Dev Psych Exam 2
What is cohesion?
-Objects move as unified wholes -Babies look longer at splitting outcome of one object -Babies not surprised when two different objects split apart
What abilities are involved in counting?
-One-to-one correspondence -Stable order -(Yet:) Order irrelevance (of touching objects) -Abstract nature -Cardinal word principle
What is long term memory?
-Permanently (or semi-permanently) stored information that constitutes our general knowledge base -Can last a long time, even a whole lifespan
What are weaknesses in Piaget's theory?
-Piaget's theory is vague about the mechanisms that give rise to children's thinking and that produce cognitive growth -Infants and young children are more cognitively competent than Piaget recognized -Piaget's theory understates the contribution of the social world to cognitive development The stage model depicts children's thinking as being more consistent than it is
DeLoache (1995; 2000): Scale-model studies
-Plays in large room -Goes into a scale model -Results: Adults correctly search in the corresponding location; 2.5-year olds search randomly
So why do infants fail with Piaget's version of object permanence?
-Possibility 1: Infants' memory Is too short to allow them to remember the occluded object -Possibility 2: Infants still remember the toy, but representation of the cloth overwhelms the weaker toy representation -Possibility 3: Means-ends problem: Infants have trouble coordinating series of behaviors needed to get toy
What does gaze following reflect?
-Possibility 1: Maybe infants already recognize people as intentional beings; follow eyes to gain info -Possibility 2: Maybe infants only gaze-follow as a reflex in response to presence of eyes, without more sophisticated social knowledge
Spelke et al. (1992): Do 3-4-month-old infants detect a solidity violation?
-Possible: ball on top of shelf -Impossible: ball on bottom of shelf (conceptually novel, but perceptually boring) -Results: infants look longer at "impossible" trials -Conclusions: young infants understand solid objects
What is the adult concept of density?
-Property of material entities -Not proportional to quantity of matter -Intensive/relational quantity (density won't change with more of the same object) -Interdefined with weight (Density = Weight/Volume) -If the same size, heavier one is denser; If the same weight, smaller one is denser
What is the adult concept of weight?
-Property of material entities -Proportional to quantity of matter -Extensive/additive quantity -Interdefined with density (Weight = Density x Volume)
What are mechanisms of change?
-Relative success of each approach in meeting a particular goal -Efficiency: meeting goals more quickly or with less effort -Novelty: lure of trying something new
Johnson, Slaughter, and Carey "Blob study": -What cues cause infants to gaze-follow? (What entities do infants think are actually looking at something?)
-Results? (Infants follow gaze) Yes for: -Blob w/ face, contingent interaction -Blob w/ face, no contingent interaction -Blob w/out face, contingent interaction -Person
Is question of conservation due to pragmatics?
-Social demands of the task When someone asks you a question, you make an inference about why they are asking you this -NO, not pragmatics. Children prefer to get the longer array. Not just weird task demands.
Why study social cognition?
-Social interaction is essential for survival -Social information is invisible to perception
How does STM change with age?
-Speed of STM increases with age, but plateaus by middle school and declines in middle-old age
How does experience matter?
-Sticky mittens manipulation gets even 3 month olds to succeed -Experience having goals yourself helps you understand that others have goals
How did Lawrence Kohlberg extend Piaget's Work?
-Test children longitudinally, observe development -Present with more serious moral dilemmas -Heinz's Dilemma
What word mistakes do kids make?
-Undergeneralization (underextension) -Overgeneralization (overextension)
Possibility 3: Means-ends problem: Infants have trouble coordinating series of behaviors needed to get toy
-Unobstructed toys are easy to get to -Obstructed toys are harder to get toy
What is support?
-Unsupported objects will fall -Baillargeon study *"Support" test trial (possible) *"No support" test trial (impossible) *Babies look longer at no support test trial
How does children's actions change about other's distress?
-Very young children show distress at other's distress... selfish? -As kids get older, show increase in concern for others, decrease in own distress
Blob study conclusions
-We can rule out babies doing reflexive eye following response -Infants are not simply responding to eyes; also paying attention to socially contingent interaction
Piaget's "3 Mountain" Task (1967): 4-year olds
-What is the doll seeing right now? -Systematically pick their own view (which is incorrect)
Onishi and Baillargeon (2005)
-Where would the woman reach for the watermelon? -False belief: woman goes away and object moves boxes -Babies surprised when the woman reaches for the wrong box when everybody knows it -Person has a false belief, when person reaches in wrong box babies are surprised
What is the strategy of statistical regularities?
-Words tend to be heard repeated and in different contexts -infants can do familiar word order test, and listen longer to novel words which only could have been done by attending to regularities
What is the preoperational stage?
-ages 2-7 years old -More sophisticated cognition: language, symbolic thought -Why "preoperational?": Because according to Piaget, these kids can't perform mental operations on representations -Limited to thinking of things in just one sense -Egocentrism is key!
What is stage 1 (sensorimotor)?
-ages: birth-2 -infants begin without any knowledge; must learn everything by experiencing the environment -newborns just a bundle of reflexes -don't have object permanence
What is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex?
-area in frontal lobe that is involved in formation and maintenance of plans and integration of new and previously learned information -Brain maturation of this region helps space concept development
What happens in months 4-8?
-become interested in objects and people, but discover relationships by chance
When is weight and density differentiated?
-between ages of 9 and 12
How does conservation have to deal with dual-representation?
-can't compare height AND width of beaker -can't compare height AND diameter of clay ball -can't compare number of items AND length of line
What is number?
-case of innate, core knowledge -genuine qualitative (discontinuous) change
What happens to kids under 3 years old?
-children predict that others' actions will match reality, not with their beliefs
What is speech?
-complex pattern of pressure changes; its amplitudes and frequencies can be depicted visually via a speech spectrogram -continuos stream of sound -would think words are breaks in speech, so words are where amplitudes shoot up/down, but not true, we trail off all of the time
What are some basic principles of jean piaget's theory?
-constructivism -stage theorist
What is the problem of categorical perception?
-different speakers/voices, different accents -physical sound output are very different, but we treat them as the same
Competence-Performance distinction
A subject's ability to demonstrate knowledge may be masked by demands of the task, unrelated to the knowledge itself
What is Weber's Law?
Ability to discriminate 2 numbers depends on their ratio
Stage 3: Interpersonal conformity ("Good girl, nice boy")
Act according to the expectations of others (parents, teachers), want to maintain good relationships with others
Stage 2: Exchange orientation (Tit-for-tat)
Act in own best interest, or act towards an equal exchange between individuals
Stage 4: Social System ("Law and Order") orientation
Act to fulfill duties, uphold laws, contribute to society, avoid social breakdown
Do preoperational children conserve liquid?
Age 3 and 4 will argue that the taller glass has more
What's an alternative to egocentrism?
But maybe children aren't egocentric, rather maybe have trouble holding 2 views of the world that the very same time
What is conservation of quantities?
Can children represent an unchanged quantity over a simple transformation?
What is the three-stratum theory of intelligence?
Carroll's model that places g at the top of the intelligence hierarchy, eight moderately general abilities in the middle, and many specific processes at the bottom
What are some critiques of Kohlberg?
Change not so discontinuous; people reason in different "stages" given different situations Kohlberg initially tested only boys ... do girls reason differently? Kohlberg's highest stages valued individuals' rights and liberty -Females tend to value empathy, responsibility for others Only applies to modern, western cultures? -Non-western children raised with focus on family/community, less emphasis on individual rights -Non-western kids score lower in Kohlberg's hierarchy ... not applicable across cultures Can only ask about kids who are old enough to follow the story and respond verbally
Stage 5: Individual Rights Orientation
Children believe in rules that are in the best interest of the group; some rights (life, liberty) are inviolable and ought to be upheld
Stage 6: Universal ethical principles
Children recognize universal ethical principles (equality, human dignity...) for every individual; when laws violate these principles, people should act according to the universal principles, not the laws
Do preoperational children conserve number?
Spread out line of candies has more
What is the theory of successful intelligence?
Sternberg's theory of intellect, based on the view that intelligence is the ability to achieve success in life
Who is jean piaget?
Swiss psychologist who developed theory of cognitive development
What is naive psychology?
a commonsense level of understanding of other people and oneself
What is object substitution?
a form of pretense in which an object is used as something other than itself, for example, using a broom to represent a horse
What is the theory of mind module (TOMM)?
a hypothesized brain mechanism devoted to understanding other human beings
What is a violation of expectancy?
a procedure used to study infant cognition in which infants are shown an event that should evoke surprise or interest if it violates something the infant knows or assumed to be true
What is social scaffolding?
a process in which more competent people provide a temporary framework that supports children's thinking at a higher level than children could manage on their own
What is guided participation?
a process in which more knowledgeable indivdiauls organize activities in ways that allow less knowledgeable people to learn
What is joint attention?
a process in which social partners intentionally focus on a common referent in the external environment
What is universal grammar?
a proposed set of highly abstract, unconscious rules that are common to all languages
What is connectionism?
a type of information-processing approach that emphasizes the simultaneous activity of numerous interconnected processing units
What is computer simulation?
a type of mathematical model that expresses ideas about mental processes in precise ways
What is fluid intelligence?
ability to think on the spot to solve novel problems (make analogies, think new solutions) -peaks in early adulthood
What is sociodramatic play?
activities in which children enact miniature dramas with other children or adults, such as "mother comforting baby"
When do children master lexicon/syntax?
age 3
What is the overlapping waves theory?
an information-processing approach that emphasizes the variability of children's thinking
What is theory of mind?
an organized understanding of how mental processes such as intentions, desires, beliefs, perceptions, and emotions influence behavior
What are pragmatic cues?
aspects of the social context used for word learning
What are sources of continuity?
assimilation, accommodation, equilibration
What's qualitative change?
children of different ages think in qualitatively different ways (e.g. children base moral judgements on different criteria)
What is a transitional period?
children start to value fairness and equality and begin to become autonomous in their thinking about moral issues
What is autonomous morality?
children understand that rules are the product of social agreement and can be changed if the majority of a group agrees to do so -Believe that punishments should "fit the crime" and that adults are not always fair in how they deliver punishments
What are egocentric spatial representations?
coding of spatial locations relative to one's own body, without regard to the surroundings
What is sperman's g (general intelligence)?
cognitive processes that influence the ability to think and learn on all intellectual tasks -correlation of students' performance across all subjects -correlation of performance with speed of neural processing
What is chunking?
collapsing info into related categories, allows us to remember chunks rather than individual units
What is the Carolina Abecedarian Project?
comprehensive and successful enrichment program for children from low-income families
What is the pendulum problem?
concrete operation stage children don't solve this systematically
What is the Flynn effect?
consistent rise in average IQ scores that has occurred over the past 80 years in many countries
What is collective monologue?
conversation between children that involves a series of non-sequiturs, the content of each child's turn having little or nothing to do with what the other child has just said
What are social-conventional judgements?
decisions that pertain to customs or regulations intended to secure social coordination and social organization
What are moral judgements?
decisions that pertain to issues of right and wrong, fairness, and justice
What are personal judgements?
decisions that refer to actions in which individual preferences are the main consideration
What are narratives?
descriptions of past events that have the basic structure of a story
What are the three main concepts of naive psychology?
desires, beliefs, acitons
What is empathy?
emotional response to another's emotional state or condition that reflects that other person's state or condition
What is lexicon?
entries in mental "vocabulary"
What is crystallized intelligence?
factual knowledge about the world -crystallized intelligence tasks correlate better with each other than with fluid intelligence tasks and vice versa -increases through lifespan
What are brief transitions?
fluctuate between type of thinking characteristics of new, more advanced stage and the less advanced one
What is the core knowledge perspective?
focus on the surprisingly early knowledge and skills that infants and young children show in areas thought to be of evolutionary importance
What is preconventional reasoning?
focused on self, avoiding punishment
What are altruistic motives?
helping others for reasons that initially include empathy or sympathy for others and, at later ages, the desire to act in ways consistent with one's own conscience and moral principles
What is postconventional reasoning?
ideals and principles
What is babbling?
repetitive consonant-vowel sequences ("bababa...") or hand movements (for learners of sign languages) produced during the early phases of language development
What are mental lives?
representations of the world that are distinct from reality
What is syntax?
rules in a language that specify how words from different categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on) can be combined
seeing, hearing, feeling
seeing, heaving, feeling
What is sympathy?
showing concern for another's distress
What is conventional reasoning?
social laws and duties
What is production?
speaking (or writing or signing) to others
What is overregulation?
speech errors in which children treat irregular forms of words as if they were regular
What's invariant sequence?
stages are in same order without skipping
What is language instict?
suggested that humans have a drive to learn english and pre-structured machinery to help us learn it
What's chomsky's opinion of syntax?
syntax is independent of the surface meaning of a sentence
What are false belief problems?
tasks that test a child's understanding that other people will act in accord with their own beliefs even when the child knows that those beliefs are incorrect
What is self-discipline?
the ability to inhibit actions, follow rules, and avoid impulsive reactions
What is pragmatic development?
the acquisition of knowledge about how language is used
What is phonological development?
the acquisition of knowledge about the sound system of a language
What is reference?
the association of words and meaning
What is prosody?
the characteristic rhythm, tempo, cadence, melody, intonational patterns, and so forth with which a language is spoken
What is infant-direct speech (IDS)?
the distinctive mode of speech that adults adopt when talking to babies and very young children
What are phonemes?
the elementary units of meaningful sound used to produce languages
What is dual representation?
the idea that a symbolic artifact must be represented mentally in two ways at the same time - both as a real object and as a symbol for something other than itself
What is conservation concept?
the idea that merely changing the appearance of objects does not necessarily change the objects' other key properties
What is the modularity hypothesis?
the idea that the human brain contains an innate, self-contained
What are cultural-tools?
the innumerable products of human ingenuity that enhance thinking
What is syntactic development?
the learning of the syntax of a language
What is semantic development?
the learning of the system for expressing meaning in a language, including word learning
What is voice onset time (VOT)?
the length of time between air passes through the lips and when the vocal cords start vibrating
What is intersubjectivity?
the mutual understanding that people share during communication
What is categorical perception?
the perception of speech sounds as belonging to discrete categories
What is the holophrastic period?
the period when children being using the words in their small productive vocabulary one word at a time
What are distributional properties?
the phenomenon that in any language, certain sounds are more likely to appear together than are others
What's equilibration?
the process by which children (or other people) balance assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding
What's accomodation?
the process by which people adapt current knowledge structures in response to new experiences
What's assimilation?
the process by which people translate incoming information into a form that fits concepts they already understand
What is problem solving?
the process of attaining a goal by using a strategy to overcome and obstacle
What is word segmentation?
the process of discovering where words begin and end in fluent speech
What is selective attention?
the process of intentionally focusing on the information that is most relevant to the current goal
What is fast mapping?
the process of rapidly learning a new word simply from hearing the contrastive use of a familiar and the unfamiliar word
What is rehearsal?
the process of repeating information multiple times to aid memory of it
What is encoding?
the process of representing in memory information that draws attention or is considered important
What is numerical equality?
the realization that all sets of N objects have something in common
What is deferred imitation?
the repetition of other people's behavior a substantial time after it originally occurred
What is task analysis?
the research technique of identifying goals, relevant information in the environment, and potential processing strategies for a problem
What are visual model tasks?
"Dots per box" -Volume = total number of boxes -Density = dots per box -Weight = total number of dots
Language Deprivation
- Kids exposed to language before appx 7 : can have normal vocab and syntax -After 7: can learn words but not syntax -Difficult to conclude these things though because these extreme impairments (i.e. emotional trauma)
What are babies remembering here?
-"If I kick, mobile moves?" Something more specific? To find out, Rovee-Collier manipulates similarity of learning environment to that of test environment -Learn contingency in striped crib -Test in polka-dot crib and infants kick more in striped crib
Smarties Task
-"Look at this box. What do you think is in the box?" -"Nope! It's a pencil! Let's close the box again." -"Here comes Johnny. What will Johnny think is in the box" Results -Ages 2-3: "Johnny will think there's a pencil in the box" -Age 4 and up: "Johnny will think there are smarties in the box"
Baillargeon and DeVos: Do 3.5 month olds remember height of a hidden object?
-"Short carrot" test trial (possible) - screen window out of top -"Tall Carrot" test trial (impossible) -Conclusion: longer looking on impossible trials: so, infants represent object properties, use these to reason about how an object should behave
Feingenson, Carey & Hauser (2002): Cracker choice task (10 & 12 months)
-1 vs. 2 crackers in each bucket -3 vs. 4 crackers fail -3 vs. 6 crackers fail •Exceeding three crackers in either bucket, babies fail -Performance is not ratio dependent; dependent on the absolute number that babies are tracking -Very different performance "signature" implicates different representational system from that uses for large, approximate numbers -Small, exact number system
Baillargeon shows that infant's knowledge of support gets refined over 1st year
-3 months: initial concept: contact vs. no contact -4-5 months: which surface is in contact -systematic longer looking when not supported underneath but on side of object -6.5 months: amount of contact is just touching -12.5 months: proportional distribution
Bloom and Markson (1998)
-3-4 year olds asked to draw a lollipop and balloon -Drawings shuffled ... kids still insisted that their original "lollipop" was a lollipop, not a balloon -When shown another child's lollipop "that looks just like a balloon, "kids still insist it's a lollipop -Intentions matter
What's class inclusion?
-4 tulips and 3 daisies Are there more flowers or are there more tulips? -4-year olds says "more tulips" -Has trouble representing tulips as flowers and just tulips
Baillargeon's Rotating Barrier Experiment
-4-5 month olds -habituation to rotating draw bridge -test trials (120 degrees: possible) path blocked by object in its way -test trials (180 degrees: impossible): don't habituate to 180 degrees
What are some production language milestones?
-7 months: babbling -12 months: first words -18 months: multiple-word phrases -28 months: sentences
What is a symbol?
-A symbol is something that represents something else -Schematic drawings
What are formal operation children?
-Ability to think abstractly and reason hypothetically -Ages 12 and up -Teenage interest in fantasy, alternative worlds -Ability to reason scientifically, systematically test hypotheses
What else about memory changes?
-Ability to use strategies to help remember stuff Examples: -Spontaneously organizing info into chunks in order to remember more -Rehearsing telephone number over and over -Used mental imagery to connect items
How do adults have two number systems?
-Adults are fast and accurate at recognizing array of 1, 2, or 3 -Adults too use new system for representing 1,2,3 and a different system for approximating larger numbers -Also present in other animal species, but only humans develop ability to represent exact, large numbers (e.g. "17," "12,083") -This ability seems to involve language, and learning to count
How do adults represent number?
-Adults can represent approximate number, independent of language -Our performance shows 2 important "signatures:" 1. Mean increases with target number 2. Error increases with target number
The False Belief task (Perner and Wimmer, 1984)
-Age 2-3: "Sally will look in the box" (where the ball actually is) -Age 4 and up: "Sally will look in the basket" (where she thinks the ball is)
What are characteristics of operational children?
-Around age 7, children start to solve these conservation and class inclusion problems -Piaget: Operational stage involves ability to think logically, reason through problems
Pragmatic constraints (Baldwin): Assume people mean to refer to things
-Assume people mean to refer to things Gaze direction: -People tend to look at the things there are naming -By 9 months, infants gaze follow -By 9 months, infants follow pointing and gaze following Child assumes whatever came out the box that the mom uttered a name for, is the name of the object
Possibility 2: Infants still remember the toy, but representation of the cloth overwhelms the weaker toy representation
-At 7 months, in the light, infant fails -At 7 months, in the dark, infant succeeds
Possibility 1: Infants' memory Is too short to allow them to remember the occluded object
-At 9 months, with a long delay, infant fails -At 9 months, with a short delay, infant succeeds
Why can't we remember stuff that happened in infancy?
-Because of physiological brain maturation -Because the information wasn't well-organized enough when originally stored to allow later retrieval
So do infants use eye gaze information?
-By 9 months, infants gaze-follow to objects in the mutual visual field -By 18 months, infants gaze-follow to objects outside their visual field
How do kids ever learn adjectives, or parts of words?
-By mutual exclusivity: when a word for a part/property is introduced about an object with a known label, child seeks another interpretation -By lexical contrast: "not the yellow cup, the pewter cup" -Via syntax (one learned): "Look, it's pewter," vs. "Look, it's a pewter."
What's important about children testifying in criminal cases?
-Can provide very descriptive detail, but highly suggestible; leading questions induce false reports -Affirmation bias -Need practice understanding questions, need experts on memory development to give guidelines for acceptable memory probes
The whole object constraint (Markman, Shipley)
-Child will associate functions, parts of objects, and functions as objects -Children often interpret words as referring to objects, not to properties or parts
What do children understand about space?
-Children understand spatial concepts (above, below, left of, right of) -Self-produced movement around the environment stimulates processing of spatial information -Certain parts of the brain are specialized for coding particular types of spatial information -Geometric information is extremely important in spatial processing -Self locomotion enhances spatial coding
Doll task to test egocentrism
-Cover the scene, walking to the other side of the table allows the child to pick the correct view -Explanation: Child no longer has to hold in mind both: (What the scene looks like to her and What the scene looks like to the doll_ -Now just has to imagine what it would look like if uncovered (the doll's view)
Is continuity innate?
-Demonstrated in 3.5-month-old babies -Demonstrated in newborn animals -Test with chicks imprinting on their "mother" -Chicks imprint on triangle; treat triangle like mom -Chicks follow triangle mom behind screen - must know "she" still exists -Chicks know this even when the 1st time they've seen an occluded object (innate)
What is the weight-density pairs task?
-Does one object weight more or are they the same weight? (for a pair) -Is one of these objects made of a heavier kind of material, or not? That is, is one made of a denser material? (for each pair)
How do young children lack concept that material entities must weight some amount?
-Does the big piece weigh anything? Yes -Does the little piece weigh anything? No ("Doesn't feel like anything", "It's too light", "It flies in the wind")
What is the nativist's biological module?
-During earlier periods of our evolution, it was crucial for human survival to learn quickly about animals and plants -Children are fascinated by plants and animals and learn about them quickly and easily -Children organize information about plants and animals in very similar ways (growth, reproduction, illness)
How does voice onset time vary?
-Example: ba (air moves out before vocal cords start moving) and pa (small delay of vocal cords before vibrating -equal increments of physical differences but its such as different discrete category
How do children with differing temperaments develop conscious in different ways?
-Fearful children need gentle discipline -Fearless children need secure attachment
Woodward (1998): do infants attribute goals/desires to others?
-Habituation event to hand reaching to grab ball -New location test event (switch ball and bear, person reaching for ball) -New object test event (switch ball and bear, person reaching for bear) -Results: 5 month and 3-month-old babies look longer when babies reach for new object at an old location What is because infants' attention was drawn to the object that was touched? Non-agent control (stick) with same conditions -Babies had no preference to change in object -Infants know that agents (e.g. hands) have goals, but inanimate objects don't
What causes developmental change in prosocial behavior?
-Increase in general cognitive ability -Increase in perspective-taking ability -Internalization of own experience
What is spelke's core knowledge hypothesis?
-Infants come into the world with knowledge about a small number of core domains -This knowledge is domain-specific: it applies only to that particular domain (E.g. what one knows about objects does not apply to what one knows about people)
What are executive functions?
-Inhibiting inadvisable actions -Enhancing working memory -Being cognitively flexible
Is there a critical period for learning a 2nd language?
-Johnson & Newport: speakers of East Asian languages who immigrated on their knowledge of English syntax -All subjects in US for > 10 years with similar social backgrounds -So is it the number of years in US/trying to learn english or exposed to english/began learning that determines their grammar? Test: Present grammaticality judgments: ("the farmer brought two pig") 1. Native speakers perform similarly to 3-7 yo age of arrival kids 2. After 8-10: it just gets worse and worse *Performance predicted by age of arrival not by # years speaking language - 13yo arrived at age 3 (likely be a native speaker ) vs a 55yo college professor arriving at 17: would perform at chance despite being very intelligent and reliant on english every day
Do young children know anything about number?
-Kids don't learn to count until age 3 ½ -Procedural memorizing of counting words -Doesn't understand that the cardinal word denotes how many objects there are
How fast is word learning?
-Large acceleration between ages 1 and 2 -Girls outpace boys at this age -Average 17-year-old knows 60,000 words
How might core knowledge interact with experience?
-Looking longer allows babies to learn about the event -Show infants violation or non-violation event, teach them something novel, then compare learning *Should look longer at squeaking sound *Only infants who saw a violation learned a hidden property *Not due to general preference for target object *Knowledge of property is specific Infants' core knowledge of objects seems to guide their learning
Flavell's "Sponge-Rock" task (3-year olds)
-Looks like a rock, but it's really a sponge -When you first saw this, what did you think it was? -Child will say a sponge, even though they just said it was a rock
How do children go from one version of the concept to another?
-Lots of trial and error? Yes, possible Sociocultural theory of Learning -Piaget: Studied learning as a task accomplished by the individual child -Vygotsky: Studied learning as a task accomplished the child with the aid of parents, teachers, and other children
What are the properties of naive psychology?
-Many refer to invisible mental states -Psychological concepts are linked to one another in cause-effect relations -Develop early in life
What is constructivism?
-Nearly everything must be learned; only basic physical growth and ability to learn from experience are unique -Children actively constructing knowledge about the world (child scientist metaphor)
Taxonomic Constraint (Markman)
-No-word conditions: "Look at this! Which one goes with this?" -Word condition: "Look at this dax! Can you find another dax?" -Children better here and finding similar object -Children interpret words as names for kinds of objects, not thematically related items
Do infants have short term memories?
-Object permanence shows that infants have short term memories
What is continuity?
-Objects continue to exist, even when hidden (entails object permanence, plus more) -Knows objects don't magically disappear -Knows objects don't magically appear
What are stage theories?
-discontinuous change -Child passes through qualitative different knowledge states on the way to final state of mature knowledge -Stages are qualitatively different from one another -Children go through brief transitions when passing from one stage to the next -Stages are broadly applicable, capturing children's thinking about many different types of problems -All children pass through all stages in an invariant sequence
What is the information-processing theories?
-emphasize precise characterizations of the mechanisms that give rise to children's thinking and that produce cognitive growth -A class of theories that focus on the structure of the cognitive system and the mental activities used to deploy attention and memory to solve problems
What are sociocultural theories?
-emphasize the ways in which children's interactions with other people and with the products of their culture guide cognitive development -Approaches that emphasize that other people and the surrounding culture contribute greatly to children's development
What is object permanence?
-for infants, objects only exist when visible -before 8 months fail object permanence, but 8-10 months will pass
How does social scaffolding help children?
-helps them achieve difficult concepts earlier -Must understand initial knowledge state to move beyond it -Can point out inconsistencies in thought, push children to accommodate new info
What are dynamic-systems theories?
-highlight the variability of children's thinking, even from moment to moment -A class of theories that focuses on how change occurs over time in complex systems
What's piaget's opinion about progression through sensorimotor?
-infants initially perceive objets as loose collections of colors and shapes -over time and experience, infants begin to accidentally interact with object which teaches them how to interact with object -with more experience, develop more complex rules of interaction -Knowledge is hard-won, and built slowly using action experience
What is the A-not-B error?
-infants think their own actions cause the object's presence at the hiding location -A trials: hide toy at A, cover toy, baby finds toy at A, repeat -B trials: hide toy at B, cover toy, baby looks unsuccessfully at A -not until 12 months that babies pass
Why do newborn infants orient towards face-like stimuli?
-key information in the face, especially in the eyes: -Eye gaze is informative as to others' mental states
Conclusions from Baillargeon's Rotating Barrier Experiment
-make the task easier, infants succeed -Continue to represent barrier even when occluded by screen -The knowledge is sophisticated: infants even represent that one solid object cannot pass through another
What are schemas?
-mental frameworks that make sense of a situation and aid in memory and predictability. -Organize info into sequence that makes sense -making long term memories more reliable and durable, resistant to interference -important in child testimony in criminal cases
How do adults overcome small limit in STM?
-mneumonic devices
How are IQ scores distributed?
-normal distribution -nearly 70% fall within 15 points of mean -very few score at either tail end of distribution -IQ measures across all ages: 3 y/o can have higher IQ than 80 year old
What are children's concepts of weight and density?
-not differentiated 1. Child's concept of "degree of heaviness" collapses across weight and density -"Hard to lift" -"Will hurt of dropped on me" -"Big= heavy" 2. Children will predict big block of wood weighs more than a small steel cube -How can steel and wood weight the same? -"Steel is a heavier kind of stuff" 3. Will large block of steel and wood weigh the same, or will one weigh more? -They'll weigh the same
Why is language not equipotent/associative learning?
-other animal species can't do it despite us trying so that suggests that there are some evolutionary constraints that affect this ability -There are critical periods for some aspects like syntax
Was Piaget right about object permanence?
-piaget thought concepts themselves change over time -possible that concepts remain constant; memory changes or concepts remain constant; action abilities changes
What are the central properties of Piaget's stage theory?
-qualitative change -broad applicability -brief transitions -invariant sequences
What are primary mental abilities?
-seven abilities proposed by Thurston as crucial to intelligence -Word fluency, verbal meaning, reasoning, spatial visualization, numbering, rote memory, perceptual speed
What are basic processes?
-simplest and most frequently used mental activities -Associating events with one another -Recognizing objects as familiar -Recalling facts and procedures -Generalizing from one instance to another
What happens in 1-4 months?
-slowly organize reflexes into coordinated actions (e.g. bring hands to mouth to suck on)
What are Kohlberg's categories of moral reasoning?
-stage theory -kids pass through these in sequence; later stages "better" than earlier stages 1. Preconventional 2. Conventional 4. Postconventional
What are stress patterns?
-strong/weak pattern is more common in English -Emphasize the first syllable more than second
What's the general problem of language?
-universal -arbitrary -infintely productive/generative
What is short term memory?
-working memory -Information that is briefly stored so that it can be actively processed -Lasts only a few seconds, unless it's transferred to long term memory -Appears limited
What are specific problems of language?
1) Where are the words: parsing the speech stream 2) How do I recognize the sounds that make the words 3) What do the words mean: the problem of reference 4) How do I put words together: mastering syntax
Some "rights and wrongs" violate moral principles; other just violate social conventions Do children recognize this distinction?
1. Moral transgression story: -Kids can hit and punch other 2. Social convention transgression story: -Kids can talk in class without raising their hands -Children's judgments of whether an action would "be ok" if the rules said it was ok -4 year olds treating moral transgressions differently than conventional transgressions What about even younger kids (too young to follow story and produce answer?) -Kids not just copying adults because they're not responding to social transgressions
What are the categories of answers to Heinz's dilemma?
1. Punishment and obedience orientation 2. Exchange orientation (Tit-for-tat) 3. Interpersonal conformity ("Good girl, nice boy") 4. Social System ("Law and Order") orientation 5. Individual Rights Orientation 6. Universal ethical principles
How can we educate children to help them differentiate weight and density?
1. Weight-Density Pairs Task 2. Clay Conservation task 3. Visual Models
What are some alternate theories of cognitive development?
1. information-processing 2. core-knowledge 3. sociocultural theories 4. dynamic-systems theories
What are the 4 stages of Piaget's theory?
1. sensorimotor 2. preoperational 3. concrete operational 4. formal operational
When did standardized intelligence testing begin?
1904 with Binet
Do preoperational children conserve solid?
3 or 4-year-old will say that the flattened out one has more
How to generalize the meaning of a new word?
Another possibly helpful constraint: assume words refer to objects that look similar, not objects that are thematically related (Taxonomic constraint)
The mutual exclusivity constraint (Markman)
Assumption that objects generally have just 1 name -"Look at these! Can you give me one?" -"Look, a blicket! Can you give me the blicket?" Object for which kids lack a known label will be the one they give -Other things being equal, children interpret novel words as labels for objects that do not already have a known label
What is Heinz's dilemma?
Dilemma -Heinz's wife is dying from cancer -Local pharmacist has drug that might save her, but costs $4000 -Heinz has no money, asks if he can buy it for $2000 - pharmacist says no -Feeling desperate, Heinz breaks into pharmacy to steal the drug for his wife Child is asked a series of questions -Was what Heinz did wrong or right? -Do you think Heinz should have stolen the drug?
Why is the false belief task hard?
Egocentrism? (inability to think that someone else's mental state could be different from one's own?) -Ages 18-month-old: prefer goldfish but give experimenter broccoli. Egocentrism isn't the problem Lack of knowledge of words "think" and "want"? -No: will use terms early and appropriately Lack of understanding of propositional attitudes (mental stances about the world that can be right or wrong) YES! -"Johnny thinks that his dog is hungry." -Wishes that, hopes for, believes that A difficulty with propositional attitudes: don't transparently reflect true statement of the world -"Johnny thinks that it's raining" -"It's raining": False, but "Johnny thinks that it's raining" is true
Stage 1: Punishment and obedience orientation
Fear and avoidance of punishment
How many such objects can infants hold in STM?
Feingenson (2002) cracker task: chance performance with greater than 3 Feingenson and Carey (2003) search task -Put a ball in a box that hides the ball and have the infant retrieve the one ball. Next, how long do infants search in the box, even though there's no object left (they already took it out) -Saw 2 objects go in, took one out. How long do infants look for the second object? -More reaching when two objects go in and one object goes out -Results: Infants can remember up to 3 things (same short-term memory limit of 3 we saw in the cracker task) Note: 3-4 limit in adults to
Can children also use chunking to increase their short-term memory?
Feingenson and Halberda (2004): Chunking by 14- month old infants -No chunks (4 individual balls hidden, Infants retrieve 2, fail to search for any more --> Fail to remember 4) -Chunks (Two sets of 2 balls hidden, Infants retrieve 2, now continue searching for others, Success at remembering 4) -Older children can chunk using semantic knowledge
What is the multiple intelligences theory?
Gardner's theory of intellect, based on the view that people possess at least eight types of intelligence
How do we know that word order matters?
Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff: 13-15 month olds see two monitors displaying two different situations -if "he's daxing it to her" --> look at man giving woman box -if "she's daxing it to him" --> look at woman giving man box
What does babies' core knowledge about objects consist of?
Infants born with principles for reasoning about objects, including: continuity, solidity, cohesion, support
Who pioneered morality research?
Jean Piaget began documenting changes in the ways kid reason about moral situations
What's the case of Genie?
Kept in closet from age 20 months, strapped to a potty seat, no language -Rescued at 13 and studied -After many years of language training: learn many words, could talk but they were kind of weird: -"applesauce buy store" -"I like elephant eat peanut" -She was able to learn new words but was never able to acquire new syntax
What did compsky think about language?
Language is part of our genetic endowment
Does that mean knowledge of objects doesn't change at all over time, or with experience?
No, object knowledge does change, but it gets refined, not overturned
What is solidity?
Objects cannot pass through one another -originally demonstrated with Baillargeon's "Drawbridge study" at 4 months However, Alternative explanation: longer looking at impossible trials because babies found the 180-degree motion more interesting
Why should kids assume that a word refers to an object?
Observation: when parents talk to little kids, use words like: -"Rabbit," "Bunny," "Carrot" -Less often: "rabbit tail," "animal," "cute" Maybe assumption that words refers to objects (not parts, categories, opinions) helps kids learn first words -Constraints on word learning might help kids
How do young children show prosocial behavior?
Observations of toddlers and preschoolers: -Physical comfort (pats, hugs) -Verbal comfort ("It's ok.") -Verbal advice ("Be careful.") -Helping (puts on Band-Aid, gives bottle to baby)
"Appearance-reality distinction" (3-year olds)
Pink with screen (even though they said that the bunny was white before)
What is intelligence?
Possibility 1: a single trait or ability used across all tasks Possibility 2: intelligence breaks down into two major types of thinking and skills Possibility 3: cluster of many distinct cognitive abilities
How do kids learn syntactic rules of their language?
Possibility: they just memorize legal combinations of words based on what they hear adults Evidence: unlikely that they're doing that^: 1. Productive use of syntax: i. Show random object -> "here's my Show random object -> "here's my LORP" ii. Show 2 of that objects --> "here are my two ___?" **Kids respond LORP to second situation despite never hearing it before out of § Knowledge of general rules of english syntax allowed your inference 2. Mistakes kids make i.They make errors that adults don't make -- no input of these mistakes ii. If kids just copied what they said they wouldn't make these mistakes iii. Mistakes aren't random: reflect attempts to use syntactic rules iv. Kids are combining words (lexical entries) and rules (syntax) on the fly
DeLoache (2004): How do kids play with small toy replica objects?
Results: 2-year olds make scale-errors, treating tiny objects as though they were the real thing
Are infants even capable of forming Long Term Memories?
Rovee-Collier's "Memory Mobile" paradigm: -Operant conditioning to learn to activate mobile -Can measure progression of learning -Can re-test baby's kicking after they've -learned the task weeks afterwards
How do children go from reasoning preoperationally to reasoning operationally?
Smith and Carey: Weight and Density: -Young children can sort balls by size, or by weight, but density, or "heavy for its size," emerges gradually
But do 2.5 year olds fail because of the dual-representation problem?
The incredible shrinking machine -Rationale: When child no longer thinks of model as a separated object (instead thinks of it as one and the same) then they get it right
Further support for dual-representation explanation
The more closely a symbol resembles its referent, the worse children are at successfully using the symbol In fact, 9-11-month-old infants will try to "pick up" 2-D images from the pages of a book -Not thinking of the picture of an apple as a picture, but as a real apple -However, by age 3 kids can also appreciate that picture refer to things... even thinks that they may not resemble
Do infants categorically discriminate phonemes, like adults do?
Werker: Conditioned head-turn procedure Method: -Learn: hear a change Test: -"Ba, ba, ba, ba" - all different VOT's, but adults judge these as different -"Ba, ba, ba, Pa" - same VOT, but adults judge these as different Results: Infants turn head as same VOT as adults Conclusion: Infants hear categories between sounds, even without producing them for themselves -So can discriminate sounds of their language -But English only uses 45 of 200 possible linguistic sounds
Can babies discriminate more sounds than their language actually uses?
Werker: Conditioned head-turn procedure Test: English "da" vs. Hindi "da" -Success of discriminating goes down between months of life ("Use it or lose it") -Infants initially sensitive to all sound distinctions used by all natural languages (can discriminate and categorize) -Since have not heard non-native contrasts, ability to discriminate not learned by (pre- or post-natal) experience -With growth and experience, infants lose some sensitivity to distinctions that are not captured by their native language -Loss of sensitivity (roughly) coincides with the onset of word learning, at about 1 year
What is the clay conservation task?
When little piece of clay is added to a larger piece?) -Does the amount of clay change? -Does the weight of the clay ball change? Does the density of the clay change?
Morality Child Interview: Scenario 1
Who was naughtier? -3-year-old child: "John, because he broke 15 cups and Henry only broke 1" -7-year-old child: "Henry, because it was an accident and he didn't know the cups were there" Early moral judgements possible -Shift in moral judgement from quantitative to qualitative
Can young children ever keep track of precise numerical quantities?
Wynn (1992): 5 month olds do simple addition and subtraction -Look longer when the outcome is violated
Can infant's represent approximate number?
Xu and Spelke (2000): Habituate 6-month olds to either 8 or 16 dots Infants could discriminate between 8 and 16 dots -So, at 6 months, infants can discriminate a 1:2 ratio -By 9 months, they can discriminate a 2:3 ratio -By adulthood, they can discriminate a 9:10 ratio -Like the case of visual acuity, approximate number representations present early on -Like visual acuity, these representations sharpen over development (continuity over lifespan)
What is conscious?
internal regulatory mechanism that increases the individual's ability to conform to standards of conduct accepted in his or her culture
What is heteronomous morality?
justice is whatever authorities say is right, and authorities' punishments for noncompliance are always justified
What is social referencing?
look to parent to determine how to respond in a given situation
What is pretend play?
make-believe activities in which children create new symbolic relations, acting as if they were in a situation different from their actual one
What are biographical memories?
memories of one's own experiences, including one's thoughts and emotions
What is working memory?
memory system that involves actively attending to, gathering, maintaining, storing, and processing information
What is an IQ (intelligence quotient)?
quantitative measure, typically with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, used to indicate a child's intelligence relative to that of other children of the same age
What is private speech?
the second phase of Vygotsky's internalization-of-thought process, in which children develop self-regulation and problem-solving abilities by telling themselves aloud what to do, much as their parents did in the first stage
What are morphemes?
the smallest units of meaning in a language, composed of one or more phonemes
What is syntactic bootstrapping?
the strategy of using the grammatical structure of whole sentences to figure out meaning
What is centration?
the tendency to focus on a single, perceptually striking feature of an object or event
What is telegraphic speech?
the term describing children's first sentences that are generally two-word utterances
What is the critical period for language?
the time during which language develops readily and after which (sometime between age 5 and puberty) language acquisition is much more difficult and ultimately less successful
What is overextension?
the use of a given word in a broader context than is appropriate
What is symbolic representation?
the use of one object to stand for another
What is essentialism?
the view that living things have an essence inside them that makes them what they are
What is cognition?
thinking, believing, knowing
What is Spelk'es claim about knowledge?
this knowledge stays with us throughout our lifespans, and is probably evolutionarily ancient
What's broad applicability?
type of thinking characteristic of each stage influences children's thinking across diverse topics and contexts
What is comprehension?
understanding what others say (or sign or write)
What is metrical segmentation?
use stress patterns to guess where word boundaries are
What is prosocial behavior?
voluntary behavior intended to benefit another, such as helping, sharing with, and comforting others
How did Binet want to measure intelligence?
wanted a task that yielded a constant method to measure intelligence no matter what age subjects are tested
What did empiricists think about language?
we learn language just like any other skill
What is the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)?
widely used test designed to measure the intelligence of children 6 years and older
What's recursive embedding?
wrapping thoughts in thoughts (she thought i thought etc.)
