What is the information processing approach?
Analyzes how children manipulate information, analyze it and create strategies for handling it.
What limits information processing in children?
Capacity, speed and ability to manipulate information
What are cognitive resources?
Capacity
Speed of processing
Have an important influence on memory and problem solving
What are three mechanisms that Robert Siegler described that work together to create changes in cognitive skills?
- Encoding
- Automaticity
- Strategy Construction
What is encoding?
the process by which information gets into memory
what is automaticity?
The ability to process information with little or no effort
What is Strategy Construction?
The creation of new procedures for processing information
How is the information-processing theory different to piaget’s theory?
IPT: gradual, continuous development
- more focus on ongoing cognitive activity (encoding and strategies)
What are the four allocations of attention?
Selective Attention
Divided attention
Sustained attention
Executive Attention
What is selective attention?
focusing on a specific relevant aspect of experience while ignoring those that are irrelevant
What is Divided attention?
Concentrating on more than one activity at the same time
What is Sustained attention (vigilance)?
The state of readiness to detect and respond to small changes occurring at random times in the environment
What is executive attention?
Involves action planning, allocating attention to goals, error detection, aand compensation, monitoring progress on tasks and dealing with novel or difficult circumstances
How is attention seen in infancy?
-Orienting/investigative process.
new stimuli typically elicit an orienting response followed by sustained attention
-Habituation and dishabituation
-joint attention
What is habituation and dishabituation?
Habituation: decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentation of the stimulus
Dishabituation: recover of a habituated reponse after a change in stimuli (trading toys out ever couple months)
What is Joint Attention? What three things does it require?
Individuals focus on the same object or event
Requires:
1. an ability to track anothers behaviour such as following someones gaze
2. One person directing another’s attention
3. Reciprical attention
What two aspects of attention do young children make the most advancement in?
-executive
-sustained
Gain more control in attention
What are the basic processes required for memory?
Encoding
storage
retrieval
What is the difference between short-term memory and long term memory?
Short-Term: 15-30 seconds
Long-term: relatively permanent and unlimited
What is working memory?
mental workbench where individuals manipulate and assemble information when they make decisions. solve problems and comprehend written and spoken language
What are the two short-term stores?
One for speech and one for visual and spatial information
What is the central executive in memory?
Monitors and controls the system
What is the episodic buffer?
Stores information in a multidimensional code. linking working memory to perception and longterm memory
What is the schema theory?
People mold memories to fit information that already exists in their minds. Guided by schemas
What is the Fuzzy Trace Theory?
Proposed by brainerd and Reyna
-Individuals encode information they create a verbatim memory trace (precise detail) and a fuzzy trace or gist (the central idea)
What are the first memory ideas?
Rovee-Collier: infants 2-6months remember perceptual-motor information through ages 1-1/2 to 2
Mandler: Argued that the infants in Rovee-Colliers experiments display only implicit memory ie memories of automatic skills and routine procedures
Bauer: Explicit memory doesn’t occur until the second half of the first year
What are two theories as to why most adults don’t remember anything before the third year?
- Memories from the first few years of life cannot be fully encoded in a manner that enables later retrieval until language, theory of mind and/or cofnitive self emerges
- Neurogenesis- the ongoing addition of new neural connections that occurs in the hippocampus for several years after birth - interferes with the ability to form enduring memories
What was Jean Mandler’s opinion on thinking in infancy?
- Early categorizations are best described as perceptual (size, colour)
- Conceptual categories formed around 7-9 months (types of cars types of chairs)
- advances in processing information - through attention, memory, irritation and concep formation - much richer and more gradual and less stagelike and occurs earlier than piaget thought
What is executive functioning?
Higher-level cognitive processes linked to prefontal cortex such as goal directed behaviour, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and self control
When does working memory and inhibition occur?
Age 5
When does cognitive flexibility occur?
age 7
What is critical thinking?
thinking reflectively and productively and evaluating evidence
- ask not what but how and why
- compare and judge
- evaluate rather than just accepting an answer
What is one way to encourage students to think critically?
present them with controversial topics or both sides of an issue and allow them to discuss
What is mindfulness in regards to thinking?
Being alert, mentally present and cognitively flexible while going through life’s everyday activities
What is scientific thinking?
Aimed at identifying causal relationships
What two tools do children use to solve problems?
Analogies (bear is to cub as cat is to kitten)
Strategies (eeny meeny miney mo)
What is the dual-process model in regards to decision making?
States that decision making is influenced by two cognitive systems:
- analytical (schema, bias, normative)
- experiential (procedural and episodic memory)
What is the Theory of Mind?
Awareness of one’s own mental processes and the mental processes of others
What are three mental states that infants understand between 18months to 3 years?
- Perceptions
- Emotions
- Desires
When do children understand perceptions?
by 2 years