Deck 1: The Development of Cognitive Abilities

Question 1

Discuss the concepts of the zone of proximal development as it relates to cognitive development.

Answer 1

No Answer.

Question 2

What is meant by the core-knowledge approach to infant cognition?

Answer 2

No Answer.

Question 3

Discuss the basic principles and assumptions of Piaget's theory.

Answer 3

No Answer.

Question 4

What is infantile amnesia and what are some of the explanations for it?

Question 5

What is prospective memory and how does it change over childhood?

Question 6

To what extent are individual differences in intelligence stable over infancy and childhood?

Question 7

Makers of IQ tests re-standardize their tests from time to time, in part because the average score in the population changes (that is, the average IQ no longer equals 100). If IQ tests had not been changed over the past 60 years, the average IQ score of current Americans would be

A) about the same as it was 60 years ago. Changes in IQ tests over time have sometimes made the tests more difficult and sometimes more easy to result in no average change in intelligence as measured by IQ scores.
B) higher than it was 60 years ago. IQ tests have been made more difficult over the years, reflecting the American population becoming "more intelligent" as measured by IQ scores (i.e., the Flynn effect).
C) lower than it was 60 years ago. IQ tests have been made easier over the years, reflecting the American population becoming "less intelligent" as measured by IQ scores (i.e., the Sternberg effect).
D) unknown. There is no way to evaluate how changes in IQ tests over the past 60 years have changed the IQ scores of current Americans.

Question 8

Sarah and Ryan both watch their neighbor digging holes in the garden with a trowel and planting flowers. Both children understand that it is their neighbor's goal to plant flowers, but when they begin to plant flowers in their own garden, Sarah uses a trowel to dig holes, just like her neighbor, while Ryan chooses to dig holes with his hands. Sarah is engaging in the form of social learning known as ___________, while Ryan is engaging in _____________.

A) emulation; imitation
B) imitation; emulation.
C) instructed learning; stimulus enhancement.
D) stimulus enhancement; instructed learning.

Question 9

Cross-age correlations are used to assess the stability of IQ. Research has shown that IQ is generally

A) highly stable; cross-age correlations with adult IQ are about .70-.80 by 8 or 9 years of age.
B) highly stable, but only for children living in extreme environments (that is, extreme poverty or substantial wealth).
C) not highly stable; cross-age correlations never exceed .30-.40 when IQ is assessed over a period of two years or longer.
D) not highly stable; IQ is a good predictor of how a person is functioning at a specific time, but is highly variable with situations and thus produces highly different scores when given to the same person at different time, producing cross-age correlations that rarely exceed .30.

Question 10

DeLoache defined representational insight as

A) the reliance on intuitive (or implicit) versus rational (or explicit) cognition.
B) the ability to represent an object simultaneously as the object itself and as a representation of something else.
C) the knowledge that an entity can stand for something other than itself.
D) the knowledge that objects have permanence even when out of one's immediate perception.

Question 11

DeLoache and her colleagues showed children either photographs or miniature models of a room. Children were then shown, using either the photograph or the model, where a toy was hidden in the "real" room. Children then entered the real room and were asked to find the toy. DeLoache reported that the youngest children (2 year olds) were

A) better able to solve the problem with the model than with the photographs; the greater similarity between the model and the real room made the task easier.
B) better able to solve the problem with the photograph than with the model; the photograph was less interesting as an object than the model, making it a more effective representational tool.
C) able to solve the problems with both the model and photograph equally effectively; children have implicit knowledge about object representation, which can be demonstrated as soon as they are old enough to perform the task.
D) unable to solve the problem with either the model or the photograph; representational insight develops slowly over the preschool years, and is not demonstrated by 2 year old children for any representational medium.

Question 12

According to Piaget, accommodation refers to

A) the fact that every structure has its genesis in previous structures.
B) the modification or distortion of new information in order to incorporate it into current schemes or structures.
C) the changing of a current scheme or structure in order to incorporate new information.
D) the tendency to integrate structures into higher order systems of structures.

Question 13

According to Piaget, which of the following is not a form of symbolic functioning?

A) Language
B) Mental imagery
C) Symbolic play
D) Mutual imitation

Question 14

Baron-Cohen uses the term mindblindness to refer to

A) preschool children's difficulties with false-belief tasks.
B) the inability to "read others' minds" shown by people with autism.
C) sex differences in expression of theory of mind, with boys being more apt to display "mindblindness" than girls.
D) the inability to understand that "eyes possess knowledge" (that is, that when someone is looking at something they see and have knowledge of that thing).

Question 15

Tomasello and his colleagues, among others, have emphasized the importance of viewing others as intentional agents. This is first seen in infancy in the later part of the first year as reflected by

A) representational insight.
B) deferred imitation.
C) false-belief reasoning.
D) shared attention.

Question 16

In the Dimensional Change Card Sorting Task, children sort pictures according to one dimension (e.g., by color, "All the blue cards go here"), and then the dimensions change (e.g., sorting by shape, "Now all the flowers go here."). Children 3 years of age and younger have a difficult time performing this task when the dimensions change. This task assesses

A) working memory.
B) ADHD (attention deficit with hyperactivity disorder).
C) metacognition.
D) cognitive flexibility, or task switching.

Question 17

With respect to cognitive development, plasticity refers to

A) the artificiality of learning rote memory tasks.
B) the ability to solve problems.
C) the generation of new brain cells after birth.
D) the ability to change or adapt to novel situations, including the ability to recover from formerly detrimental circumstances.

Question 18

Spelke has argued that infants are born with a small set of distinct systems of knowledge that have been shaped by natural selection over evolution on which new and flexible skills and knowledge systems (such as reading and arithmetic) are later built. She refers to this as

A) core knowledge.
B) metacognition.
C) object constancy.
D) representational insight.

Question 19

Piaget's concept of object permanence refers to the

A) knowledge that objects exist independent of one's perceptions of and actions on them.
B) knowledge that an inanimate object (i.e., a ball) will remain in a given location when put there, although an animate object (i.e., a rabbit) may not.
C) tendency for semantic knowledge of objects to remain permanently in long-term memory.
D) ability to memorize the spatial location of permanent objects in the environment.

Question 20

At about 3 years of age, symbolic play increases substantially in complexity, with children engaging with other children in role-playing, called

A) object-oriented play.
B) child-oriented play.
C) sociodramatic play.
D) Symbolic function.

Question 21

Discuss the development of representational skills in early childhood. What is meant by representational insight?

Question 22

Contrast children's "thinking" at the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational periods of cognitive development.

Question 23

What is meant by a theory of mind? Discuss children's development of a theory of mind, beginning in infancy through the preschool years.

Question 24

What is meant by executive function and what are the specific cognitive skills that comprise it?

Question 25

When are the effects of early experience on intelligence apt to be maintained over time? Under what conditions can they be modified?