Developmental Psychology - Information Processing PDF

Preview

Summary

Includes:
- Assumptions of the Information Processing Approach
- Automatic & Effortful Processing
- Implicit & Explicit Memory
- Planning
- Oddity Problem
- Learning Rules
- Metacognition & Executive Functioning...

Description

Developmental Psychology – Information Processing What is the information processing approach? l Info. processing l Hardware: structure l Software: processes l Surely the brain is a dynamic system l new levels of functioning from lower level units - neurons l & is not a computer (digital)! l HWR info. processing approach provides terminology: l encoding, storage, processing speed etc. l No single information-processing theory of cognition l built on set of assumptions Assumptions of the information processing approach l Assumptions of the “information processing approach”: l People process information l Processing: mentally acting on information l Info. - external (to ourselves) or internal (already in our minds) l Limited capacity l Space/ Energy/ Time metaphor l Mental actions can be referred to as: l operations/ strategies/ procedures etc. l Limited capacity infers cognition is domain general - cognition draws from limited mental resources l The information processing system Processing information

l Speed of processing l Younger children need longer to process information than older children (Dempster, 1981)

l Does that mean younger children have limited processing capacity? How can children’s information processing be limited? (Brainerd, 1993) l Encoding limitations: may not encode appropriate information (i.e., may think a multiplication sign as an addition sign) l Computational limitations: may encode successfully, but may not have appropriate strategies (i.e., may not know how to multiply) l Retrieval limitations: may posses appropriate strategy, but may retrieve inappropriate strategy (i.e., addition for multiplication) l Storage limitations: may not be able to retain all appropriate information in working memory l Work-space limitations: working memory is limited, so children can only retain some information at same time Automatic & Effortful Processing l Automatic processes l No intention & conscious awareness l Does not interfere with other processes l No improvement with practise l Not influenced by individual differences in intelligence/ motivation/ education l Frequency of occurrence judgements (Hasher & Zacks, 1979) § Face recognition task – familiar or unfamiliar faces? § Rarely consciously aware of frequency faces appear, but v. accurate identifying more often seen member of pair

2

§ Kindergarten children almost as good as adults l Effortful processes l Available to consciousness l Interferes with other effortful processes l Improves with practise l Influenced by individual diffs in intelligence/ motivation/ education l Haier et al., (1992) – glucose consumption decrease as participants become more efficient at task l Haier et al., (1988) – H-ability people lower glucose consumption than L-ability people when solving tasks l Larsen et al., (1995) – comparable problem for H & L ability comparable glucose consumption How is knowledge represented? Tulving (1985) l Declarative memory (Explicit Memory): l Episodic memory: memory for episodes (e.g., birthdays) l Semantic memory: memory for language/ concepts/ rules (e.g., Marxism) l Non declarative memory (Procedural knowledge – Implicit Memory): l Unconscious (e.g., riding a bike) l Diff. areas of brain used for different memories (Schacter, 1992) Implicit & Explicit Memory l Amygdala – implicit memory (Le Doux, 1998) l Hippocampus – storing explicit info to long-term memory (Le Doux, 1998) Planning Difficulties with planning (Ellis & Siegler, 1997)

3

1. Planning needs inhibition of currently active behaviour 2. Planning takes time & children prefer to do a task quickly rather than accurately l Poorer metacognitive (evaluative) skills l May overestimate their performance 3. Planning is often seen as difficult, time consuming & unpleasant 4. Children can often fail when generating a plan - so why plan? 5. Might be more fun not to plan Research into children’s planning l Planning routes (Fabricus, 1988) l Plan route through large space to retrieve all baby animals & return them as quickly as possible to ‘mamma animal’ l Child familiarised with task l 5-yr olds engaged in forward search: had plan that meant little “backtracking” l 4-yr olds more inconsistent Problem solving as inducing rules l “if…..then” “if condition A exists, make response X; if condition B exists, make response Y” (Zelazo & Jacques, 1997) l Children induce rules as a result of experience & use rules to solve problems (DeLoache et al., 1998) Oddity problem Overman et al. (1996) l 2 similar objects & 1 odd object l Select “odd” object = candy or cereal as prize l Diff. for toddlers (16 to 31 months old)

4

l More difficult for intermediate group (32 – 60 months old) l Could learn after hundreds of trials l 6 yr olds to adults: relatively trivial task l Associative rule learning l Generalised rule – “novelty” l U shaped dev. l intermediate group – verbal instructions made task diff. due to reliance on language Learning to follow rules l Following arbitrary rules - reflection of consciousness & cognitive self control (Zelazo, 2000; Zelazo et al., 1997) l Dimensional card sorting task l Colour game & shape game l 3yr olds fail to sort by new criteria, but can tell you new rule! l Perseverative errors (Zelazo et al., 1995; Zelazo et al., 1996): children have learned a response & continue even when rules change l Reflection of poor inhibitory control l Cognitive complexity & control theory (Zelazo, 2000; Zelazo & Frye, 1997) l Ability to represent complex rule changes develops with age l Increased control of cognition/ behaviour l Frontal lobes Metacognition & Executive functioning l Metacognition: knowledge of one’s cognitive abilities l For every cognition there is a metacognition l e.g., attention & meta-attention, memory & metamemory etc.

5

l Executive functions: processes involved in planning/ monitoring (Zelazo et al., 1997) l Establishing goals l Planning course of action l Desired strategies l Monitoring progress l Damage to prefrontal cortex - disorders in decision making (Luria, 1973) l Maturation differences in development of prefrontal cortex associated with ability to problem solve (Barkley, 1997; Dempster, 1993) l Changes in synaptic density detectable in teenage years (Huttenlocher, 1990) Summary l Information Processing Approach l Provided new terminology from computer metaphor l Influenced research into the children’s cognitive development

6...