Cognitive Development and Social Attachment

1. Cognitive Development and Social Attachment

2. Self-recognintion • Initial self recognition is assessed using the “rouge” test • At: • 9 - 12 months all infants reach for reflection • 15 months 25% reach for own face • 21 months 75% reach for own face • Emerges early in the second year • Firmly in place by 24 months • Controversy Institute for the Study of Child Development at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School http://www.tc.columbia.edu/academic/humandevelopment/dev_psy/facultybrooks.htm

3. Piaget and Stages • Significance of Piaget • Concerns • Method: “clinical method” • Stages • Universality • Accuracy

4. Schema Processes • Adaptation • Organization

5. Adaptation • Dealing with new information Involves direct interactions with the environment to maintain equilibrium • Two aspects of adaptation are assimilation and accommodation • Assimilation: interpret new information in terms of current schemes (fitting in) • Accommodation: we create new schemes for new information (building) • These two processes are always working together

6. Organization • Rearranging and linking schemes into interconnected networks • Internal process

7. Psychophysiology and Cognition • As our brain matures, the cognitive structures we are capable of creating changes qualitatively • The changes map onto four stages of cognitive development: • sensorimotor (0 - 2 years) • preoperational (2 - 7 years) • concrete operations (7 - 12 years) • formal operations (12+ years)

8. Sensorimotor Stage • Characteristics • Non thinking stage • Focus on using sensory systems • Ends with the first signs of thought • Beginning of Symbolic Thought: 18 – 24 months • thinking problems through before acting • symbolic play – using one thing to stand for something else

9. Object Permanence • Up through 8 months • No evidence of • 8 – 12 months • Will search for object but often search where object was found previously • Visible displacements are not incorporated into search • May ask for objects that are gone (where is Rover?) • 12 – 18 months • Can handle visible displacements • After 18 months of age • Can handle invisible displacements • More current research suggests that babies know more about object permanence than they reveal through their actions • May not be able to inhibit reaching behavior

10. Preoperational Stage • Characteristics • During this stage children cannot decenter their thinking (centration) • They can not consider more than one aspect of a situation at one time • This results in some consistent errors in thinking • Egocentrism • No “theory of mind” • secret knowledge” tasks • Children do not recognize that others do not know ‘secret’ information

11. Lack of Conservation • Conservation is an understanding that basic physical dimensions of objects remain the same, despite superficial changes in appearance • Preoperational children cannot solve conservation problems

12. Transformation, Classification and Symbolic Play • Transformation • Unable to see events as made up of smaller events • Classification – thinking of objects in terms of categories • Can classify by single categories i.e. color • Struggle with separating sub-categories and super-categories • Symbolic play • Any prop can be anything

13. Reasoning • Transductive • all examples are treated equally • Tell pre-schoolers to line up by height • Syncretism • Illogical thinking or errors in thought • Animism – difficulty determining what is alive and not alive • Tend to view motion as evidence of life i.e. sun • Magic and the Supernatural • Belief in fantasy figures is strongest between the ages of 3 and

14. Concrete Operational Stage • 5-to-7 Shift • Spans the elementary school years • A number of mental operations are evident including reversibility and decentration

15. Problem Solving Strategy Assessment • First investigated by Robert Siegler using a two-arm balance scale • Found evidence of four strategies • one-dimensional, exclusive-focus • one-dimensional, sequential • two-dimensional, non-compensatory • two-dimensional, compensatory

16. Horizontal Decalage and Seriation • Horizontal decalage • Cannot apply a concept effectively in all appropriate situations • Learning conservation • Numbers • Length • Mass • Seriation • Transitivity

17. Formal Operational Stage • Abstract reasoning skills emerge during this stage • Adolescent thinking is more flexible and speculative • Adolescent thinking is also more systematic and logical • This stage may emerge later than Piaget suggested

18. Adolescent Egocentrism • Elkind identified two components • Imaginary Audience • collection of individuals who might be evaluating various aspects of the adolescent’s behavior • Personal fable • perception of self as unique • perception of self as invincible

19. Adolescent Idealism • Ability to distinguish the real from the possible may lead to idealism • Reform the world? • Get caught up with movements • Become somewhat sociocentric • However may also be somewhat hypocritical • Join the stop pollution walk-a-thon and throw candy wrappers in the ditch

20. Post-Formal Thought • This is not part of Piaget’s theory • It extends cognitive development into the adult years • Relativistic thinking • involves consideration of multiple facets of a situation or assessing situations using multiple perspectives • Dialectic thought • involves seeing both sides of an issue at once • Recognizes more than one solution may exist for any given problem • Constantly reshaping thought • Committed to the best that can be known at the time

21. Challenges to Piaget • Underestimates younger minds • May be mentally capable of task but can’t perform task • Says development happens doesn’t explain how • Understates importance of social interactions • Adulthood and cognition • Kuhn, 1979 – approximately half of the adult population may never attain the full stage of formal thinking • May be limited to formal thinking in field of expertise

22. Development of Wisdom • pragmatic knowledge used in the conduct of life • Adults averaging age 66 outperformed younger and older adults on wisdom related cognitive tasks

23. Changing Thought Processes

24. Adolescence • Can learn abstract and complex content

25. Adulthood • Early to middle adulthood • Maintain learning skills well • Middle to late adulthood • Moderate declines • Motivation, relevance, meaning • Later in adulthood requires longer period of learning and significant decline in verbal learning • Retention

26. Memory in Infancy • Habituation is evidence of recognition memory • Rovee-Collier, 1997 • Take longer (more trials) to learn • Can retain only for short periods • 2 months = 2 days • 2-4 weeks after forgetting • hint and will remember • context specific and content specific • 3 months = 1 week • 6 months = 2 weeks • 8-12 months = pure recall emerges consistent with development of object permanence • Short-term memory shows continued improvement through to adolescence

27. Changes from preschool through to adolescence • Throughout the childhood years there is an increase in attention span and the ability to selectively focus attention • May be due, in part, to maturation of the central nervous system – reticular activation system • Increased speed of processing - myelinization

28. Increase in short-term (working) memory capacity • In preschool children memory span is typically 4 - 5 items • In pre-adolescents memory span is typically 6 - 7 items • In adolescents memory span is typically 7 - 8 items • Increase may be due to increased efficiency (automatization)

29. Increase in general knowledge base • Makes events or information more understandable • When information is meaningful, or can be linked to other information, it is more easily remembered • Child “experts” can outperform adults on memory tasks (Chi, 1978) • May have more space in working memory to direct toward chunking

30. Memory Changes During the Adult Years • Challenges for aging minds • Retrieval takes longer • Decrease in working memory • Deficit in performance on timed tasks • Slower in learning unfamiliar tasks • More important factors may be health and cohort • Part of the slow down may be due to a general decrease in the speed of neural function

31. Developmental Trends • 3-year-olds don’t use any consistent strategy • 4-5 year old shift to 1DE • 9-year-olds 50% 1DS, 50% 2DN • 12-year-olds 2DN • College students 2DN • 30% of adults spontaneously use a 2DC • Typically, individuals can execute and master the next level strategy, if it is explained to them, Vygotski

32. Problem solving in Adulthood • Traditional tasks on tests • Young adults outperform elderly adults • Everyday tasks • Middle adults outperform young and elderly adults

33. Adolescence • IQ stabilizes • Powerful environmental changes could have an impact on IQ • IQ and school • +.50 correlation • higher IQ lower dropout rate

34. Changes in IQ During Adulthood • Generally, older adults score lower on IQ tests, compared to younger adults • May be due to a decline in ability or may be due to cohort effects • In both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies age and cohort effects are entangled • Cross-sectional studies of intelligence across the lifespan compare different cohorts • Longitudinal studies of intelligence across the lifespan only study one cohort • Sequential testing allows cohort effects to be separated from age effects

35. Findings from Sequential Studies • Fluid intelligence declines gradually after young adulthood • Crystallized intelligence increases with age

36. Predictors of decline • Health • Terminal Drop • Unstimulating environment • Use it or lose it

37. Issues • Culture bias • Motivation • Nutritional • Mental Retardation • Giftedness • Terman’s Termites

38. Regarding Cognition and Aging • Schaie (1977/78) • Instead of thinking about changes in cognition ability, think about changes in function of cognition • Young adulthood (achieving stage) • Middle adulthood (responsibility stage) • Middle-late adulthood (executive stage) • Late adulthood (reintegrative stage) • Intellectual changes consist of orientation and emphasis in how intelligence is applied, not intellectual decline

39. Attachment (Bowlby): • An affectionate tie formed between two individuals • Binds them together, and endures over time • Universal aspect of development • Requires the opportunity for the parent and child to develop mutual, interlocking patterns of behavior • Most adults respond instinctively to infants, and vice versa • Theoretical Underpinning • Attachment only occurs when the behaviors become interlocking “synchrony”

40. Synchrony: • The smoother and more predictable the synchronous routines become, the stronger the attachment • Attachment may be jeopardized if either partner is not “good” at the synchronous exchanges

41. Phases of Attachment • Undiscriminating responsiveness: • Birth to 2 or 3 months of age (faces) • Discriminating responsiveness: • 2 or 3 months to 6 or 7 months (“familiars”) • Active Proximity Seeking: • 6 or 7 months to 36 months • Actively seeks contact with specific individuals • Goal-Directed Partnerships: • 3+ years • At this point relationships take on more of a give-and-take quality http://www.hmhb.org/wpb/Images/mother-baby.jpg

42. Components of Attachment • Separation Anxiety: • Emerges at about 8 months of age • Peaks at about 18 months of age • Universal aspect of development • Stranger Anxiety: • At 7 or 8 months an infant may stare at strangers, then turn away • By 10 months infants may cry if strangers approach or try to pick them up • Not a universal part of development • Some infants never show stranger anxiety

43. Assessing Attachment • Strange Situation (Ainsworth) • Total procedure lasts about 20 minutes • During the procedure mother leaves the room twice • First time infant ( around 12 months old) is left with a stranger; second time infant is left alone • Pattern of behavior is assessed http://www.psychology.sunysb.edu/ewaters/vitae/MDA_irv2.jpg