Developmental Science Exam 2 Chapter 4
Informal theories: physics; psychology; biology; object continuity/discontinuity; animate/inanimate
-Constructivism: The theory that infants build increasingly advanced understanding by combining rudimentary innate knowledge with subsequent experiences -These theories share 3 important characteristics with formal scientific theories, despite themselves being informal: 1.) They identify fundamental units for dividing relevant objects and events into a few basic categories 2.) They explain many phenomena in terms of a few fundamental principles 3.) They explain events in terms of unobservable causes -Each of these characteristics is evident in understanding of biology -The first theory of psychology is organized around the understanding that other people's actions, not just one's own, reflect their goals and desires
Domain specific vs. domain general?
-Domain Specific: Information about a particular content area -Domain General:Humans are born with mechanisms in the brain that exist to support and guide learning on a broad level, regardless of the type of information being learned
Dynamic systems theories Focus on interaction between infant and environment-aspect similar to Piaget's theory; however, continuous development-even within a task, see behavior change
-Dynamic Systems Theories: A class of theories that focus on how change occurs over time in complex systems -Domain Specific: Information about a particular content area -Domain General: Humans are born with mechanisms in the brain that exist to support and guide learning on a broad level, regardless of the type of information being learned -Core-Knowledge Theories: Approaches that view children as having some innate knowledge in domains of special evolutionary importance and domaine-specific learning mechanisms for rapidly and effortlessly acquiring additional information in those domains -Two Characteristic features of research inspired by Core-Knowledge Theories: 1.) Research on these theories focus on areas of knowledge that have been important throughout human evolutionary history, such as understanding and manipulating other people's thinking 2.) Recognizing the difference between living and nonliving things, identifying faces, finding's one way through space, understanding cause and effect, learning language -Differ from Piagetian and information-processing theories in their view of child's capabilities -Piaget and information-processing theories say that children enter the world equipped with only general learning abilities that allow them to gradually increase their understanding of all types of content -In contrast core-knowledge theoreist view children as entering the world equipped not only with general learning abilities, but also with specialized learning mechanisms, or mental structures, that allow them to quickly and effortlessly acquire information of evolutionary importance -Child knows that the mom doesn't know who broke the lamp, so she denies breaking it, however, the child also knows that the mom might not believe her, so she also promises not to do it again -The effort to deceive shows progression in the child's reasoning
BUT: underlying his stated overview of stage-like development, he recognized processes that were continuous: 'continuous' feedback loop (but never studied this or explained how change happened this way)
-Feedback loop provides continuous input for updating schemas (so, somewhat consistent with the continuous view of other theories) However: *Piaget focuses on qualitative change... *Data is good and important *Theory still hugely influential Child (person is continuously...): -Interacting with the world -Using schemes to make sense of the world -Continuous interaction with the world -> object acted upon -> Person using scheme
People and culture influence/guide development
-Guided Participation: A process which more knowledgable individuals organize activities in ways that allow less knowledgeable people to learn -Cultural Tools: The innumerable products of human ingenuity that enhance thinking
Need to develop: Intersubjectivity, Joint attention, Social referencing
-Intersubjectivity: The mutual understanding that people share during communication -Joint Attention: A process in which social partners intentionally focus on a common referent in the external environment *The process through which social partners focus on the same external object, underlies the human capacity to teach and learn from teaching -Social Referencing: A process where the infant takes cues from other people in the environment, about which emotions and actions are appropriate in a certain context or situation. Infants observe the behavior of others and emulate their actions and behaviors
Active learning and problem solving-BUT: focus on building on innate capacities/learning mechanisms in some domains-product of evolution
-Nativism: The theory that infants have substantial innate knowledge of evolutionary important domains -Elizabeth Spelke proposed that infants begin life with four core-knowledge systems: 1.) represents inanimate objects and their mechanical interactions 2.) represents the minds of people and other animals capable of goal-directed actions 3.) Represents numbers, such as numbers of objects and events 4.) Represents spatial layouts and geometric relations -Each system has its own priciples
Nature = maturing brain; ability to perceive and act, learn and nurture = every experience the child has Piaget saw development as discontinuous, occurring in stages that were order invariant and universal...
-Piaget believed that nature and nurture interact to produce cognitive development -Nurture includes not just the nurturing provided by parents and other caregivers, but every experience children encounter -Nature includes children's maturing brain and body; their ability to perceive, act, and learn from experience; and their tendency to integrate particular observations into coherent knowledge -A vital part of children's nature is how they respond to nurture
Constructivist-"child as a scientist"-hypotheses, experiments, conclusions; interaction with world leads to mental structures and schemes
-Piaget's overarching view: development is constructive -Child's own activity helps construct knowledge -"On the one hand, there are individual actions such as throwing, pushing, touching, rubbing, it is these individual actions that give rise most of the time to abstraction from objects" -His approach is labeled as "constructivists" because it depicts children as constructing knowledge for themselves in response to their experiences -Three of the most important of children's constructive processes: 1.) generating hypotheses 2.) performing experiments 2.) drawing conclusions from their observations -Similar to the scientific method
Human inclination to teach others and to attend and learn from social partners
-The human species has two unique characteristics that are crucial to our ability to create complex, rapidly changing cultures: 1.) the inclination to teach others of the species 2.) the inclination to attend to and learn from such teaching
Stages: Sensorimotor-active; reflexes lead into voluntary control through circular reaction (primary, secondary, tertiary); object permanence
-The period (birth to 2 years) within Piaget's theory in which intelligence is expressed through sensory and motor abilities -Infant's intelligence is expressed through their sensory and motor abilities, which they use to perceive and explore the world around them -These abilities allow them to learn about the objects and people and to construct rudimentary forms of fundamental concepts such as time, space, and causality -Throughout the sensorimotor period, infants live largely in the here and now: their intelligence is bound to their immediate perceptions and actions -The root of adult intelligence is are present in infants' earliest behaviors, such as their seemingly aimless sucking, flailing, and grasping -He recognizes that these behaviors are not random but instead reflect an early type of intelligence involving sensory (perceptual) and motor activity -The earlier in development, the more rapidly changes occur -Infants begin to modify their reflexes to make them more adaptive -Over the first few months infants begin to integrate their separate reflexes into larger behaviors (ex: grasping and sucking as individual movements, then combining them together and doing them at the same time -Object Permanence: The knowledge that objects continue to exist even when they are out of view. Happens with infants younger than 8 months -After first year, infants reach for hidden objects -A-not-B study is task A child looks for and finds a toy under the cloth where it was hidden. After several such experiences, the toy is hidden in a different location. The child continues to look where he found the toy previously, rather than where it is hidden now. The child's ignoring the visible protrusion of the toy under the cloth illustrates the strength of the inclination to look in the previous hiding place -A-not-B Error: The tendency to reach for a hidden object where it was last found rather than in the new location where it was last hidden -In the last half-year of the sensorimotor stage (ages 18-24 months), according to Piaget, infants become able to form enduring mental representations. - The first sign of this new capability is Deferred Imitation -Deferred Imitation: The repetition of other people's behavior a substantial time after it originally occurred When we consider Piaget's account of cognitive development during infancy, several notable trends are evident: 1.) At first, infant's activities center on their own bodies; later, their activities include the world around them 2.) Early goals are concrete (shaking a rattle and listening to the sound it makes); later goals often are more abstract (varying the heights from which objects are dropped and observing how the effects vary) 3.) Infants become increasingly able to form mental representations, moving "out of sight out of mind" to remembering playmate's actions from a full day earlier. Such enduring mental representations make possible the next stage, which Piaget called preoperational thinking Sensorimotor Stage: -Start: Basic reflexive behaviors (spontaneous) -Building blocks -Voluntary control -> repetition and circular reaction -Primary (repeating an action... focus on own body) -Secondary (repetition focused on external objects) -Tertiary (repetition with novel variation) -Big Achievement: Mental Image (Representation) -Infants know the world through their senses and through their actions. For example, they learn what dogs look like and what petting them feels like
Zone of proximal development
-The zone of proximal development, often abbreviated as ZPD, is the difference between what a learner can do without help, and they can't do. -The concept was introduced, but not fully developed, by psychologist Le Vygostky during the last 10 years of his life
Vygotsky's Theory
-V's theory can be understood by contrasting it with that of Piaget. -Piaget's theory emphasizes children's efforts to understand the world on their own -V'sand subsequent sociocultural theorist's portray children as social learners, intertwined with other people who eagerly help them gain skills and understanding -Piaget says children want to go out and learn, V says children are put into situations where they have to learn -Private Speech: The second phase of V'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
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
BUT: underlying his stated overview of stage-like development, he recognized processes that were continuous: Assimilation, accommodation, equilibration
Assimilation: -The process by which people incorporate incoming information into concepts they already understand -When a 2 year old saw a man who was bald on top of his head and had long frizzy hair on the sides the toddler shouted "Clown!". -The man looked like a clown enough that the boy could assimilate him to his clown concept -incorporate the information into an existing mental structure -Assimilation: incorporate the information into an existing mental structure Accommodation: -The process by which people improve their current understanding in response to new experiences -In the clown incident, the boy's father explained to his son that the man was not a clown and that even though his hair looked like a clown's he was not wearing a funny costume and was not doing things to make people laugh -With this new information, the boy was able to accommodate his clown concept to the standard one, allowing other men with bald pates and long hair to proceed in peace -Accommodation: adjust mental scheme or create new one to incorporate information Equilibrium: -The process by which people balance assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding -Equilibrium includes 3 phases: 1.) People are satisfied with their understanding of a particular phenomenon *Piaget labeled this a state of Equilibrium because people do not see any discrepancies between their observations and their understanding of the phenomenon 2.) New information leads them to perceive that their understanding is inadequate *Piaget said that this realization puts people in a state of Disequilibrium; they recognize shortcomings in their understanding of the phenomenon, but they cannot generate a superior alternative *Put simply, they are confused 3.) They develop a more sophisticated understanding that eliminates the shortcomings of the old one, creating a more advanced equilibrium within which a broader range of observations can be understood -Ex: learning that both animals and plants do certain things to survive. New information is difficult for them to understand, but once they learn more about it they accommodate for the new information
Memory: Basic processes and encoding
Basic Processes: -Basic Process: The simplest and most frequently used mental activities -The include associating events with one another, recognizing objects as familiar, recalling facts and procedures, and generalizing from one instance to another -Encoding: The process of representing in memory information that draws attention or is considered important -Basic Processes: Key is ENCODING -People encode information that draws their attention or they think is important -Two biological processes that contribute to faster speed of processing are myelination and increased connectivity among brain regions -Greater connectivity among brain regions also increases processing speed by allowing more direct transmission of information across brain areas
Stages: Concrete operational-concrete operations, e.g. seriation tasks when 'concrete' task, not story problems b/c abstract
Concrete Operational Stage: -Major accomplishment: concrete operations (the thing PREOP kids didn't have!) -What does "concrete" refer to? *Operations must have support from surrounding world *These children cannot do organized, mental operations when dealing with abstract ideas -"Concrete" example: Seriation Tasks *When told a story about 3 sticks of unequal length, 7-110 year olds "mentally seriate provided that you give them some of the sticks: *If stick A is > stick B, and stick B > stick C, then can reason that stick A > Stick C *However, if given the same task in a story problem, they do poorly *"Susan is taller than Sally, and Sally is taller than Mary. Who is the tallest?" The Concrete Operational Stage (Ages 7-12): -At around age 7, according to Piaget, children begin to reason logically about concrete features of the world -5 year olds can complete some of the phases discussed earlier, but 8 year olds can complete all of them -The processes also helps children in the concrete operational stage to solve many other problems that require attention to multiple dimensions -Thinking systematically remains very difficult, as does reasoning about hypothetical situations -These limitations are evident in the type of experiments concrete operational children perform to solve problems (Ex: Pendulum Problem: The task is to perform experiments that indicate which factor(s) influence the amount of time it takes the pendulum to swing through a complete arc) -Concrete operational children design biased experiments from which no valid conclusion can be drawn -Their premature conclusions reflects their limited ability to think systematically or to imagine all possible combinations of variables -They fail to imagine that the faster motion might be related to the length of the string or the height from which the string was dropped, rather than the weight of the object -Children become able to think logically, not just intuitively. They now can understand that events are often influenced by multiple factors, not just one
Stages: What are weaknesses of Piaget's theory? What are strengths/correct views from Piaget's theory?
Correct: -Active exploration -Ties between cognition and action *Feedback loop provides continuous input for updating schemas (so, somewhat consistent with the continuous view of other theories); however: -Piaget focuses on qualitative change... *Data is good and important *Theory still hugely influential Incorrect: -Stages not as rigidly structured-- more individual variability-so not "discrete" and "discontinuous" as once thought -More cultural variance than expected -Still not clear how continuous and discontinuous views relate Piaget's Legacy: Strengths: -Provides a good overview of children's thinking at different points in development -Includes countless fascinating observations -Offers a plausible and appealing perspective on children's nature -Surveys a remarkable brad spectrum of developments and covers the entire age span from infancy through adolescence Weaknesses: 1.) Piaget's theory is vague about the mechanisms that give rise to children's thinking that produce cognitive growth. -Piaget's theory provides a number of excellent descriptions of children's thinking -It is less revealing, however, about the processes that lead children to think in a particular way and that produce changes in their thinking -Assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium have an air plausibility, but how they operate is unclear 2.) Infants and young children are more cognitively competent than Piaget recognized -Piaget employed fairly difficult tests to asses most of the concepts he studied. -This led him to miss infants' and young children's' earliest knowledge of these concepts -For example: Piaget's test of object permanence required children to reach for the hidden object after a delay -Piaget claimed that children do not do this until about 8 months of age -However, alternative tests of object permanence, which analyze where infants look immediately after the objects has disappeared from view, indicate that by 3 months of age, infants at least suspect that objects continue to exist 3.) Piaget's theory understates the contribution of the social world to cognitive development -Piaget's theory focuses on how children come to understand the world through their efforts -From the day that children emerge from the womb, however, they live in an environment of adults, older children, and cultural institutions and values that shape their cognitive development in countless ways -A child's cognitive development reflects the contributions of other people, and of the broader culture, to a far greater degree than Piaget's theory acknowledges 4.) The stage of model depicts children's thinking as being more consistent than it is -According to Piaget, once children enter a given stage, their thinking consistently shows the characteristics of that stage across diverse concepts -Subsequent research, however, has shown that children's thinking is far more variable that this depiction suggests -For example, most children succeed on conversation-of-number problems by age 6, whereas most do not succeed on conversation of solid quantity until about age 8
Memory: capacity, strategies, content knowledge
Development of Memory: -Strategies: *Rehearsal *Chunking *Selective Attention -Content Knowledge *Associations increase memory (semantic knowledge) Strategies: -Information-processing theories point to the acquisition and growth of strategies as another major source of memory development -Between ages 5-8 years old, children begin to use a number of broadly useful memory strategies -Rehearsal: The process of repeating information multiple times to aid memory -Selective Attention: The process of intentionally focusing on the information that is most relevant to the current goal Content Knowledge: -With age and experience, children's knowledge about almost everything increases -The importance of content knowledge to memory is illustrated by the fact that when children know more than adults about a topic, they often remember more new information about the topic than adults do -Ex: Children who know a lot about soccer will continue to learn more about it than adults with higher and older IQs -Content Knowledge improves memory for new information in several different ways: 1.) Improving Encoding 2.) Providing Useful Associations 3.) Indicates what is and what is not possible and therefore guides memory in useful directions
Thelen-disappearing stepping reflex-how contrast with traditional view of what is happening when reflex 'disappears'?
Dynamic Systems Theory: -Going to illustrate main concepts using example from longitudinal study of motor development (Thelen): The disappearing reflect -Stepping reflex present at birth but disappears around 2 months -Why are the disappearing steps? -Classic Explanation: Reflex centers of the brain are inhibited as brain regions responsible for voluntary movement MATURE -Thelen: Reflex "disappears" when infants go through growth spirt -Development is step-by-stem -Organization of behavior now affects organization of behavior later *Strength of muscles related to weight of legs no *Legs get heavier quickly, takes time for muscles to "catch up" -Development is Continuous in Time: *Time Scales = seconds, minutes, days, months, years *Account for BOTH "real time" changes (seconds, minutes) and "developmental time" changes (months, years) -Must relate disappearance of stepping reflex over development to day-to-day changes in muscle strength, leg weight, etc. -Development is Softly Assembled: *There is the result of many elements interacting through time *These elements can interact in many different ways depending on the task, context, etc. -Development is often Non-Linear: *The elements of behavioral system often interact in non-linear ways *Small change in one element leads to big changes in behavior
Stages: Formal operational-hypothetico-deductive reasoning like scientific method
Formal Operational Stage: -Major accomplishment: Hypothetico-Deductive Reasoning -Very similar to the scientific method *Propose a set of possibilities about how the world works (theories) *Deduce hypotheses from these proposals *Test them! The Formal Operational Stage (Age 12 and Beyond): -Formal operational thinking, which includes the ability to think abstractly and to reason hypothetically, is the pinnacle of Piaget's stage progression -The difference between reasoning in this stage and in the previous one is clearly illustrated by formal operational reasoners' approach to the pendulum problem -Framing the problem more abstractly than do children in the concrete operational stage, formal operational reasoners see that any of the variables might influence the time it takes for the pendulum to swing through the arc, and that it is therefor necessary to test the effect of each variable systematically -Piaget believed that unlike the 3 previous stages, the formal operational stage is not universal -Not all adolescents or adults reach it -Operational thinking makes it possible for them to see the particular reality in which they live as only one of infinite number of possible realities -Allows them to ponder and think deeply about topics concerning truth, justice, and mortality -The interest in Science-Fiction often appears in this stage -Marks the point at which adolescents attain the reasoning powers of intelligent adults -Adolescents can think systematically and reason abut what might be, as well as what is. This allows them to understand politics, ethics, and science-fiction, as well as to engage in scientific reasoning
Information-processing theories: Focus on structure and processes; task analysis
Information Processing: General Characteristics: -Main Focus: Cognitive Development -Computer Metaphor -Models of cognitive processes and how the information processing system changes over development -Input -> Stuff -> Output -Input: Perceptual Input, Sensory Register -Stuff: Storage, processing *Attention *Working Memory *Long-term Memory *Categorizatin *Decisions -Output: Response How Does Development Happen?: -Size of sensory register increases -Size of memory changes -Contents of memory change (knowledge base) -Attentional resources get redirected -Etc. -Capacity, efficiency, strategies, knowledge Information-Processing Theories: -Information-Processing Theories: 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 -Task Analysis: The research technique of identifying goals, relevant information in the environment, and potential processing strategies for a problem -Task analysis helps information-processing researchers understand and predict children's behavior and to rigorously test precise hypotheses regarding how development occurs -Computer Simulation: A type of mathematical model that expresses ideas about mental processes in precise ways -Ex: Simon and Klahr created computer simulations of the knowledge and mental processes that led young children to fail on conversation problems and of the somewhat different knowledge and mental processes that allowed older children to succeed on them -Comparing the two simulations allowed the researchers to identify the processes that produced the change from failure to success -A second feature of information-processing theories is an emphasis on thinking as a process that occurs over time -Often, a single simple behavior reflects a sequence of rapid mental operations -Information-processing analyses identify what those mental operations are, the order in which they are executed, and how increasing speed and accuracy of mental operations lead to cognitive grown
Memory-sensory, long-term memory, working (short-term) memory
Memory System Components: -Sensory Memory: Attention Changes -Working (short-term) Memory: Efficiency, speed, capacity/strategies increase -Long-Term Memory: Content increase, better at encoding (neural connections) Working Memory: -Working Memory: Memory system that involves actively attending to, gathering, maintaining, storing, and processing information -Ex: If immediately after reading a story about birds, a child were to asked a question about it, the child would, through working memory, bring together relevant information, and prior knowledge about birds, and then attend to and maintain the information in memory long enough to process it and construct a reasonable answer -Working memory is limited in both its capacity (the amount of information that it can actively attend to one at a time) and in the length for which it can maintain information in an active state without updating activities -Ex: A child may be able to remember a number sequence up to 5, but not 10 The capacity and duration vary with age, the task, and type of information being processed -Knowledge that is being attained at a given time Long-Term Memory: -Long-Term Memory: Information retained on an enduring basis -Includes factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, attitudes, reasoning strategies, and so on -The totality of one's knowledge -Can retain an unlimited amount of information for unlimited periods of time Executive Functioning: -Involves the control of cognition -3 Major types of executive functions are inhibiting inadvisable actions, such as resisting the temptation to play with one's phone when an important test looms the next day -Enhancing Working Memory through use of strategies, such as selectively attending to the most important information -Being Cognitively Flexible, such as imagining someone else's perspective in an argument despite differing from one's own -Control thinking and action- enabling the individual to respond appropriately rather than acting impulsively or out of habit
Note: think about how theories since Piaget are both similar and different (continuous vs. discontinuous? child-environment interaction?, etc...) Piaget's theory
Piaget: The Continuous view -What gets "constructed?" Mental structures/schemes: -Organized mental representations -Used to make sense of experience Child (person is continuously...): -Interacting with the world -Using schemes to make sense of the world -Continuous interaction with the world -> object acted upon -> Person using scheme Child continuously interacting with world..: -If good match between schemes and world, then child in equilibrium -If not a good match, child is disequilibrium -Something must change -"...thought, then is not momentary; it is not a static instance; it is a process" Piaget: The Discontinuous View -The equilibrium/disequilibrium cycle is continuous; however, Piaget went further to propose that development also has a discontinuous side... -Change happens in STAGES What are the characteristics of the stage view?: -Stages are qualitatively different... -Qualitative changes in mental structures -Universal = Same for ALL children -Order invariant = Some stages in same order
Stages: Preoperational-symbolic representation, representational/pretend play; think about why they are not capable of concrete operations-e.g., why do they fail conservation of liquid and number-see lecture; egocentrism; centration
Preoperational Stage: -Major Accomplishment: Symbolic thought-one object can stand for another -As a result, see representational play *Sociodramatic play *Drawings -But, preschoolers not capable of concrete operations -Operations: mental actions that obey logical rules (e.g., mental transformation) -As a consequence, their thought is... *Rigid (inflexible) *Perception-bound *Irreversible *Linked to one level of thought (e.g., one type of categorization) *Centration Operation Examples: -Conservation of liquid and number -Centered on height or length (one dimension) -Perception-bound -Rigid *Can't focus on both height and width *Can't focus on number of items AND length -Lack of reversibility (can't "play" event backwards in head) The Preoperational Stage (Age 2 to 7) -Piaget viewed the peroperational period as including striking cognitive acquisitions and equally striking limitations. -Perhaps the foremost acquisition is Symbolic Representations -Among the most notable weaknesses are Egocentrism and Centration Development of Symbolic Representations -Symbolic Representation: The use of one object to stand for another -Children pretending a pack of cards is a phone -As children develop, they rely less on self-generated symbols and more on conventional ones -For example, if they are pretending to be a pirate they may where an eye patch because thats how conventional pirates are depicted -Heightened symbolic capabilities during the preoperational period are also evident in the growth of drawings -Children's drawings between ages 3-5 make increasing use of symbolic conventions, such as representing the leave of flowers as Vs Egocentrism: -Egocentrism: The tendency to perceive the world solely from one's own point of view -Limitation of children's thinking -Ex: Preschooler's difficulty in taking other people's spatial perspectives -Cannot understand that there are other perspectives and ways of looking at something than their own -Most 4 year olds cannot do this -This applies to talking as well -We all remain somewhat egocentric throughout or lives, but it does diminish as we age Centration: -Centration: The tendency to focus on single, perceptually striking feature of an object or event -Children's approaches to balance-scale problems provide a good example of centration -If presented with a balance scale and asked which side will go down, 5-6 year olds center on the amount of weight on each side, ignore the distance of the weights from the fulcrum, and say that whichever side has more weight will go down -Another good example of centration comes from Piaget's research on children's understanding of conversation -Conservation Concept: The idea that merely changing the appearance of objects does not necessarily change the objects' other key properties -3 variants of the concept that are commonly studied in 5-8 year olds are: 1.) Conservation of Liquid Quantity 2.) Conservation of Solid Quantity 3.) Conservation of Number -In all 3 cases, the tasks used to measure children's understanding employ a 3-phase procedure: 1.) "Do they have the same amount of orange drink or a different amount?" 2.) "Now watch what I do" (Pouring contents of one glass) 3.) "Now, do they have the same amount of orange drink or a different amount?" -Example of same amount of liquid being poured into the same and different size glasses -A variety of weaknesses that Piaget perceived in preoperational thinking contribute to these difficulties with conversation problems -Preoperational thinkers center their attention on the single, perceptually salient dimension of height or length, ignoring relevant dimensions -In addition, their egocentrism leads to their failing understanding that their own perspective can be misleading --that just because the tall, narrow glass of orange juice drink or the long, thin clay sausage looks like it has more orange drink or class does not mean that it really does -Children's tendency to focus on static states of objects (the appearance of the objects after the transformation) and ignore the transformation that was preformed (pouring the orange drink or reshaping the clay) also contributes to their difficulty in solving conversation problems -Toddlers and young children acquire the ability to internally represent the world through language and mental imagery. They also begin to see the world from other people's perspectives, not just their own
Sociocultural theories
Sociocultural Theories: Approaches that emphasize that other people and the surrounding culture contribute greatly to children's development
Limited-capacity that must develop; problem solver
The Child as a Limited-Capacity Processing System: -Computer Processing vs Human Processing -People's limitations are similar to hardware limitations: *Memory Capacity *Speed of Thought Processes *Availability of Useful Strategies and Knowledge -In the information-processing view, cognitive development arises from children's gradually surmounting their processing limitations through: 1.) Expanding the amounts of information they can process at one time 2.) Increasing their processing speeds 3.) Acquiring new strategies and knowledge The Child as Problem Solver: -Children are Active Problem Solvers -Problem Solving: The process of attaining a goal by using a strategy to overcome an obstacle -A description of a younger child's problem solving reveals the same combination of goal, obstacle, and strategy -Also reveals that children's cognitive flexibility helps them attain their goals
Problem solving: overlapping waves theory, planning, analogical reasoning
The Development of Problem Solving: -Overlapping Waves Theory: An information processing approach that emphasizes the variability of children's thinking -Information-processing theories depict children as active problem solvers whose use of strategies often allows them to overcome limitations of knowledge and processing capacity -The overlapping waves model proposes that, at any one age, children use multiple strategies; that with age and experience, they rely increasingly on more advanced strategies (the ones with the higher numbers); and that development involves changes in the frequency of use of existing strategies as well as discovery of new approaches -Overlapping waves theory has been shown to accurately characterize children's problem solving in a wide range of contexts, including arithmetic, time-telling, reading, spelling, scientific experimentation, etc. Planning: -Problem solving is more successful if people plan before acting -Information-processing analyses suggest that one reason planning is difficult for children is that it requires inhibiting the desire to solve the problem immediately in favor of first trying to choose the best strategy -Ex: starting to work on an assigned paper without planning what will be written -Children also have trouble with planning because they are often overly optimistic about their abilities and don't feel the need to plan -The maturation of the prefrontal cortex helps push for planning over time Analogical Reasoning: -Any type of thinking that relies upon an analogy -An analogical argument is an explicit representation of analogical reasoning that cites accepted similarities between two systems to support the conclusion that some further similarity exists
Piaget's Theory
The theory of Swiss psychologists Jean Piaget, which posits that cognitive development involves a sequence of four stages: 1.) Sensorimotor 2.) Preoperational 3.) Concrete Operational 4.) Formal Operational That are constructed through the processes of assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium
Memory: Content-autobiographical memory (early effect of infantile amnesia)
Variability & Selection: Sigler: -In challenging situations, children generate a variety of problem solving strategies -With repeated experience, strategies that work best "survive" -Q: How do children learn the "min" strategy? *Start counting from the larger of two numbers -Children use a variety of strategies: fingers, retrieval, min -Tons of variability... *Variable use of each strategy across sessions *But also within sessions... used different strategies on SAME problem in same session -Approach provides insight into HOW development might happen *Variability and Selection -Limitations: *Overlapping-waves model is mainly descriptive *Need to understand mechanisms that produce variability and selection -Autobiographical Memories: Memories of one's own experiences, including one's thoughts and emotions
