PSYC 3620 Developmental Psychology o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Ch 7 Vocabulary Genetic epistemology Piaget s theory that cognitive development is based on both genetics epistemology philosophical understanding of the nature of knowledge Assimilation fitting new experiences into existing mental schemas Disequilibrium a state of confusion in which your schemas do not fit your experiences Equilibration an attempt to resolve cognitive uncertainty to return to a comfortable state Accommodation changing your mental schemas so they fit new experiences Sensorimotor stage Piaget s first stage in which infants understand the world through the information they take in through their senses through their actions on their environment Circular reaction an infant s repetition of a reflexive action that results in a pleasurable experience Motor schema infants understanding of the world through their action on it Object permanence the understanding that objects still exist when an infant does not see them Preoperational stage Piaget s second stage of development in which children ages 2 to 7 do not yet have logical thought instead think magically egocentrically Operations mental actions that follow systematic logical rules Transductive reasoning thought that connects one particular observation to another by creating casual links where none exist Egocentrism the inability to see or understand things from someone else s perspective Conservation the understanding that a basic quantity of something amount mass volume remains the same regardless of changes in appearance Centration focusing on only one aspect of a situation Decentration the ability to think about more than one aspect of a situation at a time Concrete operations the third stage in Piaget s theory in which children between 6 12 years of age develop logical thinking but still cannot think abstractly Reversibility the ability to reverse mental operations Classification the ability to organize objects into hierarchal conceptual categories Formal operations Piaget s fourth stage in which people 12 older think both logically abstractly Hypothetico deductive reasoning the ability to form hypotheses about how the world works to reason logically about these hypotheses Imaginary audience the egocentric belief that one is the center of other people s attention much of the time Personal fable the belief often held by teenagers that you are in some way unique different from all other people Postformal dialectical thinking the cognitive ability to consider multiple perspectives Violations of expectations research based on the finding that babies look longer at unexpected or surprising events Theory of core knowledge the theory that basic areas of knowledge are innate built into the human brain o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Zone of proximal development according to Vygotsky this is what a child cannot do on her own but can do with a little help from someone more skilled or knowledgeable Scaffolding the idea that more knowledgeable adults children support a child s learning by providing help to move the child just beyond his current level of capability Private speech talking to oneself often out loud to guide one s own actions Selective attention tuning in to certain things while turning out others Sustained attention maintaining focus over time Habituation the reduction in the response to a stimulus that is repeated Processing speed the efficiency with which one can perform cognitive tasks Automaticity the process by which skills become so well practiced that you can do them without much conscious thought Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD a disorder marked by extreme difficulty with inattention impulsivity or a combination of both Infantile amnesia adults inability to remember experiences that happened to them before they were about 3 years of age Encoding processes the transformation processes through which new information is stored in long term memory Scripts memory for the way a common occurrence in one s life such as grocery shopping takes place Rehearsal repeating information to remember it Elaboration a memory strategy that involves creating extra connections like images or sentences which can tie information together Fuzzy trace theory the theory that there are two memory systems a systematic controlled memory for exact details an automatic intuitive memory for the gist or meaning of events Executive function the aspect of brain organization that coordinates attention memory controls behavioral responses for the purpose of attaining a certain goal Metacognition the ability to think about monitor one s own thoughts cognitive activities Metamemory the understanding of memory how it works how to use it effectively Processing capacity the amount of information that you can think about at one time