CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT distribute IN THIS CHAPTER or BASIC CONCEPTS IN COGNITIVE Cognitive Development Involves Changes DEVELOPMENT in the Way Information Is Represented Cognition Children Develop Increasing Intentional Development Controlpost, Over Their Behavior and Cognition SIX TRUTHS OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT Cognitive Development Involves Changes Cognitive Development Proceeds as a Result in Both Domain-General and of the Dynamic and Reciprocal Transaction Domain-Specific Abilities of Internal and External Factors GOALS OF COGNITIVE Cognitive Development Is Constructed copy,DEVELOPMENTALISTS Within a Social Context KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS Cognitive Development Involves Both Stability and Plasticity Overnot Time SUGGESTED READINGS o one can remember whatDo 4-year-old Jason Jason did know how to think, of course. He did to get his father- so upset, but whatever just didn’t know that he did. In fact, Jason had Nit was, his father wanted no more of it. been “thinking” all his life, although in a very dif- “Jason, I want you to go over to that corner and ferent way when he was an infant, and his current just think about this for a while,” his father yelled. thinking would not be anything like the mental Instead of following his father’s orders, Jason gymnastics he’d be capable of in just a few years. stood where he was, not defiantly, but with a Intelligence is our species’ most important confused Prooflook and quivering lips, as if he were tool for survival. Evolution has provided other trying to say something but was afraid to. animals with greater speed, coats of fur, camou- “What’s the matter now?” his father asked, flage, or antlers to help them adapt to challenging his irritation showing. and often changing environments. Human evolu- Draft“But Daddy,” Jason said, “I don’t know how tion has been different. It has provided us with to think.” powers of discovery and invention by which we 1 Copyright ©2017 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. 2 CHILDREN’S THINKING change the environment or develop techniques children’s thinking are also concerned with the for coping with environments we cannot change. mechanisms that underlie cognition and its devel- Although we are not the only thinkers in the ani- opment. How do biological (genetic) factors inter- mal kingdom, no other species has our powers act with experiences in the physical and social of intellect. How we think and the technological world to yield a particular pattern of develop- and cultural innovations afforded by our intel- ment? How do children of different ages represent lect separate us from all other animals. their world? Does a 3-year-old understand the This remarkable intelligence does not arise world in much the same way as a 10-year-old, fully formed in the infant, however. We require or are these children qualitatively different think- substantial experience to master the cognitive ers? Once a pattern of intellectual competence feats that typify adult thinking, and we spend is established, does it remain stabledistribute over time? the better part of 2 decades developing an adult Will the bright preschooler become the gifted nervous system. Little in the way of complex teenager, or is it pointlessor to make predictions thought patterns is built into the human brain, about adult intelligence from our observations of ready to go at birth, although biology obviously children? These and other issues are introduced predisposes us to develop the ability for complex in this chapter, but they are not answered until thought. Our mental prowess develops gradually later in the book. Before delving too deeply into over childhood, changing in quality as it does. these issues,post, however, we need to define some In this first chapter, we introduce the topic of basic terms (see Table 1.1). These definitions are cognitive development—how thinking changes followed by a look at some issues that define the over time. In addition to describing developmen- field of cognitive development and have been the tal differences in cognition, scientists who study copy,focus of controversy during the last century. TABLE 1.1 Basic concepts in cognitive development.not Cognition The processes or faculties by which knowledge is acquired and manipulated. Cognition is usually thought of as being mental. That is, cognition is a reflectionDo of a mind. It is not directly observable but must be inferred. Development Changes in structure or function- over time. Structure refers to some substrate of the organism, such as nervous tissue, muscle, or limbs, or—in cognitive psychology—the mental knowledge that underlies intelligence. Function denotes actions related to a structure and can include actions external to the structure being studied, such as neurochemical or hormonal secretions and other exogenous factors that can best be described as “experience”— that is, external sources of stimulation. Development is characteristic of the species and has its basis in biology. Its general course,Proof therefore, is relatively predictable. Development progresses as a result of a bidirectional, or reciprocal, relationship between structure and function and can be expressed as structure function. Developmental function The species-typical form that cognition takes over time. DraftIndividual differences Differences in patterns of intellectual aptitudes among people of a given age. Source: © Cengage Learning. Copyright ©2017 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 3 BASIC CONCEPTS IN are such mental pictures created? How are they modified? COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT This is not to say that cognitive psychologists are unconcerned with socially important phe- Cognition nomena, such as reading, mathematics, or com- municating effectively; many are, and they have Cognition refers to the processes or faculties developed research programs aimed at improv- by which knowledge is acquired and manipu- ing these and other intellectual skills so critical lated. Cognition is usually thought of as being for children’s success in a high-tech society. But, mental. That is, cognition is a reflection of a mind. It is not directly observable. We cannot for the most part, the behaviors distributethemselves are see the process whereby an 8-month-old discov- seen as secondary. What is important and what ers that a Mickey Mouse doll continues to exist needs to be understood areor the mechanisms that even though it is hidden under a blanket out of underlie performance. By discovering the mental her sight, nor can we directly assess the steps a factors that govern intelligent behavior, we can 7-year-old takes to compute the answer to the better understand behavior and its development, problem 15 - 9 = ?. Although we cannot see or which in turn can help us better understand chil- directly measure what underlies children’s per- dren and fosterpost, their development. formance on these and other tasks, we can infer Cognition includes not only our conscious what is going on in their heads by assessing cer- and deliberate attempts at solving problems but tain aspects of their behavior. That is, cognition also the unconscious and nondeliberate pro- is never measured directly. It is inferred from the cesses involved in routine daily tasks. We are not behaviors we can observe. copy,aware of the mental activity that occurs when we What psychologists can observe and quan- recognize a familiar tune on the radio or even tify are things such as the number of words when we read the back of a cereal box. Yet much children remember from a list of 20, the num- in the way of cognitive processing is happening ber of seconds it takes to identify well-knownnot during these tasks. For most of us, reading has pictures or words, or the amount of time a become nearly automatic. We can’t drive by a 6-month-old spends looking at a picture of a billboard without reading it. It is something we familiar face relative to thatDo of an unfamiliar just do without giving it any “thought.” But the one. For the most part, cognitive- developmen- processes involved in reading are complex, even tal psychologists are not really interested in in the well-practiced adult. these overt, countable behaviors; what they Cognition involves mental activity of all types, are interested in are the processes or skills including activity geared toward acquiring, under- that underlie them. What mental operations standing, and modifying information. Cognition does a 6-year-oldProof engage in that are differ- includes such activities as developing a plan for ent from those performed by a 4-year-old or solving a problem, executing that plan, evaluating an 8-year-old? How does speed in identifying the success of the plan, and making modifications words reflect how information is stored in the as needed. These can be thought of as higher- minds of children of different ages? What kind order processes of cognition, which are often Draftof mental picture has the infant formed of the available to consciousness (that is, we are aware familiar face of his mother that allows him to that we’re doing them). Cognition also involves tell her face apart from all other faces? How the initial detection, perception, and encoding of a Copyright ©2017 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. 4 CHILDREN’S THINKING sensory stimulus (that is, deciding how to define a structure itself—for example, the exercise of a physical stimulus so it can be thought about) and muscle, the firing of a nerve cell, or the activation the classification of what kind of thing it is (“Is of a cognitive process, such as retrieving from this a letter, a word, a picture of something famil- memory the name of your first-grade teacher or iar?”).