Psychology Ch 4-7.2 Notes PDF

Chapter 4 Growth follows two distinct trends: cephalocaudal, literally “head to tail”, and proximodistal, meaning from close in to farther out. Cephalocaudal: Literally “head to tail”; a development pattern in which maturation occurs from the head down. Proximodistal: Meaning “from in close to furth...

Chapter 4 Growth follows two distinct trends: cephalocaudal, literally “head to tail”, and proximodistal, meaning from close in to farther out. Cephalocaudal: Literally “head to tail”; a development pattern in which maturation occurs from the head down. Proximodistal: Meaning “from in close to further out”; a development pattern of control over trunk of body first, then moving out toward the extremities. Epiphyses: The growth area near the end of a bone: formed before the centre is formed. Secular Growth Trends: Changes in physical development from one generation to the next; for example, the fact that people in industrialized societies are larger and mature earlier than in previous generations. Sleep is essential for normal growth because about 80% of the hormone that stimulates growth, appropriately named, growth hormone, is secreted while children and adolescents sleep. Sleep also affects psychological development. Growth Hormone: a hormone, secreted by the pituitary gland during sleep, that regulates growth by triggering the release of other hormones that cause muscles and bones to grow. Puberty: A collection of physical changes that marks the onset of adolescence, such as the growth spurt and the growth of breasts or testes. Girls typically begin their growth spurt about two years before boys do. Sexual maturation includes changes in primary sex characteristics, which refers to organs that are directly involved in reproduction. Sexual maturation also includes changes in secondary sex characteristics, which are the physical signs of maturity that are not linked directly to the reproductive organs. Primary Sex Characteristics: Changes in bodily organs directly involved in reproduction (i.e., the ovaries, uterus, and vagina in girls, the scrotum, testes, and penis in boys) that are signs of physical maturity. Secondary Sex Characteristics: Physical signs of maturity in body parts not linked directly to the reproductive organs (e.g., growth of breasts in girls, the appearance of facial hair in boys, the appearance of body hair in both boys and girls.) Osteoporosis: A disease, common among women over age 50, in which the person’s bones become thin and brittle, as, as a consequence, sometimes break. Menarche: The onset of menstruation, typically occurs at about age 13. Factors such as socio-emotional stress can trigger early menarche in girls. Spermarche: The first spontaneous ejaculation of sperm-laden fluid; typically occurs around age 13. Worldwide, about one in three children under the age of five suffers from malnutrition, as indicated by being small for their age. Malnutrition: Inadequate nutrition that causes one to be small for one’s age. Especially damaging during infancy because growth is so rapid during those years. Can affect attention in school-aged children. Eating Disorders: Anorexia Nervosa: Persistent refusal to eat accompanied by an irrational fear of being overweight. Overprotective parenting is associated with anorexia. Bulimia Nervosa: An eating disorder in which individuals alternate between bingeing (eating uncontrollably) and purging through self-induced vomiting or with laxatives. Eating disorders mostly affect females. Heredity can be a factor. Picky eaters are at higher risk for developing an eating disorder. Body Dysmorphic Disorder: A disorder in which the individual is not satisfied with their body shape or the shape of a particular part of the body, often focusing on perceived muscularity. Body Mass Index (BMI): An adjusted ratio of weight to height used to define overweight. Factors that contribute to obesity in children: ● Heredity ● Parents ● Sedentary lifestyle ● Too little sleep ● Organization of the Mature Brain Neuron: A cell that is the basic unit of the brain and nervous system; specializes in receiving and transmitting information. Cell Body: The Centre of the neuron that keeps the neuron Dendrite: The end of the neuron that receives information; it looks like a tree with many branches. Axon: A slender, elongated structure that emerges from the cell body and transmits information to other neurons. Myelin: A fatty sheath that surrounds neurons in the central nervous system and allows them to transmit information more rapidly. Terminal Buttons: Small knobs at the end of an axon that release neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters: Chemicals released by terminal buttons that carry information to nearby neurons. Synapse: The gap between one neuron and the next. Cerebral cortex: The wrinkled surface of the brain that regulates many functions that are distinctly human. Hemispheres: The right and left halves of the cortex. Frontal Cortex: A brain region that regulates personality and goal-directed behavior. Neural Plate: A flat group of cells present in prenatal development that becomes the brain and spinal cord. Synaptic Pruning: Gradual loss of unused synapses, beginning in infancy and continuing into early adolescence. Electroencephalogram (EEG): A record pattern of brain waves obtained from electrodes places on the scalp. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI): A technique for measuring brain activity that uses magnetic fields to track the flow of blood in the brain. Experience-Expectant Growth: Changes in the brain from environmental influences that typically occur at specified points in development and for all children. Experience-Dependent Growth: Changes in the brain caused by experiences that are not linked to specific ages and that vary across individuals and across cultures. Chapter 5 Why is it together in one chapter: perception of the world helps us move in the world and vice versa. Studying Perception in infants Orienting: basic motor response, perceiving something through your senses. (ex: hearing test focus on one side). Reactions are slow. Habituation/Dishabituation: a form of learning, a situation where you’ve encountered a stimulus and processed it, and knowing it from there with no new information and not processing it anymore. Becoming unresponsive to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly. Auditory Threshold: The quietest sound that a person can hear. Non-nutritive sucking: sucking on a soother. Trained to suck more or less vigorously: making a cause & effect relationship. Visual preference/preferential looking: baby sitting on lap who is blind folded( person will not influence based on their preference) and people on other side (hidden) look at where the baby is looking and for how long. But what can all of this mean? We don’t know why they make the choices they make, so we have to try interpreting it. Processing it slowly or because they like it? Visual Acuity: Refers to the smallest pattern that one can distinguish reliably. Cones: Specialized neurons in the back of the eye that detect wavelength of light and, therefore, colour. Amodal: Information such as duration, rate, or intensity that is not restricted to a single mode of presentation and can be presented in different senses. Visual scanning Evoked potentials: scanning the brain (EEG), it’s a cap vs electrodes. Evoked potentials are different waves to different stimuli. Types of waves show the type of the response. Challenges with perceptual studies in non-verbal children When do you observe them? ● Arousal level: What impacts do sleep and feeding have? ● Sleep ● Feeding Temperament ● Fussy versus calm Of nonverbal infants studied, about an 80% dropout rate. ● Knowledge of infants based on the 20% that stay. So it can be biassed and is limited. Perceptual abilities in children Touch ● ● First sense to develop in the womb Simulation of touch receptors important for physical & emotional development o E.g. premature infants ● Distinguishing objects by touch alone ● Temperature, pain Taste: ● Infants distinguish sweet, sour, salty bitter (maybe umami) ● Especially acceptant of sweet, rejection of bitter ● Distinctive facial expressions ● Preferences for familiar flavours: in amniotic fluid, breastmilk Smell ● Infants show preference for mother’s scent (breast pads) ● Discriminate toys by scent (prefer vanilla to alcohol or neutral) ● Lavender distinguished from rosemary (habituation & EEG) ● Exposure to lavender produced deeper sleep less fussing, lower cortisol, and more left frontal EEG activation (approach, relax) ● Lavender scent reduced fussing in infants after a heelstick Hearing ● Good hearing in the womb: responsive to voices, music ● Preference for familiar voices ● Particular interest in speech-like sounds o Discriminate phonemes and syllables o More on language perception and development later Vision: (what does the world look like to a newborn?) ● Immature visual system, waiting for input ● Rapid development: by 4-12 months nearly adult like visual capabilities o Some of this is straight maturation o Some is experience-dependent ● Depth perception: unclear when it develops ● Some evidence of three-D perception at 3 months, but no fear reaction (heart rate increase) until after crawling for a while. Infant senses are not fully separated “infant synesthesia”: stimulation of one sensory modality can trigger activity in pathways for other modalities (e.g. seeing sounds) Intersensory Redundancy Theory: A situation in which information is presented simultaneously to different sensory modes, such as rhythm. What is perception for? Enables us to assess, respond, and move (behave) in the world safely and effectively. Perception organizes the world. Strong links between perceptual and motor development More complex perceptual processes Attention: A cognitive ability for selecting inputs for preferential processing Selective attention: ability to distinguish relevant from irrelevant stimuli Sustained attention: ability to maintain focus on specific stimuli Alternated attention: ability to switch attention from one task to another Divided attention: ability to attend to more than one task at the same time Attentional skills develop over the first 10 years ● orienting network first ● alerting network second ● executive network third ● executive network covers the attentional skills *** screen time effects on perception and motor development Cues that Babies use to perceive depth: Size Constancy: The realization that an object’s actual size remains the same despite changes in the size of its retinal image. Visual Cliff: A glass-covered platform that appears to have a “shallow” side and “deep” side; used to study infants’ depth perception. Visual Expansion: A visual cue that provides information about the distance of an object: An object fills an ever greater proportion of the retina as it moves closer; for example, a thrown ball gets closer to the face. Kinetic Cues: Visual cues in which motion is used to estimate depth. Motion Parallax: A visual cue wherein the fact that nearby moving objects move across our visual field faster than those at a distance gives information about depth and distance. Retinal Disparity: A perceptual cue to depth based on the fact that when a person views an object, the retinal images in the left and right eyes differ. Pictorial Cues: Cues for depth that depend on the arrangement of objects in the environment, so called because these same cues are used by artists to convey depth in drawings and paintings. Texture Gradient: A perceptual cue to depth based on the fact that the texture of objects changes from coarse but distinct for nearby objects to finer and less distinct for distant objects. Interposition: A perceptual cue to depth based on the fact that nearby objects partially obscure more distant objects. Linear Perspective: A cue to depth perception based on the fact that parallel lines come together at a single point in the distance. Relative Size: A perceptual cue to depth based on the fact that nearby objects look substantially larger than objects in the distance. Attention: Processes that determine which information will be processed further by an individual. They allow people to control input from the environment. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): ● Hyperactivity - Children with ADHD are unsually energetic, fidgety, and unable to keep still. ● Inattention - Children with ADHD skip from one tast to another. Difficult with concentration. ● Impulsivity- Children with ADHD often act before thinking. ● Motor Development Locomotion: The ability to move around in the world. ● Posture and balance ● Stepping ● Environmental Cues ● Coordination Skills Fine motor Skills: Motor skills associated with grasping, holding, and manipulating objects. Dynamic systems theory: A theory that views development as involving many distinct skills that are organized and reorganized over time to meet demands of specific tasks. Motor development involves dynamic systems theory. E.g walking includes maintaining balance, moving limbs, perceiving the environment, and having a reason to move. Coordinating Skills: the mastery of intricate motions requires both differentiation and integration. Differentiation: (motion) distinguishing and mastering individual skills. Integration: Linking individual motions into a coherent, coordinated whole. Cognitive Development: Piaget (chapter 6) Intelligence (according to Piaget) is a basic life function that helps you adapt to your environment. Cognitive equilibrium balanced or harmonious relationship between one's thought processes and the environment Betrayal or loss, war = disequilibrium, and how do you make sense of that, and according to Piaget that’s when we learn/grow/ process the world. Negative example, but can be positive. Interactionist model Mismatch between internal mental scheme(existing knowledge) and external environment which spurns cognitive activity and intellectual growth. Important concepts: Scheme/schema (cognitive structures)- organised pattern of thought or action used to understand experience. Things in the world context of the world. Eg: classroom behaviours (acceptable vs not). Thought of that way until something disrupts that. (initial schema: things that move are alive, but have to change it to things that unalive things can be) that is: Disequilibrium: contradictions between an individual’s thought processes and environment events. You alter your events in two ways: Accommodation: after existing schemes to better explain the experience. Common in smaller/young children. Modification of existing shemas based on new experiences. Assimilation: interpret experiences by incorporating them into existing schemes. As you get older. Doesn’t change the scheme but rather make it fit. (ex fish story, integrating new animals as a fish, based of their knowledge) Equilibration: the process by which children reorganize their schemas and, in process, move to the next developmental stage. Piaget’s 4 stages of cognitive development: can’t skip stages must go through the stages in order. By observing ability or lack of ability. Sensorimotor Stage- view that they are active explorers. Learning that they are in a world that isn’t just them. Little control over bodies, until they have the capacity to have more control. 6 substages 1. 0-1 months: reflexes become coordinated e.g., Rooting reflex 2. 1-4 months: 1st learned adaptations to the world appear- primary circular reactions e.g., thumb sucking. 3. 4-8 months: infants learn about objects through secondary circular reactions. E.g. shaking a toy to hear it rattle 4. 8-12 months: beginnings of intentional behaviour- means-ending sequencing develops eg. Moving to an obstacle to reach a toy 5. 12-18 months: children experiment with new behaviours through tertiary circular reactions. E.g. shaking toys to hear the sounds they make 6. 18-24 months: mental representation of the world e.g. deferred imitations, the start of make believe play Object permanence: The understanding, acquired in infancy, that objects exist independently of oneself. Piaget suggested that this emerges at about 8 months but is not fully developed until 18 months. Though it took so long because you have to create a mental representative, and use memory But later research suggests that OP emerges earlier; failure to search for an object may be a memory limit instead. e.g. peek-a-boo Preoperational Stage ■ 2-7 years ■ Demonstrate the ability to use symbols to represent objects and events. Researchers do this by showing scale models. (doll houses) ● 3 predominant characteristics (limitations) of preoperational thinking: Piaget focuses on what they couldn’t do rather than what they could ○ 1. Egocentrism: children demonstrating preoperational thinking are unable to adopt the perspective of another person. ■ Implicated in animism: “Teddy is feeling sad”, project onto them what they are feeling. If they are sad, then the toy is sad. (Very natural) ■ Theory of mind: the ability to understand that other people (other minds) may have knowledge, desires, or beliefs that are different from your own. ○ 2. Centration: narrowly focused thought. Children at this stage often focus on 1 dimension of a problem without considering other important aspects. ○ 3. Appearance as reality: the object’s appearance is the sole indicator of what the object is like ● Concrete operational stage ● 7-11 years ● Children begin to use mental operations to problem-solve and reason. ● Reversals are possible. ● Focused on the here and now. ● Demonstrate difficulty thinking abstractly or hypothetically. Formal operational stage ● 11 years-adulthood ● Abstract ● Hypothetic-deductive reasoning ● Theoretical vs. actual reasoning ● Fall back on concrete operational ways of thinking at times. ● More sophisticated reasoning when a task is relevant to you. ● Less careful reasoning and less careful critique of process when encountering something that is consistent with your own beliefs. ● How we CAN think … not necessarily how we DO think ● Adolescents’ cognitive abilities are greatly altered (simplified) when in emotionally intense situations. (Acting before a second thought. And find themselves in emotionally intense situations). Strengths and limitations of Piaget’s theory Piaget's evidence showed us that: ● Children need space to discover and explore; they will do this naturally when conditions permit. (consider when teaching in a classroom: too formal, maybe why they lose their interest in exploring and learning the world.) The jobs of adults is to include the resources and the way for child-directed learning. ● Children learn when their ideas about the world are disrupted- but the right amount. Can be really stressful. (only reason is to get a good grade, vs what I am actually capable of learning, develop resilience and perseverance) ● Children develop cognitive abilities at different rates (but in the same sequence): not at same time and rate but always in the same order. ● Children learn when they get feedback that directs them to problem solves themselves. (could one learn the answer for themselves vs being told.) Sometimes the solution is not correct, and then directed in the right way. Limitations: ● Piaget underestimated cognitive abilities in younger children and overestimated them in adolescents ● His model is too linear: children can demonstrate mixtures of multiple stages of thinking at once ● Piaget’s theory was ethnocentric and culture-blind, formal operations as an “ideal” goal of development is questionable. If you do not get to the “ideal” you are not complete/failed. “Led to western (higher level of thinking”: is extremely wrong. Just a reflection of western thinking. . Constructivism: The view, that children are active participants in their own development who systematically construct ever more sophisticated understandings of their worlds. Cognitive Development: Vysgotsky & others Piaget and Vygotsky both viewed children as actively constructing knowledge and skills. Piaget: Vygotsky: Cognitive developments driven mostly by internal processes; the child is an individual who explores and constructs the world (individualistic) Cognitive development is driven mostly by external forces; the child is embedded in a sociocultural context that provides tools context-specific challenges and mentors (collective) Intelligence: some think its something you are born with. But has cultural context, Thinking abilities develops in stages and unfold through biological maturation (the contents of thought result from active exploration) Thinking abilities re dependent on cultures and language. (language guides attention, organizes the world, and sets priorities) Children cannot learn certain things until they are cognitively ready to do so; readiness is a matter of natural maturation Children can learn anything within their zone of proximal development. With appropriate scaffolding (guidance, modeling, support) this zone shifts as children grow in knowledge and skill through scaffolding and practice Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development: The area in which learning happens ● ** each student has their own zone, and you have to adjust teaching to meet the zones in each student. Become self-aware of your own zone. The difference between what children can do with assistance and what they can do alone. ○ Intersubjectivity: mutually shared understanding among young people who are participating in an activity together. ○ Guided Participation: Structured interactions between a child and another more knowledgeable person; thought to promote cognitive growth. ○ Scaffolding can be done by the MKO ○ The “more knowledgeable other” (MKO) ○ Who can scaffold a child’s learning/cognitive development? Any body who knows even slightly more ○ Children look to MKO’s for feedback; important to have responsive others to grow effectively. Intuitive and spontaneously look to find their teachers. (referential looking) ○ Scaffolding can be good or bad, and what the outcomes might be. ○ ○ Sociocultural context is critical! Vygotsky believed and later researchers have confirmed that a stable sociocultural context is vital for healthy development. Develop social and cognitively! ■ ○ ● Western culture is very individualistic now. Ex: play dates, whereas before is just occurred through more interaction in everyday life. Children whose sociocultural context as been disrupted through war, parental loss, and cultural genocide are cognitively and emotionally impaired. Potential sensitive periods for aspects of cognitive development are suggest by the difficulty of overcoming such impairment. Struggle throughout their lives, and some urgency of intervening as much as possible ● Displaced/refugees, war zones, residential schools, etc. ● Impact on children of loss of language and cultures ■ - Language conveys culture: ● ■ - o Categories, meanings, priorities practises goals It takes a (cohesive) village to raise a child. ● o Loss of stable attachment figures: loss of MKO, security (stress relief), etc Private Speech: Ongoing commentary that children use that is not intended for others but rather to help children regulate their own behaviour. Inner Speech: Vygotsky’s term for thought. Information Processing Theory: A view that human cognition consists of mental hardware and mental software. Sensory Memory: a Type of memory in which information is held in raw, unanalyzed form very briefly (no longer than a few seconds) Working Memory: an ongoing cognitive activity. A type of memory in which a small number of items can be stored briefly. Long-term Memory: A permanent storehouse that had unlimited capacity for memories. Long-term memory is rarely forgotten. Central Executive: The component of the information-processing system, analogous to a computer’s operating system, that coordinates the activities of the system. Executive Functioning: A mechanism of growth that includes inhibitory processes, planning, and cognitive flexibility. Automatic Processes: Cognitive Activities that require virtually no effort. Theories on Knowledge: Connectionist Theories: IP theories that view the mind as a system of networks of processors. Core-Knowledge Theories: The view that infants are born with rudimentary knowledge of the world that is elaborated upon based on children’s experiences. Understanding Living Things: ● Movement ● Growth ● Internal Parts ● Inheritance ● Illness ● Healing A fundamental part of young children’s theory of living things is a commitment to teleological explanations Teleological Explanation: the belief that living things and parts of living things exist for a purpose. Young Children’s theories are also rooted in essentialism. Essentialism: the belief that all living things have an underlying essence that can’t be seen but that gives a living thing its identity. Understanding People Folk Psychology: Our informal beliefs about other people and their behavior. Theory of mind: an Intuitive understanding of the connections between thoughts, beliefs, intentions, and behavior; develops rapidly in the preschool years. CH 7.1 & 7.2 Memory is a representation of experience that can influence later thought or behavior. We have an experience, we encode it mentally, we retrieve it later Memory is foundational for all learning. ○ Thus, infants are born with memory ability: They can learn Rovee-Collier (1999): infant mobile kicking studies ■ Infants remembered the task for several days (not weeks) ■ Cues helped with retrieval ● Memory builds knowledge, skills, and schemas ● Pre-linguistic infants: ■ ● -limitations in how knowledge is represented; no labels or complex concepts -experiences encoded pre-linguistically may be difficult to retrieve post-linguistically: The representations are so different. ● -produces infantile amnesia ● -another factor: undeveloped sense of being a self-in-the-world Growth in memory capacity and skill is created by: ○ -brain development (maturational processes) ○ -development of language ○ -learning encoding strategies ○ -growing knowledge & schemas ● Memory (Encoding) Strategies ● Organization & chunking (grouping information) ● Elaboration (making it meaningful) ● Implicitly taught through modeling, types of assignments provided ● Not always explicitly taught ● Metacognition ● Not merely having cognitive skills, but knowing you have them. ■ -ability to reflect on and evaluate one’s cognitive abilities ● - Can enhance a child’s metacognition through explicit teaching. Unclear how much emerges naturally without encouragement to reflect & evaluate. ● Memory is supported by organized knowledge ● Networks, hierarchies, associations ● New information is integrated with previous information, enriching and modifying the organizational structure of a child’s knowledge ○ similar to Piaget’s concept of adding to (assimilation) or modifying (accommodation) schemas ● - But organized knowledge also creates expectations and assumptions that can distort new information ■ ○ -memory shifts to gist or meaning rather than details -in this sense, memory accuracy can decline with age - Memory is supposed to be “fuzzy”—to be about gist, to help us generalize ■ -we integrate new with old, changing both ■ -each time we recall something, we may integrate new information, changing the original memory ■ -impossible to confidently distinguish “true” from “false,” original from modified, memories ■ -easily lost: source memory: Details of who, what, when, where ● -even as the general idea is accurately retained Children as Witnesses ● Eyewitness memory is generally unreliable in details (but good in gist). ○ -Interrogation techniques can easily implant false memories, especially false details, in any person’s memory for an event ○ -Children are even more vulnerable to this: ■ -suggestible ■ -still learning to distinguish reality from fantasy, imagination from actuality -trusting that adult comments do reflect reality What is a problem:Any present situation that differs from a desired goal in which the solution is not immediately obvious) : part is being able to define what the problem is What is “obvious” to a problem changes with development. Problem also themselves change with development Problem-solving relies on cognitive abilities Ability to encode the relevant aspects of the problem: attention, memory, mental (symbolic) representation. o Can be mathematical, visual/graphic, analogies, lists, matrices, tree diagrams, etc. Ability to anticipate potential consequences (if-then relations) Knowledge specific to the problem (requires experience) General problem-solving strategies and tools Analytic/algorithm: systematic approaches that guarantee a solution (can be slow) e.g. YBO vs LSSTNEUIAMYOUL: How to solve anagrams. Heuristics: useful rules of thumb, short-cuts; do not guarantee a solution but can simplify the problem space. E.g. IPMHYLOD o Willingness to move apparently backward from the goal. E.g fox chicken grain riddle Changes with maturation & learning As cognitive abilities develop, children can draw on a wider range of options for problem-solving. o Efficiency and effectiveness increases Scaffolding by “more knowledgeable others” can teach problem-solving strategies through hints. E.g if you do that, what might happen? o Children are more capable than you think! But it might not be the most efficient way. Give them the space to try to figure it out on their own. Teaches them how to think through the problem. Should still be responsive Even at cognitive maturity, problem-solving can be difficult Much easier to solve problems that are represented concretely rather than abstractly. Eg. Some A are B; Some B are C therefore some A are C (abstract version) : is it valid? Insight Some problems can be solved by applying an algorithm. But sometimes they are solved via insight (“aha!”) o Relations among elements suddenly become clear A “whole” emerges from the “parts”. Kind of like an epiphany Non-insight solutions: can see whether or not success is approaching Insight solutions: cannot predict whether one is approaching success Insights occurs when A) Time is spent defining and trying solve a problem B) Space is given to walk away from the problem Can get “unstuck” from repeating ineffective solutions Allows unconscious mind/memory systems to make previously unperceived connections Allows for alternative representations or approaches Insight experiences build cognitive development Allowing children to explore in open-ended, lightly scaffolded manner, individually and collectively, can facilitate discovery. (Montessori) - Aha moments are rewarding and motivating Emphasis on “getting it right” and on deadlines can hinder opportunities for insight.