CHYS 2P10 Midterm Review PDF

CHYS 2P10 Midterm Review Goals of Developmental Scientists 1. To Describe development 2. To Explain development 3. To Optimize development Experimental Study: isolates the effect of the Independent variables on the dependent variable Experimental designs can be within...

CHYS 2P10 Midterm Review Goals of Developmental Scientists 1. To Describe development 2. To Explain development 3. To Optimize development Experimental Study: isolates the effect of the Independent variables on the dependent variable Experimental designs can be within-subjects or between-subjects in nature Between-subjects design: views the changes in different groups Unique Developmental Designs Cross-Sectional Design: Giving the same task at the same time to participants in different age groups Longitudinal Design: Participants are observed repeatedly over time; could take 6 months, some last decades Microgenetic Design: longitudinal studies that happen at a microscopical scale. Sequential Design: a combination of cross-sectional and longitudinal; participants of different ages (cross-sectional) were observed repeatedly for a period of time (longitudinal) Collecting Data Observational Methods – Observational Testing (stimulating for response) or Naturalistic Observation Self-report – Verbal (interview) or Written (questionnaire) Statistical Inferences: Scientific theories tested with new data to determine the odds that the theory still is true A theory that is 95% likely to be true has "passed" the test of falsifiability. The more passes, the more true it is Inferential Statistics: used to determine how likely a hypothesis is to be true. In any data, there is a possibility that the observed results were by chance, not a distinct difference Sigmund Freud – Three Components of Personality Id - the basic urges Ego - the rational component of thoughts Superego - conscience, using moral Freud’s Stages He believed that development happened in a particular order of different stages universal in existence It's not required to ‘succeed’ in a stage before passing on to a later stage, Stage progression is led by changes in one’s environment and maturity. Freud’s Contributions The importance of childhood development in shaping who we become The importance of unconscious and internal conflicts shaping our feelings and actions Erik Erikson – General Theory Erikson believed in psychosocial forces, with epigenesis as the core of development Epigenesis: the idea that development happens step-by-step, with new abilities building over time. Emphasized on identity development, rather than personality, as an ongoing process in developing Stage Age Developmental Impact Trust / 0-1 Infant learns who they can rely on, typically the mother Mistrust year Trust - the child has a responsive mother Mistrust - the mother is unresponsive Autonomy 2-3 Firm / Supportive Parents - the child learns initiative to act independently / Shame years Too Strict or Lenient - child can’t initiate behavior or it doesn’t matter to them Initiative 4-5 Children who develop initiative (good or bad) learn their capabilities independently / Guilt years Initiative - A child succeeds (role models) Guilt - A child fails  CHYS 2P10 Midterm Review Industry / 6 - 13 Child learns whether their work is competent compared to other children Inferiority years Industry - work paying off in school etc. Inferiority - failing relative to peers Identity / Adoles- Adolescents successfully develop an identity or fail by settling for the wrong identity Diffusion cents Success - 1. explore identities, 2. commit to an identity Intimacy / Young learns whether they want to share their life with another or prefer to be alone Isolation Adults Success - open themselves up to others Fail - If they can’t, this stage is failed Generativity Adult Adult learns if their contributions to the world are meaningful, or if their life lacks / Stagnation meaning and worth Integrity / Old Age Whether or not they can accept their life as being positive and meaningful, accepting Despair mistakes, or if they feel as if they missed out or wasted life Behavioural Theories Social Learning Theory (SLT) broadens the scope of types of learning, revealing how context influences learning Ex - learning what’s cool from Grandma vs. a cool friend will not be the same Structuralism Jean Piaget’s organized pattern of behaviour or thinking Studies how the different parts of thought fit together to build a person's whole cognitive being Lev Vygotsky - Sociocultural Theory of Development Believes cognitive development is the result of innate/evolved mechanisms interacting with social inputs Language is paramount for cognitive development as it is the gateway to complex social interactions Views learning as moment-by-moment, involving specific skills, attributes, and physiological capacities Urie Bronfenbrenner - (Bio)Ecological Theory The Microsystem – People and places in your closest environment The Mesosystem – Influences of parts of the microsystems and they they interact with each other The Exosystem – Societ, environment, and government forces indirectly influence the individual The Macrosystem – Social influences and cultures that shape the other systems The Chronosystem – How personal and societal changes over time shape development Ethnology focuses on studying species-typical behaviours but initially focused on fixed-action behaviours The unique physiology of the organism underlies these species-typical behaviours (biological preparation) These behaviours do not change from one instance to another and are typically triggered by signal stimuli Species-Specific Behaviors Many human facial expressions are species-specific behaviours, and some are also fixed action behaviours These facial patterns are present even amongst individuals who aren’t aware (e.g. blind children) Ex: Eyebrow Flash – your body unconsciously saying hello This suggests that these behaviours are innate (present at birth). But, deprivation experiments, taking an animal away from normal developmental environments, show that some are learned  CHYS 2P10 Midterm Review Ethnology - Historical Perspectives Nike Tinbergen - 4 Levels of Inquiry 1. Immediate (Causation) – Immediate causes that trigger behaviours 2. Ontogenetic (Developmental) – Behaviours shaped by experiences and maturity 3. Functional (Evolution) – The benefit a behaviour has on one's life 4. Phylogenetic (Historical) – behaviours shaped by biological and cultural evolution Conrad Lorenz - Imprinting Theory One of the first scientists to code and understand animal behaviours, and emotions Freshly hatched baby geese followed him wherever he went, programming them to mimick him Charles Darwin - Evolution by Natural Selection Interested in the variety of life forms that existed, coming up with the theories of natural and sexual selection The Meaning of Life: the biological meaning is simply to pass on one’s genes to future generations Five Components of Darwin’s Theory 1. More offspring are born than those who survive to reproduce 2. Individuals vary with different traits 3. Certain traits are more likely to pass on to offspring (via genes) 4. Offspring likely inherit those traits 5. Environmental conditions have changed, leading to new species Evolutionary Psychology domain-specific mechanisms, that are at least partly inheritable, that solve problems in the E.E.A (past evolutionary environment), allowing for experience, nurture, and culture to influence the cognitive mechanisms Critiques of Evolutionary Psychology Doesn’t typically reveal specific cognitive mechanisms; it’s more of a guide than a manual Depends on accurate guesses based on limited information about E.E.A. Just-so stories; too simplistic – ignore human culture and other environmental factors Deterministic Fallacy - if someone is evolved, or in our genes, it can’t be changed (eg. male aggression) Naturalistic Fallacy - if something is evolved from nature, it must be morally good and/or acceptable (e.g. war) Model of Interaction Environment + Genotype + Phenotype = 3 Key Elements Genotype - The genetic material an individual inherits Phenotype - The observable expression of the genotype, like body characteristics and behaviour Fundamental Relations 1. Parents’ genetic contributing to the child’s genotype 2. Contributions of the child’s genotype to his or her phenotype 3. Contribution of the child’s environment to his or her phenotype 4. Influence of the child’s phenotype on his or her environment Chromosomes: passed on by genetic material, made up of DNA Genes: sections of chromosomes that code for a particular sequence and/or hold an effect on other genes Epigenetics: how genes and the environment work together to produce/develop an organism  CHYS 2P10 Midterm Review Mechanisms Contributing to Genetic Diversity Mutations: Changes in sections of DNA caused by random or environmental factors Random assortment: The shuffling of the 23 pairs of chromosomes in the sperm and egg Crossing over: Sections of DNA switching from chromosomes during meiosis, increasing genetic variability Alleles: About ⅓ of human genes have 2 or more different forms, known as alleles Dominant allele – the form of the gene that is expressed if present Recessive allele – isn’t expressed if a dominant allele is present A person who inherits two of the same alleles for a trait is described as homozygous A person who inherits two different alleles for a trait is described as heterozygous Sex Chromosomes Females have two X chromosomes in the 23rd pair, whereas males have an X and a Y chromosome The Y chromosome gives the protein to form testes, which produce testosterone and the sense of manliness The Male Disadvantage The Y chromosome has only about a third as many genes on it as the X chromosome males are more likely to suffer inherited disorders from recessive alleles on the X chromosome (colour blind) Genetic Origins of Human Diseases and Disorders Over 5,000 human diseases and disorders are presently known to have genetic origins Recessive gene: PKU, sickle-cell anemia, cystic fibrosis Single dominant gene: Huntington’s disease Sex-linked inheritance: Fragile-X syndrome, hemophilia Errors in meiosis: Down syndrome, Kleinfelter syndrome Deleterious effects: A debilitating blood disorder when both alleles are present Phenylketonuria (PKU): a disorder related to a defective gene on chromosome 12, unable to metabolize phenylalanine. With early diagnosis and a properly restricted diet, mental retardation from PKU can be avoided Polygenic Inheritance: Traits governed by more than one gene, applying to most interest to scientists Regulator Genes: In control of switching on and off genes that underlie development across the lifespan - A gene influences development and behaviour only when it is turned on Regulator genes hold a major force in evolution and development but were once seen as useless DNA The Evolution of the Human Brain Size matters - humans have a much larger brain than is expected for body size Human brains have more cortical neurons The Development of the Brain 1. Proliferation (neurogenesis) 2. Migration 3. Differentiation 4. Synaptogenesis 5. Cell death and synaptic pruning 6. Synaptic rearrangement Synaptogenesis: Synapses are formed in dependence on the unique experiences of the individual Kennard effect: younger brains tend to “heal” better  CHYS 2P10 Midterm Review Cognitive Development Jean Piaget Since Piaget’s objective changed, he aims at understanding children’s development of thought Originally, he was interested in how it could be used to understand the origins of human thought Structures (Schemes) Structures are unobservable mental systems that underlie intelligence, changing with development Children are motivated to learn by a need to satisfy their curiosity Children build their representations of reality; these change with the child’s (st)age Assimilation - incorporating new information into existing schemas and the new representation of the stimuli Accommodation - rearranging of previous ideas so that they incorporate the new information Equilibration - organizations attempting to keep schemas in balance with new information Organization – new information organized in a logical way that builds on and co-exists with current knowledge Summary of Development Children intake knowledge through exploration, adjusting their understanding with assimilation, fitting new info into their organization of existing schemas, and with accommodation, modifying schemas when needed. This results in equilibration Stage Approach Each stage builds from the previous ones with a transition phase and prepares you for the next The order of stages is irreversible and cannot be skipped Sensorimotor Stage (Birth - 2 Years) Focuses on learning about the environment and how to interact with it. There are six substages Substage 1 (0 - 1 months) - Reflexes; innate schemes, used to begin to understand the world Substage 2 (1 - 4 months) - New behaviours built off of reflexes, ‘primary circular reactions’; start of intent Substage 3 (4 - 8 months) - Growing off primary reactions; ‘secondary circular reactions’; object Permanence Substage 4 (8 - 12 months) - Coordination of ‘secondary circular reactions’, the start of following goals Substage 5 (12 - 18 months) - Changes circular reactions to achieve a goal, ‘tertiary circular reactions’ Substage 6 (18 - 24 months) - Symbolic thoughts, making new meanings through thought; Deferred Imitation Preoperational Stage (2 – 7 years) Operations are mental and symbolic, derive from action, and exist in an organized system that is based on rules; they are reversible Preoperational stage is marked by the emergence of language and symbolism, but also by the use of perception rather than higher thought or logic Egocentrism: Children in this stage assume everyone else’s thoughts and opinions are the same as theirs, they aren’t able to set their perceptions aside to understand others Concrete Operational (7 - 12 years) Children understand operations, but not the underlying reasons behind them - Ex: knows that water becomes ice but not the molecular energy states aspect Formal Operational (12+ years) The child now understands how to use abstract reasoning and formal logic Achieving this stage requires Western culture Adolescents also display a discounting egocentrism  CHYS 2P10 Midterm Review Implications For Education Children should guide their own education, encouraging them to be a creator/inventor Teachers should guide children to the truth instead of telling it to them; teaching can only incline, not induce Materials and curriculum should be matched to the child’s age/stage Piaget’s Problems Other studies demonstrate that many of his tests evaluate performance skills, not mental competence Many other developmental mechanisms are thought to exist (including teaching!) The concept of homogenous stages does not appear to apply in most cases Lev Vygotsky Believes cognitive development is the result of innate/evolved mechanisms interacting with external social inputs, focusing on individual and cultural differences. Vygotsky - Sociocultural Perspective Cognitive development is a function of the culture in which one is raised Children learn to think by interacting with: 1. Their own thoughts 2. Their peers 3. With parents Language is paramount for cognitive development as it is the gateway to complex social interactions Views learning as moment-by-moment, involving specific skills, attributes, and physiological capacities Does not focus on stages, domain vs. general Zone of Proximal Development What someone can do on their own and how that can be improved by someone who can help that person - Doing things too easily gets boring whereas when it makes you sit and think it's enjoyable The Zone of Proximity is the area between one's capability and their capabilities when someone guides them A child can only learn something new if it is within reach of their current knowledge (2nd graders could learn division, but not calculus) This reach can be “extended” if someone helps them to understand the new knowledge – up to a certain point (the 2nd grader could learn long division, but only if someone helped them learn it) Scaffolding Scaffolding occurs when the more experienced partner reworks the new knowledge into something that’s easier to learn (instead of saying what’s 4-2, ask “If you had 4 apples, and I took 2, how many are left”?) Don’t use too much scaffolding (or there will be no effort required) or too little (the child can’t be successful) Scaffolding is to be slowly withdrawn (ex; you will remember how to ride a bike for life) Implications For Education Guided learning, especially when looking at the Zone of Proximal Development, may be more effective than traditional North American methods of letting students work on problems on their own Teachers should be prepared to scaffold to different levels of achievement within a single classroom – what works for the top end may not for the bottom, and vice versa When asked about who did what during guided learning, young children tend to make self-biased attributional errors – they claim to have done the activities that the instructor performed Telling themselves they don't need help from a teacher, may built their confidence and independence Meta-attention: is the knowledge of one’s attentional/concentration/focus ability Helps maintain selective attention, focusing on what’s important. reaches near-adult capability by abt age 8  CHYS 2P10 Midterm Review Memory Memory is like google - it finds the strongest (or most popular) connection based on keywords The process of retrieval strengthens the keyword-memory link, leading to possible false memories False Memory Children are more likely to form false memories for plausible events than adults New protocols for interviewing children attempt to minimize false memory through appropriate techniques Implicit Memory Implicit memory develops earlier and has a greater ability to withstand brain damage - This suggests that implicit memory is evolutionarily older than explicit memory Implicit memory matures faster as there are fewer differences between children and adults Ex: can ride a bike but can’t go into detail about what degree the handlebars turn when going left or right Explicit Memory Explicit memory is thought to be dependent on hippocampus development Hippocampus matures at approximately 18 months, in charge of long-term memory Also dependent on language, Explicit memory is Influenced by many cultural and learned factors Younger children also tend to encode routine, vs. unique, events Recall facility & frequency effects Metamemory Metamemory refers to one’s memory capacity in terms of size, speed, and accuracy Preschool children tend to overestimate their memory performance (positive self-success bias) The relationship between metacognition and cognitive performance is bidirectional Fetal Learning The earliest observations of fetal learning (and therefore memory) have occurred at 32 weeks gestation Newborn infants have been shown to prefer stimuli they were exposed to prenatally, like: – Sounds (Cat in the Hat, mother’s voice and language) – Smells (Own amniotic fluid) – Tastes (Juice mother drank – to 5.5 months) Infantile Amnesia: Inability to remember autobiographical memories from early childhood Freud & repression; encoding differences from child to adult (like a Mac to a PC); a sense of self that's missing when young; young children have poor long-term encoding We do remember, we just don't remember remembering (implicit vs explicit) What is Language? Arbitrariness: uses symbols that aren’t related to the concept they represent (eg. chein or dog) Productivity: can produce communications that are unique; can express completely novel ideas Semanticity: language represents a form of patterned information Displacement: language is independent of time, so you can talk about past, present, and future Duality: language is represented on two levels: the sounds of the language and its meaning  CHYS 2P10 Midterm Review Language Development occurs universally, and usually progresses through common stages: - crying (0-4m) - cooing/babbling (4-12) - initial words (12-18) - two-word sentences (18-36) - short sentences (2.5- 5y) - adult usage (5y+) Often also involves body gestures at an early age Phonological Development Phonological development refers to learning the sounds of a language Babbling includes a subset of language sounds and may serve a function as it appears to arise from the same neural structures as language Atypical Language Development: Can be impaired by big delays in early learning of language which makes early intervention a priority (e.g., cochlear implants) Morphological Development Free morphemes stand-alone, bound morphemes attach to free morph. Children learn rules for attaching free morphemes to bounds morphemes (adding “ed” to “talk”) Mean Length of Utterance: the number of morphemes per sentence, increasing with age/language level. Syntactic Development Syntax – rules of grammar, how words are arranged into sentences Word order can play an important role in the meaning of a sentence Negatives – children initially attach words of negation to positive sentences – Ex. “No drink milk.” or “Drink milk no.” evolve to “Drink no milk.” etc Questions are initially asked using vocal intonation, then around 3 years, “wh” words begin to be used Passive sentences – e.g. “The study was found to be significant.” – they don’t contain word order cues and are more difficult to understand by younger children. Relating events within a sentence using conjunctions doesn’t usually arise until abt 3 years - Ex, use and, but, because, while, that, which Most adult grammatical rules are learned by around 5 years Semantic Development Semantics refer to a word’s meaning There is a major spurt in word/semantic acquisition starting at around 18 months; typically after knowing 50 or so words The first 50 words are common and/or important words to a child Holophrastic Period ➡ Types of words children use (50-word vocab) Whole Object assumption – new word applies to a whole object (A dog has a furry tail, 4 legs) Taxonomic assumption – words can be generalized to a group of things (dogs can be multiple breeds) Mutual exclusivity assumption – different words refer to different things (a cat looks similar but isn’t a dog) Children use these rules/constraints along with social cues to learn semantic Over/Underextensions: Applying a word to either too big or too little a category Overextensions could be cues for scaffolding assistance to help kids decipher animals Ex: sees a coyote and calls it a dog, looking for clarification  CHYS 2P10 Midterm Review Natural Language Categories groups of words along a semantic gradient (Poodles are dogs, dogs are canines, canines are mammals etc.) Younger children have difficulty understanding global/superordinate categories - food, people, and animals seem to be common exceptions Pragmatics Development how language is actually used, particularly in social situations, being an important factor in ones identity Different speech styles are used in different situations (e.g., with friends, on a date, at Grandma’s) Communicative Competence In younger children, egocentrism/ToM can hinder conversations from lacking other people’s opinions Tends to go away after ToM is developed (more of a persistent issue for autistic children) Piaget called it collective monologues Metacommunication refers to understanding one’s communication, which improves communicative competence Preschoolers with poor meta-communication may not recognize the (poor) quality of their messages Verbal repairs indicate meta-communication awareness (4-5 yrs) Theories of Language Development Learning Theory Chomsky/Nativist Theory Social-interactionist Learning Theory Operant conditioning (Skinner) Adults shape child’s speech through reinforcement Imitation (Bandura) Criticisms: Grammar not shaped; Early errors creative, not imitated - making grammar mistakes as a kid is a creative error. Children aren’t corrected for their pronouciation Chomsky Chomsky rejected the idea that language development is solely driven by the environment Proposed that surface structure of language is what we hear when people talk, with a deep structure underlying all languages (spoken or not) The ability to detect, understand, and use deep structure in an innate species-specific ability In people, the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) processes incoming stimuli, detecting underlying patterns Nativist Theory - Chomsky - Supports for Nativist: Similarities in all human language grammars, even those that aren’t verbal Children’s ability to create a Creole language from a pidgin in one generation! Children’s ability to create their own native language from mixing languages and words to make sentences Adult Ex: adult tourist from paris asking “as tu know ou le shopping mall is” Child Ex: Nicaragua kids made their own sign language from combining languages and symbols Pidgin: mixing languages and words to form your own sentence Creole: a pidgin language that has become the native language for kids of adult pidgin speakers. Infant Directed Speech: changing speech for baby; “look baby, do you see the elephant? Thats a big trunk!”  CHYS 2P10 Midterm Review - Lenneberg Supports: Complex language is found only in humans Common to all healthy humans, requiring little formal teaching Some language disabilities are geneticIts development is difficult to derail Develops in predictable sequence Portions of the brain and throat appear specialized for language Critical Period Lenneberg proposed that there is a critical period for language development – language-deprivation in childhood does not allow for ideal language development even with intensive learning (Ex - Genie’s mom drugging her so her legs stop working, putting her in a veggie state) – Differences in grammatical competency based on age of language acquisition – Children show better language plasticity after l.h. Damage Why A Critical Period? Newport’s “Less Is More” theory suggests that children’s cognitive immaturity limits the amount of linguistic information they can process at a time This automatically breaks down and simplifies language, making it easier to learn Social Interactionist Retains some nativist concepts, but emphasizes social environment Bruner notes that IDS/CDS optimizes language learning by emphasizing contrasts, differences, and meanings while maximizing attention through posture and gestures Children do not learn extra languages through passive learning (e.g., TV) Gender Differences There is mixed evidence of women having a linguistic advantage This is due to a learned/cultural difference where girls are given more “intense” exposure to language Some early differences in language acquisition suggest that women may have innate differences