Cognition & Development

• What is a schema?

  Mental representations of the world formed through experiences

  > as we get older we construct new & more complex schema about ourselves, others, objects & abstract concepts (e.g. justice)
• What is disequilibrium?

  Caused when we experience something new that we cannot make sense of & we are motivated to escape this

  > done by adapting & developing our existing schemas meaning we can achieve equilibrium
• How is eqilibrium achieved?

  > Assimilation

  > Accommodation
• What is assimilation?

  Adding new information to existing schemas
• What is accommodation?

  In a completely new experience the existing schema either has to be changed radically or a new schema is formed
• Evaluate Piaget's theory of cognitive development?

  (+) Real World Application

  > school lessons have moved away from traditional teaching style to more activity orientated classrooms, where students form their own mental representations of content through 'discovery learning'

  > this helps them to facilitate their own development of schemas

  (-) Vygotsky - Social Processes

  > suggests that learning is enhanced by interacting with others, which means Piaget's theory is incomplete
• What is the sensorimotor stage of intellectual development?

  Approx 0-2 years

  > children learn about the world through their senses & using their motor skills

  > main feature = child develops object permanence by 8 months
• What is object permanence?

  Knowing that an object exists even if it is out of sight
• What research is used to support the sensorimotor stage of intellectual development?

  Blanket & Ball Study (1963)

  > a toy was hidden under a blanket while the child was watching

  > searching for the toy would mean the child had object permanence
• What is the pre-operational stage of intellectual development?

  Approx 2-7 years

  > children are egocentric, so are not able to see things from another's point of view

  > they lack conservation skills, so cannot understand that quantity remains the same even if appearance changes

  > they begin to understand class inclusion
• What are conservation skills?

  Understanding that quantity remians the same even if its appearance changes
• What is class inclusion?

  Classification of different objects
• What research is used to support the pre-operational stage of intellectual development?

  Piaget's 'Three Mountains'

  > showed children a three dimensional model of a mountain and asked them to describe what a doll that is looking at the mountain from a different angle might see
• What is the concrete operations stage of intellectual development?

  Approx 7-11 years

  > children can now conserve

  > they lose egocentricism & can decentre

  > better at class inclusion & have developed some reasoning - only apply to concrete/physical objects (cannot reason with abstract or imaginary ideas)
• What research is used to support the concrete operations stage of intellectual development?

  Conservation of Number (1956)

  > children are shown two amounts that are the same (e.g. liquid in beaker)

  > liquid from a beaker is poured into a tall thin glass & children are asked if there is still the same amount

  > children unable to think in this way will say no
• What is the formal operations stage of intellectual development?

  Approx 11+ years

  > children become more capable of formal reasoning

  > solve probelms in a systematic (abstract) way
• What research is used to support the formal operations stage of intellectual development?

  Pendulum Task (1958)

  > set children to task of finding out what determines how high a pendulum swings

  > at this stage children will cary one factor at a time to see its effect

  > younger children will try factors at random or two at a time
• Evaluate Piaget's stages of intellectual development?

  (+) Valid Stages

  > core principles are true - children improve intellectual abilities with age

  > - methods testing age they aquire abilities are invalid

  (-) McrGarrigle & Donaldson

  > 'naughty teddy' messed up counters on desk

  > children young as 4-6 showed conservation skills (much earlier)

  > children in original study were influenced by reseacher behaviour

  (-) Hughes

  > asked children to place doll where it couldn't be seen by policemen dolls

  > children young as 3.5 years could hide doll 90% of time

  > could decentre much earlier
• What is Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development?

  It is a social process in which children use 'experts' to learn from

  > knowledge is initially 'intermental' - between more & less experienced person

  > knowledge becomes 'intramental' - in the mind of the lesser expert
• What is the zone of proximal development?

  Gap between what a child can understand so can do alone & what they can potentially do after interacting with an 'expert'

  > with 'expert' assistance a child can cross ZPD

  > they do still need to rwach developmental stages to develop more advanced learning
• What is scaffolding?

  Help given by experts to children

  > Vygotsky-Bruner model shows that level of help is initially high but gets less as child begins to learn what to do
• What are the levels of scaffolding?

  > Level of Help 5 = Demonstration

  > Level of Help 4 = Preparation for Child

  > Level of Help 3 = Indication of Materials

  > Level of Help 2 = Specific Verbal Intructions

  > Level of Help 1 = General Prompts
• Evaluate Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development?

  (+) Roazzi & Bryant (1998)

  > if child had help from older child in estimating sweets they successfully mastered task

  > lone workers not as successful in giving a good estimate

  > demonstrates expert can assist child across ZPD

  (+) RW Application

  > social interaction in classroom is based on scaffolding

  > Van Keer & Verhaeghe found if 7 year olds were tutored by 10 year olds made greater progress

  (-) Cultural Differences

  > China students learn effectively in lecture style classrooms

  > he over emphasised importance of scaffolding
• What does Baillargeon believe about object permanence?

  What Piaget believed was lack of object permanence in babies may have been due to them lacking the motor skills to find hidden object, they lost interest in finding it, got distracted or didn't understand
• What was the procedure of Baillargeon's Violation of Expectation (VOE) study?

  > 24 babies aged 5-6 months

  > shown a tall & short rabbit passing behind a screen with a window

  • Familiarisation Event - shown both rabbits passing behind a screen (fits expectation)
  • Expected Event - short rabbit passes behind screen & is not visible behind window (or tall rabbit is visible through window)
  • Unexpected Event - tall rabbit is not seen through window as it passes behind screen
• What are the findings of Baillargeon's Violation of Expectation (VOE) study?

  > Babies looked for an average of 33.07 secs at unexpected event

  > Only looked for 25.11 secs at expected event

  > Researchers believed this showed babies were suprised by unexpected event & so demonstrated object permanence
• When did Baillargeon suggest object permanence develops?

  Approx 2.5 months
• What is occlusion?

  Where one object passes in front of another
• How have other studies have researched VOE?

  Used 'Containment'

  > when an object enters a container, it should still be there when it opens

  Used 'Support'

  > that objects fall if not supported by a horizontal surface
• What is Baillargeon's theory of infant reasoning?

  Physical Reasoning System (PRS) - babies are born with a basic understanding of the physical world & have the ability to learn more from experience

  > believed we are born with an understanding of object persistence

  > in first few weeks of life baby will identify event categories (ways objects interact)

  > once they learn principle of occlusion they show surprise in VOE studies because their PRS diverts their attention to new events
• Evaluate Baillargeon's explanation of infant abilities?

  (+) Greater Validity

  > Piaget's cannot distinguish between baby being distracted & lack of object permanence

  > overcomes with VOE methods with controls confounding variables

  (+) Universal

  > Hespos & Van Marke (2012) - basic understanding of physical world all cultures share despite differences in experiences & upbringing

  > supports idea of innate understanding of th physical world

  (-) Subjective

  > babies found unexpected events more interesting

  > researcher's interpretation could be subjective so is not objective measurement
• What did Selman suggest about perspective taking?

  Social perspective taking develops independently from physical perspective taking
• What is the procedure of Selman's study into perspective taking?

  > 30 boys & 30 girls (four, five & six year olds)

  > asked how a person would feel would feel in different scenarios

  > e.g. scenario described Holly who promised her father that she would not climb trees but then finds her friend's kitten stuck up a tree

  > asked how Holly, her friend & her father would feel if she climbed a tree to rescue the kitten
• What were the findings of Selman's study into perspective taking?

  Found different stages of development in perspective taking:

  > Stage 0 (3-6 years): Egocentric - doesn't understand others emotional states

  > Stage 1 (6-8 years): Social Informational - tell difference between their pov & others but can only take on board one at a time

  > Stage 3 (10-12 years): Mutual - can look at their pov & anothers at the same time

  > Stage 4 (12 years+): Social & Conventional System - know that understanding anothers pov won't always lead to agreement & so social conventions are used to maintain order
• What were the later developments to Selman's stages of social development?

  3 other aspects were added by Schultz (2003)

  > 1. Interpersonal Understanding - if we can take different roles then we can understand social situations

  > 2. Interpersonal Negotiation Strategies - we develop skills in responding to what others think (e.g. asserting our authority)

  > 3. Awareness of Personal Meaning of Relationships - being able to adapt our behaviour in different relationship contexts
• Evaluate Selman's levels of perspective-taking?

  (+) Longitudinal Research

  > followed children over long period & found as they got older their perspective-taking improved

  > suggests children move through stages of as they biologically age so theory has good validity

  (-) Social Development

  > Gasser & Keller found bullies may display good perspective-taking skills so not be as important in social development as thought

  (-) Cultural Differences

  > Wu & Keysar found Chinese children were significantly more advanced at perspective-taking than American children at same age so its not universal
• What is theory of mind?

  Ability to understand what another person is thinking or feeling

  > Meltzoff (1988) had 18 month olds observe either an adult putting beads in a jar & dropping some or showed an adult successfully putting all the beads in jar

  > regardless of which condition they were in children would successfully put their own beads in a jar

  > suggests they weren't just imitating what adult did but rather what they intended to do
• What was the procedure of the Sally-Anne study?

  > form of false belief task which used two dolls called Sally & Anne

  > Sally put a marble in her basket & then when she isn't looking Anne moves it to her box

  > child is asked where Sally would look for her marble

  > 20 autistic children completed task along with control groups containing 27 non-autistic children & 14 with down syndrome
• What were the findings of the Sally-Anne study?

  > 85% of control groups could identify that Sally would look in her basket

  > only 20% of autistic children could answer correctly

  > suggests autistic children have a theory of mind deficit
• What were the findings in older children & adults for the Sally-Anne study?

  Some studies should older autistic children/adults who do not have learning disability could complete false belief tasks like Sally-Anne successfully

  > Baron-Cohen suggested that when using a more challenging task (e.g. judging emotions of others when presented with eyes) like Eyes Task, they were unsuccessful