the degree to which an activity requires attention. Processes that require relatively little attention are ______; processes that require relatively large amounts of attention are controlled.

Automatization; automatic

Giving a sequence of numbers and having someone recall them backwards

Backward digit span.

What age and source of development? Many capacities present: association, generalization, recognition, etc. By age 5, if not earlier, absolute capacity of sensory memory at adult-like levels.

Basic capacities ; 0-5

What age and source of development? Speed of processing continues to increase.

Basic capacities ; 10-adulthood

What age and source of development? Speed of processing increases.

Basic capacities; 5-10

What IP/executive functioning improvement across childhood? What IP/executive functioning improvement across childhood?

Brain development

What example explains how children develop a sense of how often different stimuli that are found together simultaneously help them form concepts, categorization of objects, events, or people that share common properties?

By encoding the information that four legs, a wagging tail, and barking are often found together, children are able to acquire the concept of "dog".

What are 4 basic reasons why memory improves with age?

Capacity, strategies, knowledge, and metamemory

Some experts have advocated the use of anatomically correct dolls, on which children can point out where they may have experienced sexual contact. What has research on this shown?

Careful research has not been supportive of the technique.

What study sought to see if knowledge affects memory?

Chase & Simon - memory for chess positions.

How did Chi's study of chess players differ from Chase and Simon's?

Chi compared 10 year old chess experts with adult novices. She examined the memory for meaningful chess positions.

This is a meaningful group of stimuli that can be stored as a unit in short-term memory. It may be a letter or number, a word, or even a well-known maxim ("two's company, three's a crowd").

Chunk

According to proponents of this approach to reading, reading should be taught by presenting the basic skills that underlie reading. These approaches emphasize the components of reading, such as the sounds of letters and their combinations - phonics - and how letters and sounds are combined make words. It is suggested that reading consists of processing the individual components of words, combining them into words, and then using the words to derive the meaning of written sentences and passages.

Code-based approached to reading

Of the two approaches just explained - code based approaches and whole-language approaches, a growing body of data based on careful research suggests that which approach is more superior? Why?

Code-based approaches are more superior. Studies have shown reading to improve, and neural pathways involved in reading become closer to those of good readers.

This refers to the basic, enduring structures and features of information processing that are relatively constant over the course of development.

Cognitive architecture

How does the information processing approach compare to the way a computer program becomes more sophisticated?

Cognitive growth is characterized by increasing sophistication in information processing, similar to the way a computer program becomes more sophisticated and useful as the programmer modifies it and as the capacity of the computer's memory and its computational sophistication increases.

These are conscious, intentionally used tactics to improve cognitive processing.

Control strategies

What age and source of development? A few rudimentary strategies such as naming, pointing, and selective attention.

Strategies ; 0-5

This is thinking that makes use of cognitive skills and strategies that increase the likelihood of solving problems, forming inferences, and making decisions appropriately and successfully. It involves not jumping to conclusions on the basis of limited facts, but considering information, weighing alternatives, and coming to a reasoned decision.

Critical thinking

This is memory for factual information such as names, dates and facts.

Declarative memory

What was a major limitation of Goodman's study?

Ecological validity - whether what's happening in the experiment corresponds to what's happening in the real world. In Goodman's study, she only interviewed them one time, whereas in the real world they would be interviewed more, with more suggestibility questions, and higher chances of answering falsely.

What are the two different narrative styles that parents use? (AM)

Elaborative & repetitive

Which narrative style? When the mother takes whatever the child says and enhances/elaborates on it. The child expands upon it to then create their own narrative on a past event.

Elaborative.

Information processing is the process by which information is ____, _____, and _____.

Encoded, stored, and retrieved.

This is the process by which information is initially recorded in a form usable to memory. All of us are exposed to a massive amount of information; if we try to process it all, we would be overwhelmed.

Encoding

According to this, people are more likely to recall information in the environments that are similar to those in which they initially learned information.

Encoding specificity phenomenon.

What is cumulative rehearsal?

Ex: If we give 20 pictures to a 7 year old and ask them to remember, they may say "dog dog dog" then "tree tree tree" then "house house house" whereas a 12 year old will be more cumulative and will say "dog tree house" and so on

This refers to basic cognitive skills that are applicable to any cognitive task.

Executive functioning

What were the results of Chase and Simon's study?

Expert chess players recalled more meaningful arrangements, there were no differences between the groups in recalling random arrangements, and results were attributable to the participants knowledge of chess.

True/False Information processing theorists assume that the basic architecture of information processing systems grows over the course of development, although the speed and capacity of the system is thought to be constant.

FALSE Information processing theorists assume that the basic architecture of information processing systems is constant over the course of development, although the speed and capacity of the system are thought to grow.

Autobiographical memory differences between sexes, culture, and age groups?

Females tend to have earlier AM - children engage with females more than with males while talking about memory. Western cultures tend to develop AM earlier than Asian cultures. Adolescents with elaborative parents in the preschool years had earlier AM memory than those children w/out.

Why do we have infantile or childhood amnesia? -Freud -Neisser -Howe

Freud: Early memories are repressed; we may have had very threatening memories (ex: sexual desires toward parents) Neisser: Representational differences in encoding (non-verbal) and retrieval (verbal/symbolic) Howe: Self-concept needed first (it isn't until 2 or 3 years of age when we start to see autobiographical memories appear)

What IP/executive functioning improvement across childhood? When we solve a problem we must pay attention to certain things and learn to inhibit paying attention to distractions.

Gains in inhibition control

What IP/executive functioning improvement across childhood? Learning to come up with strategies for solving problems.

Gains in planning

Information processing approaches suggest that the processes of encoding, storage, and retrieval are analogous to different parts of a computer. Storage is the computer's ____, where information is stored.

Hard drive

How does neo-Piagetian theorist Robbie Case explain how short-term, or working memory, improves with age?

He blends information processing with Piagetian approaches - he suggests that cognitive development proceeds because of increases in working memory capabilities. An increase in *capacity* of working memory does not imply an increase in *size*, SO Case suggests that observed improvements in working memory are due to increases in the operating efficiency of working memory.

Describe Stephen Ceci's study on repeated questioning.

He tested 3-6 year olds by interviewing repeatedly about real vs. false events. He interviewed over a 10 week period. Ex: "I'm going to read some things that may have happened to you, and I want you to think real hard about each one of them... not all the things.... really happened."

What age and source of development? Continuing improvement in quality of all strategies.

Strategies ; 10-adulthood

Some people have proposed that there are two systems that operate simultaneously during adolescence, what are these? Which becomes higher later in adolescence?

Impulse control and sensation seeking (seeking thrill, ex's: driving fast or taking drugs). Impulse control seems to pass sensation seeking during late adolescence.

How can automatization backfire? Give an example.

In some situations, a nonautomatic response is required, but an automatic response which occurs readily, is employed instead. For instance, a child who see's a cat for the first time, but who automatically categorizes it as a dog because it has 4 legs and a tail, is a victim of automaticity.

What IP/executive functioning improvement across childhood? Younger children have trouble with memory, and older adults may have trouble with certain types of memory such as episodic memory.

Increase in memory

What IP/executive functioning improvement across childhood? A young child may be slower with solving a problem, whereas an adolescent or adult is faster. After middle adulthood there is a general decline in cognitive abilities.

Increase in speed

As individuals become older, they are able to process the same material with greater speed. In regard to the brain, what allows this greater efficiency of processing?

Increases in brain maturation permit the faster manipulation of letters and numbers.

Does the capacity of short term memory increase or decrease with age?

Increases. *But, the increase in quantity of what can be recalled slows (for example, from age 3 to 11 it increases from 4 to 7, but then stays at 7)

This is the lack of memory for experiences that occurred prior to three years of age.

Infantile amnesia.

This approach is based on computer analogy - it suggests that this is the way anything will process information, whether its a computer or the human brain. This approach forces you to be fairly explicit about things that are going on - we want to be able to show that the human mind works like a computer

Information Processing Theory (IP)

Approaches to cognitive development that seek to identify the ways that individuals take in, use, and store information.

Information processing approaches

What age and source of development? Acquisition and increasing use of many strategies: rehearsal, organization, etc.

Strategies ; 5-10

This is when we have to inhibit one response in order to engage in another response. It isn't until the mid 20s that we have a good handle on this.

Inhibitory Control (IC)

Is the capacity of short-term memory based on the physical size of the material being encoded, or on whether it forms meaningful chunks of information?

It is based on whether the information received forms meaningful chunks of information.

Why is the NMDA receptor important?

It plays a significant role in the rapid, intense development of the child's brain.

Information processing approaches suggest that the processes of encoding, storage, and retrieval are analogous to different parts of a computer. Encoding can be thought of as a computer's ____, through which one inputs information.

Keyboard.

With this strategy, one word is paired with another that sounds like it. Ex: to learn the Spanish word duck (pato, pronounced pot-o), the keyword might be "pot"; children then form a mental image of the two words interacting with one another, for instance the image of a duck taking a bath in a pot.

Keyword strategy

How does knowledge help memory? Even if we don't recall a specific detail about a certain event, if we're knowledgeable then we can make educated guesses. *What does this explain?

Knowledge facilitates inferences

How does knowledge help memory? If we have knowledge about something, we can organize based on prior knowledge (whereas if we didn't have the prior knowledge, we wouldn't be able to organize at all) *What does this explain?

Knowledge facilitates organization

How does knowledge help memory? The more knowledgeable we are, the faster we can process information. *What does this explain?

Knowledge facilitates the speed of processing.

How does knowledge help memory? Ex: the more proficient we become at stick shift, the faster we can do it (and not think about it/multitask) *What does this explain?

Knowledge helps us become more automatic.

Again, what are the four basic things that memory is improved by?

Knowledge, strategies, metamemory, and capacity.

This is the memory component in which info is stored on a relatively permanent basis.

Long-term memory

Contemporary researchers view long-term memory as having different components called ____ ____, which represent different memory systems in the brain.

Memory modules.

What is memory capacity AKA?

Memory span

Preschoolers rarely use these; they are more frequently used in middle-childhood (7 years), and are more sophisticated in use by 12 years.

Memory strategies

These may include putting things in categories, practicing repetition, recalling items from a mental list, cumulative rehearsal, etc.

Memory strategies

This is an understanding about the processes that underlie memory, which emerges and improves during middle childhood. Ex: development of this helps children know how much time is needed to study material in order to remember it accurately.

Metamemory

This refers to conscious knowledge of memory; what things are easy/hard to remember? What strategies are or aren't effective?

Metamemory

What age and source of development? Little factual knowledge about memory. Some monitoring of ongoing performance. Steadily increasing content knowledge helps memory in areas in which the knowledge exists.

Metamemory and content knowledge ; 0-5

What age and source of development? Continued improvements in knowledge.

Metamemory and content knowledge ; 10-adulthood

What age and source of development? Increasing factual knowledge about memory. Improved monitoring of ongoing performance. Steadily increasing content knowledge helps memory in areas in which the knowledge exists. Also helps in learning of new strategies.

Metamemory and content knowledge ; 5-10

These are formal strategies for organizing material in ways that make it more likely to be remembered. They can include getting organized, paying attention, using the encoding specificity phenomenon, visualizing, and rehearsing.

Mnemonics.

Other issues regarding children's eyewitness testimony Do anatomically correct dolls increase false testimony?

No.

How do strategies contribute to memory improvements with age?

Older adults/children are more strategic with how they memorize things

How does language play a role in why infants appear to remember less?

Older children and adults may be able to report memories using only the vocab they had available at the time of the initial event, when the memories were stored. B/c their vocab at the time of initial storage may have been quite limited, they are unable to describe the event later in life, even though it is actually in their memories.

What hypothesis states that people are able to remember material better with age because they process information more quickly and use more effective, suitable strategies. Memory improvements are NOT due to increases in the size of working memory. With age, more info can be processed in working memory. (Robbie Case)

Operating Efficiency Hypothesis

This is a sticky fatty acid involved in activating special brain proteins called NMDA receptors, which are needed in long-term memory and learning. It helps move NMDA receptors to specific locations in the brain where cell connections are strengthened or weakened to change memory circuits.

Palmitate

What classic experiment is an example of how the specific wording of questions can affect adult eyewitness testimony?

Participants watched a film of two cars crashing into one another. Those viewers who were later asked how fast the cars were going when they *smashed* into each other responded, on average, with a speed of 41 mph. In contrast, viewers who were asked how fast they were traveling when they *contacted* each other estimated the speed at only 32 mph.

What is very influential in sensation seeking during adolescence?

Peers are very influential in sensation seeking; it becomes more important when we want approval from peers.

How does the information processing approach differ from Piaget's theory? Hint: Qualitative vs quantitative

Piaget's theory ties cognitive development to particular stages: At each stage, children are presumed to have developed a particular set of cognitive structures that determines the quality of their thinking. When children move to another stage, the quality of their thinking changes significantly. Thus, developmental changes are largely qualitative. I.P. approaches attribute cognitive development to gradual, continuous improvements in the ways children perceive, understand, and remember information. With age and practice, children process info more efficiently and with greater sophistication, and they are able to handle increasingly complex problems. Thus, it is the quantitative advances in information processing skills that constitute cognitive development.

This is the ability to allocate attentional resources on the basis of goals that one wishes to achieve.

Planning

This is memory relating to skills and habits, such as how to ice skate or ride a bike.

Procedural memories

According to the information processing approach, the (quantitative or qualitative?) changes in infants' abilities to organize and manipulate information represents the hallmarks of cognitive development.

Quantitative changes

This is the repetition of information that has entered short-term memory. Although capacity and speed of processing change with age, this is assumed to be constant.

Rehearsal.

Which narrative style? Giving the child a memory quiz: When did you go to grandma's house? Who was there? What did you do?

Repetitive

This is the process by which material in memory storage is located, brought into awareness, and used.

Retrieval

Why don't we remember everything that is stored in long-term memory? Well, we suffer from ____ problems. *This is the process of locating and bringing information stored in memory into awareness.

Retrieval

This is stimuli that permits people to recall information. They may take the form of a word, an image, a smell, or a sound. When triggered by this, a memory comes to mind.

Retrieval cues.

Schneider asked if young chess experts and equal to adult chess experts in memory (because Chi didn't compare child vs. adult experts). What did he find?

Schneider found that children and adult experts were exactly the same for both arrangements. The children were 10 years old, which is quite advanced for cognition, which puts the children and adults at a similar level. Having say a 6 year old "expert" compared to an adult would probably have different results.

Information processing approaches suggest that the processes of encoding, storage, and retrieval are analogous to different parts of a computer. Retrieval is analogous to the delivery of data to a computer's ____, where information is displayed.

Screen

Children start to recall memories more frequently in terms of these, which are general representations in memory of a sequence or series of events.

Scripts *ex: driving to school 5 days a week becomes a script to children, so it becomes hard to remember specific details about each car ride (seeing that it becomes remembered in terms of a general script)

Loss of information typically within 1 second

Sensory store

This is the initial, momentary storage of information, lasting only an instant.

Sensory store

In short-term memory, adults can hold up to how many chunks of information?

Seven items, with variations of plus or minus two chunks.

How did Goodman test to see if children are falsely reporting abuse? Explain the study.

She experimentally created false reports with a *suggestibility study*. She used 3-4 year olds vs, 7 year olds, and placed the children in a trailer with a male experimenter to partake in normal activities. The children were interviewed several weeks later with free recall, suggestibility questions, and photo identification.

What was Nelson's view on autobiographical memories?

She said that AM's are socially constructed through parent-child memory talks about the past. Similar to Vygotsky, Nelson said that AM's come through social constructions.

Loss of information typically within 12-25 seconds

Short-term memory

This is the short-duration, limited-capacity memory component in which selected input from the memory store is worked on. This begins the process of storing information in terms of meaning.

Short-term memory

What are some issues to consider while deciding if we should trust a child's eyewitness testimony?

Some people may argue that children have cognitive limitations, are egocentric and can't take the perspective of others, can't distinguish appearance from reality etc. *Accurate* *Suggestible* Accurate - can children accurately recall what happened to them? Suggestible - Can children resist an authority figure telling them what didn't really happen? Are they easily swayed?

This refers to the maintenance of material saved in memory.

Storage

True or False: Although many children and adults can't be characterized as critical thinkers, such skills can be taught. *relation to schools?

TRUE! In fact, teaching critical thinking is becoming a recommended part of the curriculum in many schools, beginning at the elementary level and running all the way up to college.

According to the working memory view, the way in which we process info in working memory is determined by this, which 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.

The central executive

Explain Chase & Simon's chess position experiment to test the affect of knowledge on memory.

The chess strategies between adult chess experts and chess novices was compared. The participants were to study the board and then recall the chess positions. Two different types of boards were shown --> meaningful vs. random arrangements. If knowledge helps memory, then the experts would recall more of the meaningful arrangements than the novices, so the novices may be more likely to remember the random arrangements.

What were the results from Chi's study? What was a flaw of the study?

The child experts recalled more of the meaningful arrangements than the adult novice's did, which supports the notion that knowledge contributes to memory skills. There was no random arrangement in this study, so the children may have just been exceptional students instead of expert chess players.

What happened with the McMartin preschool case?

The grandmother and son were charged with abusing children, and the children stated some very graphic things. In the first case, there was no conviction because the jury's couldn't trust the testimonies of children. A lady was convicted though, but then the case was overruled b/c the judge decided that the children's testimonies may not have been accurate.

Why might adolescents be more prone to engaging in risk-taking behavior? (think of the brain)

The prefrontal cortex is still developing, which is a part of the brain that affects inhibition.

This is the oldest - and most influential - of the approaches to information processes. According to cognitive psychologists Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin, there are several steps in the overall process that permit a person to encode, store, and retain information. This model consists of a sensory store, short-term memory, and long-term memory.

The three-system approach.

Why was it important to include a random arrangement in the chase and simon study?

This arrangement controls for people who may just have higher IQs or who are just very smart.

Since there was no random arrangement of chess boards in Chi's study, what was used instead as a control?

This study used a digit span test as a control (repeating a sequence of numbers in the opposite order) which supports the knowledge based information notion that IQ doesn't necessarily contribute to memory, because the adult novices did better than the child experts with the digit span test.

Differences in narrative style lead to memory differences. What are a few?

Those children who grow up with elaborative narrative style parents tend to remember more. The child isn't repeating what the parent is saying, they are just getting help retrieving extra memories.

In what ways can children be questioned to produce the most accurate recollections?

To question them as soon as possible after an event has occurred. Using more specific questions that can be answered more accurately than vague questions. Asking the questions outside of a courtroom is also preferable, as the courtroom setting can be intimidating and frightening.

T/F Experiments have found that initial encoding of information in the sensory store is little different between 5 year olds and adults.

True

True or False Speed of processing seems to be independent of particular tasks - computers are successful at solving problems, just as people who solve things fast are.

True

True or False: It is easy to influence children's recollections of events, depending on the questions that are posed to them. The error rate for children is heightened when the same question is asked repeatedly.

True

True or False Typically, although not always, memory strategies benefit a child's ability to perform recall.

True Children can be trained to use these strategies, but it doesn't always help with recall.

Ultimately, is there any foolproof way to test the accuracy of children's recollections?

Ultimately, no, there is no foolproof way. Testimony must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and judges must ensure that children are questioned in a low-key, non-threatening manner by impartial questioners.

This test measures how quickly you can find the letter L. Generally we find that as you get into your 20s the speed increases, and then in middle adulthood the speed slows down again. What kind of task does this test measure, also?

Visual search This is a speed of processing task

How is WM capacity relates to academic achievement?

WM is a better predictor of IQ, which predicts long-term academic achievement. WM is related to ADHD, which is reflective of poor WM and poorer academic achievement.

What are the two competing interests while considering a child's eyewitness testimony?

We don't want an innocent person to be convicted, but we don't want a guilty person to go free.

Other issues regarding children's eyewitness testimony Does stress inhibit memory? (how do we measure stress?)

We measure stress through cortisol levels and personal reports. Does stress inhibit memory? -No: At least at moderate levels. -Yes: At high levels & with psychological problems.

We remember information about ____ in declarative memory, while we remember information about ___________ in procedural memory.

We remember information about things in declarative memory, while we remember information about how to do things in procedural memory.

Explain Neisser's representational differences in encoding.

We won't store memories from infancy because they were in the form of imagery, but as adults we can retrieve memories that are more structured. It's like trying to remember a different language of memories.

Memory and culture

When the populations being compared have similar educational levels, the info that people are seeking to recall is equal and meaningful to children in both cultures, and the children must be similarly motivated to perform well on the task, then differences in memory are generally *not found*.

Some educators state that reading is taught most successfully by using this approach, where reading is viewed as a natural process, similar to the acquisition of oral language. According to this view, children should learn to read through exposure to complete writing - sentences, stories, poems, lists, charts, and other examples of actual uses of writing. Instead of being taught to sound out words, children are encouraged to make guesses about the meaning of words based on the context in which they appear.

Whole-language approaches to reading

Why does our memory capacity increase with age?

With increasing age, we are able to rehearse material in short-term memory more rapidly, and the shorter the time lag between repetitions of a stimulus, the less likely it is to be forgotten.

This involves keeping information in mind while carrying out a task.

Working Memory (WM)

This is a set of temporary memory stores that actively manipulate and rehearse information.

Working memory

How does metamemory contribute to memory improvements with age?

Young children don't have good metamemory but tend to be fairly optimistic about their abilities. They don't become easily discouraged.

The increasing ability to tune into certain stimuli, while tuning out others, is an indication of increasing cognitive...

cognitive control of attention.

How does the way that children process information relate to IP? (memory development)

memory development - computers once had memory limitations, which is an analogy for children who may have memory issues during development.

What research has shown early signs of memory in an infant?

tying a string to a baby's ankle so that they can move a mobile; infants who had learned the associated between a moving mobile and kicking showed surprising recall ability if they were exposed to a reminder of the early memory.

What did Stephen Ceci ask regarding children's eyewitness testimony?

•Can children be made to believe a false event? •Does *repeated questioning* increase suggestibility?

What kind of reckless behaviors do we see during adolescence that are linked to ones developing executive functioning and lack of inhibitory control?

•Increased risk-taking behavior •Criminal activity •Drugs, reckless driving, sex

What were the results from Stephen Ceci's study on repeated questioning? Did children believe false events?

•True events —90% correct •False events —34% asserted these were true •Repeated questioning did not increase acceptance of false events •Younger more likely to accept false events