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Cognitive Development Throughout the Lifespan

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Cognitive Development Throughout the Lifespan Cognitive Development Throughout the Lifespan Chapter 13 Cognitive Development We will look at three aspects of cognitive development in our discussion. 1. Memory development 2. Metacognitive development 3. Development of language Memory Development Early research underestimated infants' memory abilities Psychologists used a number of different measure to ascertain memory capacities in infants and younger children. 1. Attention (looking time, Own-Race Effect) 2. Recognizing mother (visual, voice) 3. Conjugate reinforcement with a mobile 1 Own Race Effect (ORE) 1. Sangrigoli and de Schonen (2004) showed photos of White and Asian women's faces shown to White babies. 2. Presented one photo (White or Asian woman) repeatedly until looking time decreased. 3. Presented pair of photos (familiar-unfamiliar) White women or Asian women. 4. Looking time for unfamiliar White woman longer than familiar White woman. However no difference for familiar-unfamiliar Asian women. Recognizing Mother 1. Visual recognition: 3-days old recognize their mother from a stranger (Bushnell & Sai, 1987; Rovee-Collier et al, 2001; Slater & Butterworth, 1997). 2. Demand mother’s video: Infants younger than 3- days old sucked to produce a video of their mother than strangers (Walton et al., 1992). Recognizing Mother 3. Mother’s Voice: Prenatal babies preferred mother reciting the poem than a stranger. Heart- rate changed more when hearing mother’s voice (Kisilevsky et al 2003). 4. Prenatal babies prefer characteristics of mother’s spoken language when reading a passage read many times to passage never read to them (DeCasper & Spence, 1986). 2 Conjugate Reinforcement Babies hooked-up to a mobile with a ribbon, move their leg and shake it. In instrumental conditioning terms foot movement is the response, and mobile movement is the reinforcement. Rovee-Collier and colleagues tested 2-6 month old babies in this setup for immediate and LTM. Conjugate Reinforcement 1. Baseline, spontaneous kicking is first ascertained. 2. The ribbon is connected to the mobile and number of kicks are assessed during the acquisition phase. 3. Number of kicks produced following delay is used to measure immediate or long-term memory. Train Rovee-Collier and colleagues also used 6-18 month old children with a toy train on a circular tracks to measure memory. The train was hooked-up to lever that the infants could press, to make the train run or not. 3 Results 14 12 Mobile Task Train Task 10 8 6 4 2 MinimumRentention (Weeks) 0 2 3 6 9 12 15 18 Age (Months) Context Learning reactivated most strongly when retested in the same rather than a different context (Butler & Rovee-Collier, 1989). Other Memory Aspects Rovee-Collier also tested other aspects of infant memory and found that infant’s memory behaved much like adult memory for; 1. Interference 2. Spacing effect 3. Levels of processing. 4 Children's Working Memory 1. Memory span (Kail, 1992) o Children were given lists like: dad, mom, doll, ball, baby, … etc. o 2-year children recalled 2 words, 9-year old recalled all 6 words. 2. Three working memory components 3. Relationship to school performance Children's Long-Term Memory Excellent recognition but poor recall for objects (Myers and Perlmutter, 1978). 125 Recognition 100 Recall 75 50 25 PercentCorrect Recall 0 2-Year Old 4-Year Old Age Children's Long-Term Memory 1. Autobiographical memory and early childhood amnesia and Infant memory. 2. Deferred imitation. 3. Lack of well-organized sense of who they are. 4. Difficulty encoding and retrieving. 5. Reminders. 5 Autobiographical Memory Refers to events taking place in one’s life. People are unable to recall events before 2-3 years of age, called childhood amnesia. More Fewer DetailsRemembered 2-Year Old 3-Year Old Age at Sibling Birth Childhood Amnesia We know that infants and children have good memories. Children around 2-years have good verbal memories. 1. Prefrontal cortex is not fully developed (Newcomb et al. 2000). 2. No well organized sense of self (Conway & Pleydell- Pierce, 2000; Howe, 2000, 2003). Deferred Imitation Infants a few months old can imitate adult expressions and other events. Schema and scripts are retained in 11-month old infants for tasks that involve 2-step sequence. Experimenter pushed a button through a slot of a box and said “shake, shake, shake” compared to putting a hat on the bunny and feeding a carrot. 6 Children's Long-Term Memory 1. Children's source monitoring (Foley, Ratner and colleagues, 19??). 2. performing vs. imagining how it would feel vs. visualizing. 3. performing vs. watching another person perform a task. Children's Memory Strategies 1. Rehearsal not very effective, but can keep information in working memory. Four- and 5-year- olds do not spontaneously use rehearsal but can benefit from rehearsal if prompted. 2. Organizational strategies (categorizing and grouping) Moely and colleagues (????) children study pictures from four categories; younger children rarely rearrange into categories than older. 3. Imagery: even 6-year-olds can be trained to use visual imagery effectively. Children's Eyewitness Testimony 1. Leichtman and Ceci (1995) "Sam Stone" study. Control, stereotype, suggestion, and stereotype- plus-suggestion groups. children interviewed about Sam Stone 10 weeks after visit. 2. Control group highly accurate. children can provide valid eyewitness testimony if they do not receive misleading information, either before or after the target event. 7 Children's Eyewitness Testimony Leichtman and Ceci—"Sam Stone" study results. Children's Eyewitness Testimony 1. Age, stereotyping, and misleading suggestions all influence children's eyewitness testimony. 2. Social factors reluctance to say "I don't know“. 3. Change statements under cross-examination. Children’s Intelligence and Eyewitness Testimony 1. Henry and Gudjonsson (2007) children with mental retardation vs. typically developing children. 2. Older and younger children. 3. Misleading questions 8 Memory in Elderly People 1. Stereotypes. 2. Large individual differences. 3. Complex developmental trends. 4. Stine et al., (1989) recall for spoken English. 5. Normal syntax/normal rate vs. random order/fast rate. 6. Significant age difference for complicated, non- real-life task. LTM in Elderly People 1. Perform well on semantic memory tasks and easy, automatic tasks. 2. Age differences on more complex tasks. 3. Prospective memory (simulated shopping task). Complete fewer tasks and made more errors. Perform more accurately when they have an environmental cue. Can even perform better than younger adults. LTM in Elderly People 4. Implicit memory (Light and colleagues, 1995). Reading familiar letter sequence. Older and younger adults performed similarly. 5. Explicit recognition memory. Long-term recognition memory declines slowly or not at all. 6. Explicit recall memory. Performance decreases slowly and age differences are more substantial Dunlosky and Hertzog (1998)—pairs of unrelated words, names, historical details, stories large individual differences—verbal ability, education. Hasher and colleagues—time of day. 9 Explanations Explanations for Age Differences in Memory relate to changes in brain structures: 1. Difficulty paying attention 2. Ineffective use of memory strategies 3. The contextual-cues hypothesis 4. Cognitive slowing Metamemory in Children 1. Theory of mind (Flavell, 199?). People's ideas on how their minds work and on their beliefs about other people's thoughts. 2. Children's understanding of how memory works. Small vs. large memory sets. Related vs. random words. Effectiveness of memory strategies. 3. Children's awareness that effort Is necessary. Young children do not appreciate the need for effort. Keep studying information they already know. Not accurate in judging what has been committed to memory. Metamemory in Children 3. Children's awareness that effort Is necessary. Young children do not realize that they need to make an effort to use a memory strategy. Naive ideas about the effort required for memorization. 10 Metamemory in Children Children's Judgments about their memory performance. Younger children unrealistically optimistic. Roebers and colleagues (2004) tested memory for magic show and looked at confidence ratings. Overconfidence. Average Level of Confidence for Questions Answered Correctly and Questions Answered Incorrectly. (1 = Very Unsure; 5=Very Sure) Summary: Metamemory in Children 1. Their metamemory is faulty; they do not realize that they need to make an effort to memorize, and they also do not realize how little they can remember. 2. They do not spontaneously use helpful memory strategies. 3. Relative to older children, their memory performance is poor. Metamemory & Memory Performance 1. Some evidence that metamemory is related Is there a causal link? to strategy use. 2. Extensive evidence that Metamemory strategy use is related to memory Strategy use performance. 3. Moderate correlation Memory performance between metamemory and memory performance. 11 Metamemory in Elderly 1. Beliefs about memory. younger and older adults share similar beliefs. 2. Memory monitoring. Equally skilled on some tasks—predicting items they will recall, selecting most difficult items for further study, judging accuracy on general-knowledge questions, deciding whether an item is old or new. Overconfident on some tasks. Overall performance on a test of memory for specific details about a recent event. Metamemory in Elderly 3. Awareness of memory problems. problems with everyday memory. some elderly people don't try to develop
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