E3--Unit 10

Do children use one strategy or multiple strategies in problem solving?

They often use more than one strategy. Most children benefit from generating a variety of alternative strategies and experimenting with different approaches to a problem, discovering what works well, when, and where.

metamemory

individuals' knowledge about memory

study found that 3-11 y/o had better....

inhibitory control

Divided attention.

involves concentrating on more than one activity at the same time

Thinking

involves manipulating and transforming information in memory

Critical thinking

involves thinking reflectively and productively, and evaluating evidence.

Working memory

is a kind of mental "workbench" where individuals manipulate and assemble information when they make decisions, solve problems, and comprehend written and spoken language

Short-term memory

is a memory system with a limited capacity in which information is usually retained for up to 15 to 30 seconds unless strategies are used to retain it longer.

Long-term memory

is a relatively permanent and unlimited type of memory. People are usually referring to long-term memory when they talk about "memory."

Selective attention

is focusing on a specific aspect of experience that is relevant while ignoring others that are irrelevant

Sustained attention

is the ability to maintain attention to a selected stimulus for a pro- longed period of time.

Strategy construction

is the creation of new procedures for processing information.

Attention

is the focusing of mental resources. It improves cognitive processing for many tasks

Encoding

is the process by which information gets into memory.

Dishabituation

is the recovery of a habituated response aft er a change in stimulation.

Memory

is the retention of information over time.

metacognition

knowing about knowing

adolescents who have a higher level of trait inhibition (self-control that helps them to manage their impulses effectively) and find themselves in risky contexts are ...?

less likely to engage in risk-taking behavior than their adolescent counterparts with a lower level of trait inhibition

young children's metamemory is...

limited; they do not understand that related items are easier to remember than unrelated ones or that remembering the gist of a story is easier than remembering information verbatim

research with memory span task suggests

that short term memory increases during childhood

sustained attention is also called....

focused attention and vigilance

fast processing is linked with ....?

good performance on cognitive tasks.

working memory continues to .....

improve through adulthood

infants as young as 3 months of age can engage in how many seconds of sustained attention...? When does sustained attention increase?

in 5 to 10 seconds of sustained attention. From this age through the second year, the length of sustained attention increases

joint attention plays many roles like,....

in aspects of the infant's life and increases infant's ability to learn from other people

Adolescence is an important transitional period

in the development of critical thinking

Metamemory

includes general knowledge about memory, such as knowing that recognition tests (such as multiple- choice questions) are easier than recall tests (such as essay questions).

from 18 months to 3 years old, children begin to understand 3 mental states:

-perceptions -emotions -desires

most important for 4- to 11-year-old children's cognitive development and school success:

-self control/ inhibition -working memory -flexibility

orienting/investigative process

. This process involves directing attention to potentially important locations in the environment (that is, where) and recognizing objects and their features (such as color and form) (that is, what) .

From what months of age, can infants deploy their attention more flexibly and quickly?

3-9 months of age

children younger than _____ y/o do not think its possible to have a false belief

4

After the age of _______, children pay more attention to features relevant to performing a task or solving a problem, such as the directions.

6 or 7 y/o

Fuzzy trace theory states that when individuals encode information, they create two types of memory representations....

: (1) a verbatim memory trace, which consists of precise details; and (2) a fuzzy trace, or gist, which is the central idea of the information. According to this theory, older children's better memory is attributed to the fuzzy traces created by extracting the gist of information.

executive function

An umbrella-like concept that consists of a number of higher-level cognitive processes linked to the development of the brain's prefrontal cortex. it involves managing one's thoughts to engage in goal- directed behavior and to exercise self-control.

when do children learn to solve problems?

As children learn more about what is relevant to a problem and learn to encode the relevant information, they are better at using rules in problem solving.

Changes in metacognition for adolescents:

Compared with when they were children, adolescents have an increased capacity to monitor and manage cognitive resources to effectively meet the demands of a learning task. This increased metacognitive ability results in cognitive functioning and learning becoming more effective.

What are the basic components of memory?

Encoding, storage, and retrieval are the basic processes required for memory. Failures can occur in any of these processes.

What changes in the brain are linked to infants' memory development?

From about 6 to 12 months of age, the maturation of the hippocampus and the surrounding cerebral cortex, especially the frontal lobes, makes the emergence of explicit memory possible explicit memory increases within the 2nd year as folds are maturing and more connections are established

"How competent are adolescents at making decisions?

Older adolescents are described as more competent than younger adolescents, who in turn are more competent than children. Compared with children, young adolescents are more likely to generate different options, examine a situation from a variety of perspectives, anticipate the consequences of decisions, and consider the credibility of sources.

strategies for decision making for adolescents?

One strategy for improving adolescent decision making in such circumstances is to provide more opportu- nities for them to engage in role playing and group problem solving. Another strategy is for parents to involve adolescents in appropriate decision-making activities.

dual-process model

States that decision making is influenced by two systems, one analytical and one experiential, that compete with each other. In this model, it is the experiential system—monitoring and managing actual experiences—that benefits ts adolescent decision making.

what types of attention are very important aspects of adolescent cognitive development?

Sustained and executive attention

Without concepts....?

Without concepts, you would see each object and event as unique; you would not be able to make any generalizations

In schema theory,

a child's background, which is encoded in schemas, is revealed in the way the child reconstructs a story.

Infants as young as 3 months old show, ....

a limited memory

The concept of working memory ...

acknowledges the importance of our manipulations of the information in short-term memory

in the dual-process model view,

adolescents don't benefit from engaging in reflective, detailed, higher-level cognitive analysis about a decision, especially in high-risk

Sustained attention (focused attention)

allows infants to learn about and remember characteristics of a stimulus as it becomes familiar.

Most information-processing psychologists argue that an increase in capacity......

also improves processing of information

Attention in the first year of life is dominated by

an orienting/investigative process. This process involves directing attention to potentially important locations in the environment

information-processing approach

analyzes how children manipulate information, monitor it, and create strategies for handling it

Concepts

are cognitive groupings of similar objects, events, people, or ideas. .

the belief that people can have false beliefs occurs...

at the age of 5

some compensation for slower processing speed can be achieved by .....?

creating effective strategies.

Problem solving for 3-4 year olds

because they lack a concept of perspectives, 3- to 4-year-olds cannot under- stand that a single stimulus can be redescribed in a different, incompatible

mindfulness

being alert, mentally present, and cognitively flexible while going through life's everyday activities and tasks

infants can selectively attend to an object at what age?

by 4 months

Developmental changes in information processing are likely to be influenced .....?

by increases in both capacity and speed of processing

Siegler argues that children's information processing is characterized

by self-modification. That is, children learn to use what they have learned in previous circumstances to adapt their responses to a new situation.

children's information processing may be limited by ......?

capacity and speed as well as by their ability to manipulate information

Self-modification

children learn to use what they have learned in previous circumstances to adapt their responses to a new situation.

metacognition helps...

children perform tasks better

In Siegler's approach of the information-processing approach to development ....?

children play an active role in their development

when a shift in cognitive control occurs, ...?

children reflect more than acting impulsively

And like Piaget, information-processing psychologists identify

cognitive capabilities and limitations at various points in development

capacity and speed of processing are referred to as....? Which has an influence on....?

cognitive resources memory and problem solving

Children's memories, like those of adults, are ...?

constructive and reconstructive.

Like Piaget's theory, some versions of the information-processing approach are

constructivist; they see children as directing their own cognitive development.

habituation

decreased responsiveness to a stimulus aft er repeated presentations of the stimulus.

In early childhood, executive function especially involves:

developmental advances in cognitive inhibition (such as inhibiting a strong tendency that is incorrect) cognitive flexibility (such as shifting attention to another item or topic) goal-setting (such as sharing a toy or mastering a skill like catching a ball), delay of gratification (the ability to forego an immediate pleasure or reward for a more desirable one later)

older children can _________________?

direct their attention to the most important stimuli than to the most striking stimuli

An increase in executive attention supports the rapid increase in ....

effortful control required to effectively engage in these complex academic tasks

Changes in children's cognitive skills depend on increased skill at .....

encoding relevant information and ignoring irrelevant information.

According to Siegler, three mechanisms work together to create changes in children's cognitive skills:

encoding, automaticity, and strategy construction.

adolescence has improvement in...

executive function

Siegler argues that _________ ______ ________________ are especially important in the advances children make in cognitive development.

mechanisms of change

speed of repetition is a good predictor of ...?

memory span

part of self modification draws on ...

metacognition

at what age of childhood do children see the mind as an active constructor of knowledge or a processing center and move from understanding that beliefs can be false to realizing that the same event can be open to multiple interpretations?

middle and late childhood

at about 5-7 y/o children begin to have a deepening appreciation of the..

mind itself rather than just an understanding of mental states they begin to recognize that people's behavior's do not reflect their thoughts and feelings

Unlike Piaget, however, developmentalists who take an information-processing approach do not see development as .....

occurring abruptly in distinct stages with a brief transition period from one stage to the next. Instead, according to the information-processing approach, individuals develop a gradually increasing capacity to process information, which allows them to acquire increasingly complex knowledge and skills

Joint attention skills in infancy also are associated with the development ....?.

of self- regulation later in childhood

In the information-processing approach, children's cognitive development results from their ability to .....?

overcome processing limitations by increasingly executing basic operations, expanding information-processing capacity, and acquiring new knowledge and strategies.

In early adolescence, children begin to understand that ....

people can have ambivalent feelings. They start to recognize that the same person can feel both happy and sad about the same event. They also engage in more recursive thinking: thinking about what other people are thinking about.

According to schema theory,

people mold memories to fit information that already exists in their minds. This process is guided by schemas

Executive attention involves .......

planning actions, allocating attention to goals, detecting and compensating for errors, monitoring progress on tasks, and dealing with novel or difficult circumstances.

How can processing speed be assessed?

reaction-time task in which individuals are asked to push a button as soon as they see a stimulus such as a light. Or individuals might be asked to match letters or match numbers with symbols on a computer screen.

Implicit memory .

refers to memory without conscious recollection—memories of skills and routine procedures that are performed automatically, such as riding a bicycle

Automaticity

refers to the ability to process information with little or no effort. Practice allows children to encode increasing amounts of information automatically.

explicit memory

refers to the conscious memory of facts and experiences

rehersal is a better strategy for what type of memory?

short term memory

What plays a role in adolescent decision making?

social context

We reconstruct the past rather than

take an exact photograph of it, and the mind can distort an event as it encodes and stores impressions of it.

Schemas influence ....

the way we encode, make inferences about, and retrieve information.

Children's speed in processing information is linked with .....

their competence in thinking

when people elaborate...

their memory benefits ex. self reference

executive function can be connected to what theory?

theory of mind

Executive function also involves the ability to ...

think critically in effective ways.

How quickly children can process information often influences,

what they can do with that information

schemas

which are mental frameworks that organize concepts and information.

joint attention

which individuals focus on the same object or event. IT requires (1) an ability to track another's behavior, such as following someone's gaze; (2) one person directing another's attention; and (3) reciprocal interaction.

theory of mind,

which refers to awareness of one's own mental processes and the mental processes of others.

Do infants have concepts?

yes