Developmental Psychology Lecture Notes PDF

# Developmental Psychology Lecture Three - Cognitive Development and Memory ## Learning objectives - Understand Piagetian and Vygostkian theories of cognitive development - Understand basic memory abilities in children ## Piaget - Constructivist - children construct knowledge through interaction...

# Developmental Psychology Lecture Three - Cognitive Development and Memory ## Learning objectives - Understand Piagetian and Vygostkian theories of cognitive development - Understand basic memory abilities in children ## Piaget - Constructivist - children construct knowledge through interaction with the environment - Schemes - organised ways of making sense of experience that change with age - Initially action-based (motor patterns) then related to mental activity ## Piaget - Schemes - Schemes change by two processes - **Adaptation** - **Assimilation** - use current schemes to interpret the external world (equilibrium) - **Accommodation** - adjust old schemes to better fit environment (disequilibrium) - **Organisation** - Rearranging and linking schemes to form an interconnected system ## Piaget - Stages - Children progress through qualitatively different stages - Stages are universal and invariant ### Four stages - **Sensorimotor** - birth - 2 years - **Pre-operational** - 2-7 years - **Operational** - 7-11 years - **Formal operational** - 11 years and up ### Sensorimotor stage - Birth - 2 years - Building schemas through sensory and motor exploration - Six substages - Reflexes; circular reactions - Important milestones - Object permanence (8-12 months) - 'A' not 'B' task (12 - 18 months) ## Pre-operational stage - 2-7 years ### Achievements - Massive increase in mental representation - Make-believe play - Drawings develop from scribbles to pictures - Symbolism (~ 3 years) ### Limitations - **Egocentrism** - Failure to understand others' viewpoints may differ from own - Inability to conserve - Difficulty with hierarchical classification ## Concrete operational stage - 7-11 years ### Achievements - Ability to conserve - Ability to classify and categorise - Seriation possible - ordering by length or weight - Spatial reasoning (e.g. maps, directions) - Understanding of second-order false belief ### Limitations - Poor abstract thought ## Formal operational stage - 11 years - Capacity for thought - Scientific thinking - Thinking about theories, isolating variables, and seeking evidence for confirmation - Hypothetical reasoning - Start with general idea and rule out possibilities - Propositional thought - Evaluate the logic of statements without needing real-world scenario ## Evaluation of Piaget's theory ### Strengths - Influence on education - Children as active participants in development - 'Readiness' of children to learn tasks - Rich description of how children develop - Provided 'platform' for future research ### Criticisms - Inattention to social and cultural influences - Underestimated timings of some achievements - Cognitive development may not be so stage-like and domain general as Piaget thought ## Vygotsky's sociocultural theory - Cognition is based on social interaction and language - Focus on the role of culture (values, beliefs, customs, skills of social group) - Agreed with Piaget about infants constructing knowledge but thought that cognitive development was socially mediated ## Vygotsky - key concepts - **Private speech** - Language as basis for higher cognitive processes - **Scaffolding** - Adjust support relative to performance - **Guided participation** - Shared endeavour between expert and novice - **Zone of proximal development (ZPD)** - Range of tasks possible only with help of others ## Evaluation of Vygotsky's theory ### Strengths - Highlights the role of culture - Highlights the value of teaching ### Weaknesses - Vague in explanations of change ## What is memory? - The ability to encode, store, and retrieve information - "Without memory we would be condemned to live in a narrowly circumscribed present, but this present would not even seem to be our own, for there can be no sense of self without memory" ## Working memory - Our mental notepad - Limited capacity - Storage and processing of information over very short durations (seconds) ## Long term memory - **Declarative** - conscious recall - **Semantic memory** - knowledge about the world - **Episodic memory** - information specific to a time or place - **Procedural** - unconscious recall - Motor skills ## Memory - storing information ### Strategies - **Rehearsal** - Children < 7 years do not use spontaneously - Initially use less effectively, e.g. word list - **Organisation** - From ~ 8 years - Young children use everyday associations - Older children use taxonomic categories, e.g. 'vehicles' - When they start using these strategies, young children initially show utilisation and control deficiencies ## Memory - retrieving information ### Fuzzy-Trace Theory (Brainerd and Reyna) - Verbatim vs gist memory - Verbatim memory decays faster - Younger children rely more on verbatim, older children rely more on gist - Preschoolers mean memory scores were roughly 0.65 on verbatim tests and 0.55 on gist tests - Second graders mean memory scores were roughly 0.7 on verbatim tests and 0.8 on gist tests ## Memory and knowledge ### Chi (78) - Tested children and adults on digit span task and memory for chessboard positions - Children were experienced chess players - Children's mean number of items recalled was roughly 9 for chess positions and 6 for digits - Adults mean number of items recalled was roughly 6 for chess positions and 8 for digits ## Eyewitness memory - Children increasingly appearing in court - Compared to older children, young children's free recall of events is as accurate but less complete - However, several factors can compromise accuracy, especially in younger children - Misleading questions - Repeated questions - Source monitoring errors - Importance of training - Achieving best evidence - police guidelines