PSYB20 Chapter Notes (9-15) PDF

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Chapter 9: Information-Processing Perspectives and Connectionism Information Processing ● Information-processing theory: proposes that human cognition consists of mental hardware and mental software ● Mental hardware has 3 components: sensory memory, working memory, and long term memory ○ Sensory memory: where information is held in raw, unanalyzed form (no longer than a few seconds) ○ Working memory: the site of ongoing cognitive activity (RAM) ○ Long-term memory: limitless, permanent storehouse of knowledge of the world (hard drive) ■ Includes facts, personal events, and skills ■ Information in long-term memory is rarely forgotten, though it is sometimes hard to access ● Central executive: computer’s operating system ○ Central executive moves info from working memory to long-term memory, selects strategies that are needed to accomplish particular goals, and executes needed responses. ● Implements different strategies just like the computer to accomplish different tasks

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How Information Processing Changes with Development ● Better strategies: older children usually use better strategies to solve problems ○ Develop strategies that are faster, more accurate and easier ■ Ex. look row by row for parents instead of looking at the room generally ○ Parents help kids learn strategies ■ By providing hints and structuring actions, adults demonstrate new strategies and how best to use them ○ Learn by watching other skilled children ● Increased capacity of Working Memory ○ Compared to younger children, it’s as if older children have more working memory “chips” to allocate mental software and information storage ■ Older children outperform younger children on tasks where memory is important ● More effective inhibitory process and effective functioning ○ Inhibitory process: prevent task-irrelevant information from entering working memory ■ Older children - fewer disruptions from irrelevant stimulation and, therefore, more efficient working memory ○ Executive functioning ■ Synonymous with skilled problem solving ■ Good problem solving usually involves a plan and often requires flexibility (the ability to respond differently when the old response no longer works) ■ Ability to inhibit irrelevant responses ■ Linked to brain regions of… ● Frontal cortex - known to develop through infancy and childhood ● With age, children are better able to inhibit irrelevant responses and formulate effective plans ● Increased automatic processing ○ Automatic processing: cognitive activities that require virtually no effort ■ Ex. driving ■ Children have limited experiences in tasks, so they perform few processes automatically ■ Younger children must think about all or most of the process, taxing or even exceeding the capacity of their working memory ● Increased speed of processing ○ Age differences in processing speed are critical when specified number of actions must be completed in a fixed period of time ● Combined result of these mechanisms is a steady age-related increase in cognitive skills Core-Knowledge Theories ● Core-knowledge theories: propose distinctive domains of knowledge, some of which are acquired very early in life ○ Knowledge is seen as a whole but there are also specified forms of knowledge

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Most children acquire some kinds of knowledge relatively easily and early in life ■ Ex. learning knowledge ○ Some forms of knowledge are so important for human survival that specialized systems have evolved to simplify learning of those forms of knowledge ■ Ex. language is important to communicate ■ Ex. understanding body language and people Some core-knowledge theorists believe that… ○ They’re pre-wired to analyze one kind of data very efficiently (numbers and images, respectively, for the computer) but nothing else ■ Ex. language - sensitive to speech sound and is prewired to derive grammatical rules from sequences of words ○ Children’s theories are focused on core domains ■ Don’t start from scratch, a few innate principles provide the starting point ■ Some root principles include… ● Cohesion- the idea that objects move as connected wholes ○ There are specialized mental structures... ■ Acquiring knowledge in each of these domains (physics, psychology, and biology) has been central to human existence: ● Naive physics allow children to predict where and how objects will move in the environment ● Naive psychology makes for more successful interactions with others ● Naive biology is important for avoiding predators and maintaining health

○ Socio-cultural: approach expands the focus of cognitive development research from a solitary child to one who is surrounded by people and the culture they represent Information-processing perspective: expands the focus of developmental mechanisms from accommodation and assimilation to working memory, processing speed, and other mechanisms derived from mental hardware and software Core-knowledge theories: expands the focus to recognize distinct domains of evolutionary significant knowledge Being able to categorize is an important skill for young children

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By knowing that an object belongs to a category, we learn some of its properties, including what it can do, and where we’re likely to find it

Understanding Objects and Their Properties ● Naive psychology: refers to our informal beliefs about other people and their behaviour ● Naive psychology allows us to predict how people act ● Children often understand people’s behaviour is often international - designed to achieve a goal ● Understanding of intentionality ○ Ex. “over the barrier” study → infants (10 months) were surprised to reach the ball with the “over the barrier” method when the barrier was removed → easier to grab it directly ● Regions of the brain that control goal-related motions (ex. Grasping a cup) often become active in the infant’s brain before the adult achieves a goal - the infant know what goal the adult has in mind ● Theory of mind: between the ages 2-5 children developed this, a naive understanding of the relation between mind and behaviour ○ Moves through 3 phases during preschool years ■ 2 year olds → children are aware of desires ● Link desires to their behaviour ● Children understand that they and other people have desires and desires can cause behaviour ■ 3 year olds ● Clearly distinguish the mental world from the physical world ■ By 4 years old, understand that their own and other people’s behaviour is based on their beliefs about events and situations, even when those beliefs are wrong ● False-belief tasks ○ Situation set up so the child being tested has accurate info but someone else does not ○ Ex. children know that the marble is in the box but Sally (person in the story) thinks the marble is in the basket ■ 3 year olds → know that the marble is in the box so Sally will check in the box ■ 4 year olds → know that the marble is in the box, but since they know Sally thinks the marble is in the basket, they believe she will check the basket ● Children now “realize that people not only have thoughts and beliefs, but also that thoughts and beliefs are crucial to explaining why people do things;that is, actors’ pursuits of their desires are inevitably shaped by their beliefs about the world

Chapter 10: intelligence: Measuring Mental Performance Psychometric Theories ● Psychometricians: psychologists who specialize in measuring psychological characteristics such an intelligence and personality ○ Look for patterns in performance across the different tests ○ If changes in performance on one psychological test are accompanied by changes in performance on a second test - that is, if the scores move together then the tests appear to measure the same attribute or factor ● Intelligence ○ Charles Spearman → general intelligence (g): intelligence is consistent, smart children will always get high scores and less smart children will always get lower scores ○ Thrustone and Thurstone → acknowledged general factor of intelligence that operated in all tasks but emphasized that specific factors were more useful in assessing and understanding intellectual ability ■ 7 distinct patterns: perceptual speed, word comprehension, word fluency, space, number, memory, and induction ○ John Carroll ■ Hierarchical theory with 3 levels ■ At the top is g, general intelligence ■ Middle level are 8 broad categories of intellectual intelligence ● Fluid intelligence: refers to the ability to perceive relations among stimuli ■ Each of the abilities on the second level are divided into skills listed in the bottom and most specific ● Crystallized intelligence: comprises a person’s culturally influenced accumulated knowledge and skills understanding printed language, comprehending language, and knowing vocabulary

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Carroll → compromise between 2 views of intelligence

Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences ● Instead of looking at test scores to build his theory, Gardner looked at… ○ Child development ○ Studies of brain-damaged persons ○ Studies of exceptionally talented people ● Identified 7 distinct intelligences ○ 1. Linguistic intelligence ○ 2. Mathematical intelligence ○ 3. Spatial intelligence ■ First three are included in psychometric theories of intelligence ○ 4. Musical ○ 5. Body-kinesthetic ○ 6. Interpersonal ○ 7. Intrapersonal ○ 8. Naturalistic ○ 9. Existential intelligences ■ Last 6 are not included in psychometric theory - unique to Gardener’s theory

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How did Gardner arrive at the 9 distinct intelligences? ○ 1. Each has a unique developmental history → ex. Linguistic intelligence develops much earlier than the other 8 ○ 2. Each intelligence is regulated by distinct regions in the brain, as shown by studies of brain-damaged persons ■ Spatial intelligence → regulated by particular regions in the brain’s right hemisphere ○ 3. Each has special cases of talented individuals ■ Ex. music → well known for individuals with incredible talent that’s apparent at an early age (piano prodigies etc.)

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Emotional intelligence: the ability to use one’s own and others’ emotions effectively for solving problems and living happily ○ Major model if emotional intelligence includes… ■ Perceiving emotions accurately (ex. Recognizing happiness) ■ Understanding emotions (ex. Distinguishing happiness from ecstacy) ■ Regulating emotions (ex. Hiding one’s disappointment) 1

Implications for Education ● Gardner believes that schools should foster all intelligences, rather than the traditional linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences ○ Teachers should know the child’s strengths and weaknesses Sternberg’s Theory of Successful Intelligence ● Analytic ability: involves analyzing problems and generating different solutions ● Creative ability: involves dealing adaptively with novel situations and problems ● Practical ability: involves knowing what solution or plan will actually work ● Successful intelligence is revealed in people’s pursuit of goals ● Intelligence includes analytic, creative, and practical abilities, but these may not be completely independent

● Binet and the Development of Intelligence Testing ● Children’s mental age or MA: referred to the difficulty of the problems that they could solve correctly ○ Ex. a child who solved problems that the average 7 year old could pass would have an MA of 7 ● Used MA to distinguish “bright” from “dull” children ○ 6 year old with MA of 9 is considered bright ● The Stanford-Binet ○ Intelligence quotient or IQ: the ratio of mental age to chronological age, multiplied by 100 ■ IQ=MA/CA x 100 ■ Two thirds of children → 85 and 115 ■ 95% → score between 70 and 130

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When children perform at the average of their age = 100 → MA matches their chronological age IQ scores are now determined by comparing their test performance to that of others their age ○ Children who perform above the average have IQs greater than 100; children who perform below the average have an IQ less than 100 ○ Modern stanford-binet consists of various cognitive and motor tasks, ranging from extremely easy to extremely difficult ■ Test administered is dependent on age (ranges from 2 years to adulthood) ● Ex. pre-school → asked to match pictures ● Ex. adulthood → asked to define vocabulary words ■ Based on a person’s performance, a total IQ score is calculated, along with scores measuring 5 specific cognitive factors: ● Fluid reasoning ● Knowledge ● Quantitative reasoning ● Visual spatial processing ● Working memory ○ 6-16 year olds: Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV or WISC-IV ■ Includes subsets for verbal and performance skills ■ Based on their performance, children receive an overall IQ score as well as scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed Stanford-Binet and WISC-IV are alike in that they are administered to one person at a time ○ Individual testing optimizes the motivation and attention of the child and provides an opportunity for a sensitive examiner to access factors that may influence test performance

Infant Tests ● Bayley Scales of Infant Development ○ Designed for the use with 1 to 42 month olds ○ The Bayley Scales consists of 5 scales: ■ Cognitive ■ Language ■ Motor ● Ex. assess an infant’s control of its body, coordination, and ability to manipulate objects ○ 6 months - turn head towards the object ○ 12 months - imitate the examiner’s actions ○ 16 months - build tower from 3 blocks ■ Social-emotional

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Adaptive behaviour

Sustainability of IQ Scores ● If intelligence is a stable property of a child, then scores obtained at younger ages should predict IQ scores at older ages ○ HOWEVER, scores from infant intelligence tests are not related to IQ scores obtained later in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood. ○ 18 to 24 months of age → infant IQ scores predict later IQ scores ■ Why? ● Infant tests measure different abilities than tests administered to children and adolescents: ○ Infants test place more emphasis on sensorimotor skills and less on tasks involving cognitive processes such as language, thinking, and problem solving ○ Habituation: a measure of information processing ■ Predicts later IQ more effectively than do scores from the Bayley ■ Avg. correlation between habituation and IQ in childhood is approx 0.5. ● Infant’s information-processing efficiency was correlated 0.34 with their intelligence as young adults ● Infants who habituate to visual stimuli more rapidly tend to have higher IQs as children and adults ○ Ex. children who think “I’ve seen this picture before, let’s see something new!” are smarter during their elementary school years

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Bayley scales, why are they used? ○ Important diagnostic tools ■ Researchers and health care professionals use scores from the Bayley Scales to determine whether development is progressing normally

What Do IQ Scores Predict? ● IQ scores predict school grades, scores on achievement tests, and number of years of education; the correlations are usually between .5 and .7. ○ Tests are not perfect but they do a reasonable job of predicting school success ● Predicts occupational success ○ High IQ = higher occupations Improving Predictions with Dynamic Testing ● Dynamic testing: measures a child’s learning potential by having the child learn something in the presence of the examiner with the examiner’s help ○ Measures new achievement rather than past achievement ○ Based on Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development ■ Ex. basketball camp - they test you at first to see where you’re at and over the week, they’ll help you improve. This shows your potential. ○ Traditional static testing (testing a child once and from that, we give them an overall score) and dynamic testing (teaching a child and accumulating scores over a given time) work together to achieve a more comprehensive view of a child’s talents rather than relying on one method alone Hereditary and Environmental Factors ● Genes influence intelligence → siblings' test scores should become more alike as siblings become more similar genetically ○ Ex. identical twins are identical genetically, they typically have virtually identical test score, which would be a correlation of 1 ● Environment influences intelligence as well ○ Three researches show this... ■ Research on characteristics of families and homes ● Many characteristics of parents’ behaviour and home environments are related to children’s intelligence ○ High test scores = come from homes that are well organized and have plenty of appropriate play materials ■ Intelligence is also implicated by a dramatic rise in IQ test scores during the 20th century ● Scores in WISC increased by nearly 10 points over a 25-year period ○ Changes may be due to… ■ Smaller better educated families with more leisure time

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Movies, television, and computers provide a wealth of virtual experience ■ IQ scores are striking at the lower end of distribution ● Fewer children are receiving very low IQ scores, which may show the benefits of improved health care, nutrition, and education for children who had limited access to these resources in previous generations ○ Importance of stimulating environment for intelligence is also demonstrated by intervention programs that prepare economically disadvantaged children for school ■ Providing pre-school for economically disadvantaged children better prepares them for kindergarten ■ High-quality head start programs are effective overall ● Kids in these programs are healthier and do better in school ● Kids in these programs are less likely to repeat a grade or to be placed in special educational classes, and they are more likely to graduate from high school Carolina Abecedarian Project ○ 111 children - most were born to African Ameircan mothers who had less than a HS education, an average IQ score of 85, and typically no income ■ Control group: given no special attention ■ Treatment: attended a special day-care facility daily from age 4 months to 5 years ● Curriculum emphasized mental, linguistic, and social development for infants, and pre reading skills for preschoolers ■ Elementary school and high school - children in intervention program had higher scores in cognitive tests ■ Adults enrolled in the first year of the project → 4x more likely attended college, 3x more likely to have skilled employment Intelligence is fostered by stimulating and responsive environment

Impact of Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status ● Ethnic groups differ in their average scores on many intelligence tests: Asian Americans tend to have the highest scores, followed by European Americans, Hispanic Americans, and African Americans ● Economically advantaged homes tend to have higher test scores than children from economically disadvantaged homes - European American and Asian American families tend to be more economically advantaged whereas Hispanic and African American families were more likely to be economically challenged

A Role for Genetics ● There is no evidence that some ethnic groups have more “smart genes” than others ○ The environment is largely responsible for these differences Experience with Test Contents ● Culture-fair intelligence tests: include test items based on experiences common to many cultures ○ Ex. Raven’s progressive matrices ■ Examinees are asked to select the piece that would complete the design correctly ● However, ethnic group differences still remain in performance

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Test-related items is not the key factor responsible for group differences in performance

Stereotype Threat ● Stereotype threat: self-fulfilling prophecy in which knowledge of stereotypes leads to anxiety and reduced performance consistent with the original stereotype Gifted and Creative Children ● Gifted: traditionally has referred to individuals with scores of 130 or greater on intelligence tests Creativity ● Convergent thinking: using information that is provided to determine a standard, or correct answer ● Divergent thinking: where the aim is not a single correct answer (often ther...