Lecture 3: Cognitive Development Flashcards

Question

Day-Night Stroop Task

Answer 1

* Assesses inhibitory control * Slowed reaction time on incongruent trials (e.g. “day” in response to moon) vs. congruent trials (e.g. “night” in response to moon)

Answer 2

Assesses cognitive flexibility (simmilar to Wisconcin card sorting task) * Requires children to sort cards based on one rule and then to sort based on a new rule (ie: sort by colour, sort by animal...)

Answer 3

* Big improvements between ages 3-6 - E.g. 3 year olds typically fail dimensional card sorting task but 4 year olds and older can adapt sorting to the new rule - this is the age that kids love to play simon says... this is why they love it (challenging for them to inhibit the action when they don;t hear simon - for 6 years old this is too easy because cognitive function has improved). - Improvements also continue into adolescence * Due to brain maturation, especially in the prefrontal cortex * age of 2/3 - we start to see synaptic pruning (decline in neural connection) * We see differences in kids because the brain is maturing at different rates.

Answer 4

* Improvements in executive functions are the mechanisms responsible for the cognitive changes characteristic of Piaget’s stages - Improvements in inhibitory control allows for successfully passing A-notB task - Improvements cognitive flexibility allows for improvements in egocentrism - Improvements in working memory allows for improvements in centration * Executive functioning partially accounts for individual differences in cognitive development Example: marshmallow test

Answer 5

* Early childhood differences in executive functioning predict adolescent outcomes * Children who had better inhibitory control at age 4 had (using a test like the marshmallow test): - Better grades - Higher SAT scores - Inhibitory control better predictor of SAT score than intelligence - Better social skills

Answer 6

* Childhood differences in executive functioning predict many important adult outcomes (assessed outcome at age 32) * Study: Children with worse executive functioning at age 5 had worse outcomes as adults, controlling for intelligence and childhood SES * more likely to be dependent on substances and less healthy, lower income and socioeconomic status, more likely to have criminal record.

Answer 7

* Preschoolers in China performed about 6 months ahead of North American preschoolers on every measure of executive functioning (chinese kids were outperforming the americans - generally because have better executive function). * Due to greater expectations from parents and teachers about a child’s ability to exercise self-control (we are seing these differences because parents + teachers have greater expectations for their children in terms of discipline and self control). * Suggests that caregiving practices shape individual differences in executive functioning - Not just brain maturation

Answer 8

* Children’s cognitive development is gradual and occurs via improvements in cognitive processes, especially improvements in executive functioning * Executive functions improve as a result of brain maturation, especially in the PFC, and are also influenced by parenting practices * Childhood differences in executive functioning predict many important adolescent and adult outcomes

Answer 9

* Children have innate, specialized cognitive mechanisms that provide them with basic knowledge in domains of evolutionary importance (piaget underestimated how cognitively capable children are) * These cognitive mechanisms also allow children to rapidly acquire additional knowledge in these important domains * Domains of evolutionary importance: - Understanding of physical laws - Numbers - Categorization - Understanding the minds of people - Language We are born with innate basic understanding of these ^

Answer 10

* Children may have object permanence earlier than Piaget thought - When shown an object and then the light in the room is turned off, most infants younger than 8 months old will reach for where they last saw the object - the fact that they are reaching for this object even thought they cant see it means they must have some object permanence (not what piaget suggested). * Infants younger than 8 months old may fail Piaget’s object permanence task because haven’t mastered the ability to manually search (their motor capacity has not fully developed yet).

Answer 11

* Adaptation of habituation paradigm used to study infant cognition (to assess cognition in infants) * Infants are habituated to an event * Test: presented with a possible and impossible event that are variations on the habituation event - **Possible event:** consistent with knowledge or expectation being examined in the study - **Impossible event:** violates knowledge or expectation being studied What do they expect? * Longer looking at the impossible event indicates that the infant possesses the knowledge being studied - Impossible event is viewed as more novel/ unexpected

Answer 12

* Results: Infants as young as 3.5 months old looked longer at the impossible event (drawbridge going through a box) than the possible event * Indicates that infants as young as 3.5 months (way younger than piaget): - have object permanence - understand that solid objects can’t go through another solid object (physical law about the world). * Implications: Suggests that understanding of physical properties of solid objects is innate

Answer 13

* Do infants understand gravity? * Study: Violation of expectation paradigm with 3 month olds: - test: either saw a heand reach out and place a box vs impossible event: place a box past a support but then the box would not fall. * Which event do the infants look at longer? Look longer at the box suspended in the midair because it is inconsistent with their knowledge

Answer 14

* Results: 3 month olds looked longer at the box suspended in midair * Follow-up study: * Compared looking times at: - a box suspended in midair (same impossible event) vs. - a box that falls when placed in midair * Infants looked longer at box suspended in midair * Shows that infants expect the box to fall if there is no support * Suggests innate, rudimentary understanding of gravity.

Answer 15

* Do infants have a basic concept of numbers? * **Study:** Habituation paradigm with 6 month olds - Habituation: shown a series of displays containing 16 dots * Dots of different sizes and arrangement on each display * Test: - Same number: 16 dots - New number: 8 dots Expected to look longer at the 8 dots

Answer 16

* Results: Infants looked longer at the new number display - Follow-up studies show that 6 month olds show the same behaviour for other dots in a 2:1 ratio * E.g. can detect the difference between 20 dots and 10 dots - 9 months old: discriminate displays in a 3:2 ratio (e.g. 12 vs. 8 dots) --> babies younger than 9 months would not be able to distinguish this ratio * Since infants haven’t learned to count yet, suggests that they have an innate approximate number sense (ANS) * Cognitive system that allows infants to intuitively estimate numbers and magnitudes

Answer 17

- easier to be right using the approximate number sense (ANS) in larger ratios as opposed to smaller ratios

Answer 18

* Research shows a positive correlation between infant ANS and preschool math ability * Suggests that ANS lays the foundation for later math ability (not the only factor in math ability)

Answer 19

* According to nativists, children have innate, specialized cognitive mechanisms that provide them with basic knowledge in domains of evolutionary importance * Research shows that infants as young as 3 - 6 months old have an innate, basic understanding of: - Object permanence and object solidity - Physical laws, like gravity - Approximate number sense * Suggests that infants are a lot more cognitively capable than Piaget thought!!

Answer 20

* Over-estimate infants’ innate, cognitive understanding * Findings of nativist studies can instead be explained by: - **Perceptual features of stimuli** * Infants may look longer at certain stimuli because they are more visually interesting (i.e., more complex), and not because they understand the concept being tested (does not necessarily mean that they understand that its violating a law) - **Learning from the environment** * 3 month olds have learned a lot about the world in about 810 hours of awake time * Could just be proof off rapid learning

Answer 21

* Do infants understand gravity? * Study: Violation of expectation paradigm with 3 month olds: * Which event do the infants look at longer? there is more going on in the hand reaching and stimulus taking up more space - perhaps it is just the visual interest of the child.

Answer 22

* Children actively learn from the environment on their own (they are not passive...very active with their learning!) - Trial and error - Statistical learning - very good at picking up on patterns and forming conclusions (learn well by observation). * Caregivers play an important role in children’s learning: - Teach children skills via scaffolding - Determining the quality of children’s environment Empiricism!!

Answer 23

* The ability to track patterns in the environment (babies have a good capacity to come up with patters in their environment). * Example of observational learning

Answer 24

* Study: Habituation-paradigm with 2 month olds - Habituated to sequence of 3 pairs of shapes - First shape in a pair always came before the second shape in the pair (always presented in the same order). * Test: Showed familiar sequence or novel sequence - Familiar sequence: same pairs of shapes - Novel sequence: randomly ordering the same shapes (no pattern) --> same shape but completely random assortment.

Answer 25

* **Results:** 2 month olds looked longer at the novel sequence * Suggests that they had learned the order of shapes in the habituation phase * Evidence of infants are sensitive to statistical regularities in their environment

Answer 26

* Babies are actively interpreting the world around them and drawing conclusions * Statistical learning is innate and domain general (statistical learning is innate but broadely applied to a lot of different domains - we don't necessarily need to be born with knowledge and areas of special evolutionary importance) - Mechanism through which infants learn in various domains - Contrast with nativist theory which assert existence of innate, domain specific knowledge ____ end of last lecture

Answer 27

* A process in which a caregiver provides a temporary framework that supports children’s thinking at a higher level than children could manage on their own - Physically assisting a child - Demonstrating a skill - Providing explicit instructions - Breaking down a task Scaffolding = Teaching strategy

Answer 28

* Scaffolding should be geared towards ZDP * ZDP: The difference between what a child can do without help and what they can achieve with scaffolding from a caregiver - just outside of what a kid can succesfully accomplish themselves but not too far that they can't accomplish it with help.

Answer 29

* We know they are learning (instruction internalization) because they engage in private speech - talk to themselves, mimicking what caregiver is saying...this is to keep them on track. * Adults teach children skills and regulate their behaviour by providing verbal instruction * Around age 3, children start regulating their own behaviour with private speech - Tell themselves out loud what to do the same way their parents do - More likely on more difficult tasks - Most frequent in 4-6 year olds * Around age 7, private speech decreases and goes “underground” becoming thought (internal dialogue)

Answer 30

* Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment (HOME) - Gold standard (observational measure) - Researchers visit a child’s home and observe the environment and interview the caregiver - Checklist of characteristics that reflect 2 factors: * **Emotional support:** Parents’ degree of responsiveness to their child and expression of positive emotions * **Cognitive stimulation:** Degree to which the parent engages and involves the child, provides them with stimulating toys, and variety in daily life * Higher scores indicate higher quality home environment (checklist = indicate what is present and what is not present)

Answer 31

Image of infant/toddler checklist Highlighted = the ones that convey emotional support the most

Answer 32

Highlighted = the ones that convey cognitive stimulation the most

Answer 33

Higher scores on the HOME positively predict children’s cognitive skills and development - IQ - Math and reading comprehension - Language ability

Answer 34

* Children in low SES households tend to score lower on IQ and academic achievements tests - average of children with low SES = scoring lower for reading and math abilities * Due to numerous factors: * Inadequate nutrition can interfere with brain development * Greater chance of conflict between caregivers which results in emotional distress which interferes with learning (stress & conflict) * Lower quality home environment (lower emotional support and cognitive stimulation) - Higher SES is positively correlated with HOME

Answer 35

* SES moderates the impact of home environment on IQ - For low SES families, differences in IQ are almost completely explained by family environment, with genes playing almost no role - For high SES families, differences in IQ are almost completely explained by genetics * Suggests that low SES children do not get to develop their full genetic cognitive potential * Good home environment = more likely to reach the full genetic potential

Answer 36

* Potential intervention for problem above = GOOD daycare * Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD): Longitudinal study conducted across 10 cities in the USA examining the effects of child care on cognitive development * ~800 participants assessed at various time points in the first 3 years of life * Measured: - Child care setup (e.g. day care center vs. at-home-child care center vs. babysitter) - Quality of child care - Emotional support - Cognitive stimulation: fostering exploration + stimulating toys + language stimulation - Child’s cognitive and language ability

Answer 37

**Results:** High quality child care, especially daycare centres, linked with better cognitive and language skills in the first 3 years of life (regardless of SES - helpful for rich or poor) * Low quality child care associated with lower cognitive and language skills * Language stimulation was particularly important factor!! (how much did the daycare workers talk + engage with the children) * Children in day care centers performed better than children in at home-child-care centers (probably due to training/education) * No difference between kids in the exclusive care of mom vs. out of home child care (no difference in kids that stayed at home with mom or the ones that went to daycare) --> no harm to daycare, can actually be very productive.

Answer 38

Aim to foster the cognitive development of children from low SES families by focusing on cognitive stimulation * E.g Head Start Program in the USA Results: * Children who participate in these programs have better cognitive skills than the children who don’t - But the cognitive effects don’t last once the program is over (only works while IN the program) * BUT participants tend to be more likely to finish high school and enroll in university, less likely to be held back a grade, and are less likely to engage in criminal activity

Answer 39

* The more environmental risk factors in a child’s environment, the lower the child’s IQ score * Indicates that the number of risk factors present matters more than the presence of any particular risk factor * low SES family does not guarantee low IQ ---> it is just harder (general trend)

Answer 40

Piaget’s theory: * Cognitive development occurs in qualitatively, distinct stages Information processing view: * Children’s cognitive development is gradual and occurs via improvements in cognitive processes, especially improvements in executive functioning Nativist view: * Emphasizes innate knowledge and specialized learning mechanisms in domain of evolutionary importance Learning view: * Children learn a great deal from the environment through trial and error and statistical learning * Caregivers play an important role in children’s cognitive development via teaching and the quality of environment provided

Answer 41

**Piaget**: 4 universal stages of cog development (except formal operations); this theory provides a very good overview of children cog development. * 0-2 years: sensorimotor --> main achievement is object permanence (emerges around 8 months according to piaget but fragile until 12 months as demonstrated by A not B error) * 2-7: preoperational --> symbolic thought egocentric + centration * 7-12: Concrete operational --> can reason logically about the physical world (e.g.seriation, reversibility) * 12+: formal operational --> can think abstractly and scientifically **Info processing**: kids gradually overcome processing limits due to developments in executive functions (WM + inhibitory control + cog flexibility) - Explains the mechanisms behind children's cog dev - Dev in exec functions due to brain maturation and learning. **Nativist** --> innate cog mechanisms allowing them to understand domains of evolutionary importance (e.g. gravity + approximate number sense) - Suggesting that infants are more cognitively capable than piaget thought. - Object permanence is now thought to be present as early as 3.5 months - Weakness: results of studies could be attributed to learning or perceptual features of stimuli **Learning view** --> kids learn a remarkable amount from the environment. - Statistical learning Violation of expectation paradigm: infants have expectations about the world so will look longer at impossible/unexpected events.

Lecture 3: Cognitive Development Flashcards

(65 cards)