PSYC 3620: Developmental Psychology Ch.7 Vocabularyo Genetic-epistemology: Piaget’s theory that cognitive development is based on both genetics & epistemology (philosophical understanding of the nature of knowledge)o Assimilation: fitting new experiences into existing mental schemaso Disequilibrium: a state of confusion in which your schemas do not fit your experienceso Equilibration: an attempt to resolve cognitive uncertainty to return to a comfortable stateo Accommodation: changing your mental schemas so they fit new experienceso 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 environmento Circular reaction: an infant’s repetition of a reflexive action that results in a pleasurable experienceo Motor schema: infants’ understanding of the world through their action on ito Object permanence: the understanding that objects still exist when an infant does not see themo Preoperational stage: Piaget’s second stage of development, in which children ages 2 to 7 do not yet have logical thought, & instead think magically & egocentricallyo Operations: mental actions that follow systematic, logical ruleso Transductive reasoning: thought that connects one particular observation to another by creating casual links where none existo Egocentrism: the inability to see or understand things from someone else’s perspectiveo Conservation: the understanding that a basic quantity of something (amount, mass, volume) remains the same regardless of changes in appearanceo Centration: focusing on only one aspect of a situationo Decentration: the ability to think about more than one aspect of a situation at a timeo Concrete operations: the third stage in Piaget’s theory in which children between 6 & 12 years ofage develop logical thinking but still cannot think abstractlyo Reversibility: the ability to reverse mental operationso Classification: the ability to organize objects into hierarchal conceptual categorieso Formal operations: Piaget’s fourth stage in which people 12 & older think both logically & abstractlyo Hypothetico-deductive reasoning: the ability to form hypotheses about how the world works & to reason logically about these hypotheseso Imaginary audience: the egocentric belief that one is the center of other people’s attention much of the timeo Personal fable: the belief (often held by teenagers) that you are in some way unique & different from all other peopleo Postformal (dialectical thinking): the cognitive ability to consider multiple perspectiveso Violations of expectations: research based on the finding that babies look longer at unexpected or surprising eventso Theory of core knowledge: the theory that basic areas of knowledge are innate & built into the human braino 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 knowledgeableo 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 capabilityo Private speech: talking to oneself, often out loud, to guide one’s own actionso Selective attention: tuning in to certain things while turning out otherso Sustained attention: maintaining focus over timeo Habituation: the reduction in the response to a stimulus that is repeatedo Processing speed: the efficiency with which one can perform cognitive taskso Automaticity: the process by which skills become so well practiced that you can do them withoutmuch conscious thoughto Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): a disorder marked by extreme difficulty with inattention, impulsivity, or a combination of botho Infantile amnesia: adults’ inability to remember experiences that happened to them before they were about 3 years of ageo Encoding processes: the transformation processes through which new information is stored in long-term memoryo Scripts: memory for the way a common occurrence in one’s life, such as grocery shopping, takes placeo Rehearsal: repeating information to remember ito Elaboration: a memory strategy that involves creating extra connections, like images or sentences, which can tie information togethero 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 eventso Executive function: the aspect of brain organization that coordinates attention & memory & controls behavioral responses for the purpose of attaining a certain goalo Metacognition: the ability to think about & monitor one’s own thoughts & cognitive activitieso Metamemory: the understanding of memory, how it works, & how to use it effectivelyo Processing capacity: the amount of information that you can think about at one