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| Child Development - A Thematic Approach , Fifth Edition
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| Chapter Outline Chapter 9: Cognition: Information Processing
- The information-processing approach
Information-processing theorists view human cognition as an information management system with limited space and resources. Many traditional information-processing models are called multistore models. These models describe information as flowing through a sequence of mental structures, including a sensory store,
memory stores, a central processor, and a response system. Control processes are mental activities that are assumed to move information from structure to structure. The beginning of information processing often takes place in the sensory register, where information is held for a fraction of a second. The information may move to working memory, which holds it for no more than a couple of minutes, or to long-term memory, the repository of more enduring information. The
limited-resource model emphasizes not mental structures but various cognitive activities or operations. The resources for operations are limited; thus, a considerable amount of mental activity performed on one operation (e.g., processing sensory information) will make less activity available for other operations (e.g., storage or retrieval of information). Multistore models explain cognitive development as increases in the size of structures and in the proficiency of control processes.
Limited-resource models describe cognitive growth as increases in the efficiency of operations (as the proficiency of sensory processes improves, more mental activity is available for remembering). - The development of attention
Before an individual can process information, he or she must attend to the relevant stimuli. Several developmental trends in attention have been observed.- Sustaining attention
During the first six years of life, striking
increases occur in the ability to sustain attention on an activity. This developmental trend results from a maturing central nervous system and from the overall cognitive growth that occurs. This growth is evidenced by the increasingly complex activities that maintain a child's interest and the child's increasingly creative ways of playing with objects. - Deploying attention
Older children are better able to deploy their attention effectively and efficiently as is evident from
changes in the way they systematically search visual arrays. - Selective attention
As they grow older, children also show greater selective attention, more easily ignoring irrelevant information.Atypical Development: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Approximately 5 to 10 percent of children in the United States have this disorder. ADHD is characterized by a pattern of impulsivity, high levels of motor activity, and attention problems. As a result,
these children often have academic difficulties and problems in social relationships. The causes of this disorder are presumed to be neurological, but at this time ADHD is poorly understood. For example, an overstimulating, intrusive environment also seems to be related to ADHD. Being able to inhibit response in simple situations appears unrelated to ADHD. Treatment includes stimulant medications such as Ritalin, which has the paradoxical effect of slowing down behavior in children.
- The development of memory
The ability to remember is critical for performing cognitive activities. Thus, memory has been an important area of developmental research and has been conceptualized in many different ways. Episodic memory is memory for events that took place at a specific time and place. Semantic memory is memory for facts and general concepts not related to any specific event. Psychologists have also distinguished between recognition
memory, the ability to recognize whether a stimulus was previously encountered, and recall memory, the ability to reproduce stimuli that were previously encountered.- Recognition memory
Recognition memory has been observed very early in development with techniques such as habituation, the paired-comparison procedure, and operant conditioning. These studies suggest that recognition memory is a rudimentary ability available even in early infancy. The ability
to recognize familiar stimuli endures for long periods of time. However, early memories can be disrupted by changes in the context of the activity. Reminders within a certain number of days, or time windows, appear to be important for maintaining recognition memory for longer durations in infants. Even newborns display recognition memory and older infants may recognize situations months or even years later. - Recall memory
Studies show that the memory span, which is
believed to indicate an individual's short-term (working) memory capacity, increases with age. This developmental change in recall appears to be related to the child's improved ability to use memory strategies as she or he gains experience and as a result of increasing efficiency and processing speed. Elicited imitation reveals that by the time most children are 13 months, they need to see a sequence of events only once in order to remember it one month later and by 20 months
their memories for events last as long as a year. Children usually recall the words at the end and the beginning of a list better than the words in the middle. Better recall of the end of a list is called the recency effect and is believed to reflect what is available in short-term memory; better recall of beginning words is called the primacy effect and is believed to reflect the recall of information that was stored as a result of effective use of memory strategies.
Developmental research indicates that children three years of age and older show similar recency effects, but older children show a stronger primacy effect. Many memory strategies can be used to improve recall, including rehearsal, organization, the reordering of items in terms of some higher-order relationship, and elaboration, linking items in the form of images or sentences, which strengthen memory by imposing meaningful relationships among things to be remembered. The
tendency of children to spontaneously use memory strategies increases with age, particularly in children over seven. The failure of young children to use memory strategies on their own has been referred to as production deficiency. Young children also display a utilization deficiency; that is, when first applied, memory strategies often fail to improve memory performance. Children often use multiple strategies in remembering. Children may acquire memory strategies from direct
instruction by parents and teachers, as well as an emerging understanding of metamemory that leads to the child's realization of a need for memory strategies, and the child's expanding general knowledge base. The importance of general knowledge in recall has been demonstrated by observation of the effect of domain-specific knowledge on the ability to remember. For example, children knowledgeable in chess display superior recall of briefly presented chess positions compared to
college-educated adults unfamiliar with chess. The attainment of a knowledge base is also evident in terms of scripts (organized schemes of knowledge) in which new, specific memories are stored. Logically or causally ordered events are easier to remember than arbitrary events. Fuzzy trace theory suggests that memories are stored on a continuum from information faithful to the original event to information that only retains the core or gist. Younger children, although more limited in
memory, are more likely to retrieve verbatim information than are older children. However, such memories are more vulnerable to disruption. Other new views of memory emphasize that with development, children are better able to inhibit or avoid processing irrelevant information and to remember only information appropriate to the task at hand. - Autobiographical memory
Most individuals are unable to recall experiences prior to about three years of age, a phenomenon called
infantile amnesia. By about three years of age, however, children begin to display autobiographical memories; that is, they can recall fairly lengthy and cohesive descriptions of the events they have experienced. Explanations for infantile amnesia include the inability to code information verbally, lack of understanding of self, difficulty in understanding the structure of narrative recall, and absence of a theory of mind at younger ages.Controversy: How Reliable is
Children's Eyewitness Testimony? Although research has demonstrated that children have impressive memories, some have questioned the accuracy of their memories when children are called on to testify in the courts. Some studies indicate that young children are more likely than older children to distort their recollections of events as a result of leading questions, although other studies have failed to find age differences in susceptibility to leading questions. Several factors may
influence children's susceptibility to misleading information, including the perceived power of the person providing the misinformation and the emotionally charged environment of the courtroom. Memory also clearly declines over the passage of time.
- Brain development and memory
Researchers are beginning to understand the neurological substrate of memory. The hippocampus appears to be especially important for recognition memory. Portions of the prefrontal and temporal
lobes mature toward the end of the first year of life at the time when new memory capacities are displayed. In infants, electrical activity in the brain is more pronounced and consistent for familiar events than for unfamiliar events, another interesting indication of the linkage between the brain and memory.
- The development of problem-solving skills
Problem-solving skills, which typically involve several steps in analyzing a body of information, have been noted in
young children. Investigators have observed children as young as twelve months intentionally combine several subgoals to reach a goal. Nevertheless, considerable growth in problem-solving ability occurs with development. Piaget described the development of problem-solving skills as an abrupt, qualitative shift in thinking. Many contemporary information-processing theorists emphasize the gradual refinement of component skills such as memory and attention rather than changes in logical
problem-solving ability.- Components of problem solving
An essential requirement in problem solving is the ability to use symbols to represent real objects. Although infants may be able to represent other objects via symbols, even preschoolers show limitations in this capacity. For example, between two and three years of age, children have to overcome difficulties with dual representations, that is, the ability to understand that an object can be represented and, at
the same time, can represent something else. Once able to do so, the child displays representational insight. Numerous other advances are evident in children's ability to understand, for example, maps as a form of spatial representation. These advances begin in the preschool period and continue into adolescence. Planning is another key aspect of problem solving. As children become older, their ability to create plans improves and their plans become more flexible. Part of this emerging
competence may arise from parental and instructional guidance and an increasing orientation toward the future as children begin to anticipate, and modify, familiar routines. With development, children also become more likely to choose from among several strategies for solving a problem rather than relying on one. Children not only resort to multiple strategies in their efforts to solve problems, but also blend strategies together. In doing so, they also become more proficient at using those
strategies that are most appropriate for the problem at hand. It is also important to transfer or generalize successful problem-solving skills to new situations. In analogical transfer, elements of one problem are successfully applied to solve a problem in a different domain. Research indicates that toddlers, and possibly even infants, are capable of displaying analogical transfer.Examining Research Methods: Using the Microgenetic Approach to Study Children's Problem-Solving
Strategies Because cross-sectional and longitudinal studies do not focus on the precise changes that cognitive processing undergoes during problem solving, an alternative method, the microgenetic approach, has been established. This method assesses the strategies children initiate in efforts to repeatedly solve similar problems and helps to shed light on the mechanisms of transition from one strategy to another. This fine-grained analysis of trial-to-trial changes in
performance has been shown to provide a rich source of information about thought processes and their development. Research Applied to Education: Facilitating Transfer in the Classroom Procedures for facilitating transfer in the classroom include providing multiple contexts in which to encode information, organizing information in scripts or other frameworks, identifying commonalities in problems across content areas, and having students actively apply what they have
learned.
- The development of scientific thinking
Scientific reasoning requires formulating a hypothesis, varying one factor at a time while holding other factors constant, and observing the consequences of these manipulations on some outcome. Children begin to understand the relationship between a hypothesis and observable outcomes in the elementary school years. However, younger elementary school children often have difficulty formulating and coordinating
multiple hypotheses to determine which of several different potential factors may be responsible for an outcome. However, with practice and direct instruction, children show noticeable improvement in scientific problem solving.- The executive function.
As children develop, they are better able to control their cognitive processing, analyze tasks they face, and deploy and monitor strategies. In order to do so, they must coordinate various components of cognitive
processing. The prefrontal cortex is one area of the brain responsible for such planning, as children with prefrontal cortex damage often have difficulties with these tasks. Metacognition, the child's awareness and knowledge of their own cognitive processes is one behavioral sign that the child's executive function is developing.
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