Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Theories of
Cognitive Development
How Children Develop
Chapter 4
1
9/25/2017
Information-Processing
Theories: Development Distinctive Features
Young of Problem Solving
children's
overoptimism Planning
Courtesy of Jodie Plumert
2
9/25/2017
3
9/25/2017
Information-Processing Theories:
Visual Memory Experiment
Explanations of Memory Development
Basic processes: Encoding
• People encode information that draws their attention
or that they consider important.
• Children do not encode all of the important
information in the environment.
• Sometimes we see but do not encode
4
9/25/2017
Sources of Learning
Processing Speed
and Memory Development
The speed of basic processes
Processing increases greatly over the course of
Speed childhood
Biological maturation and
Mental experience contribute to increased
Strategies
processing speed
Two biological processes that contribute
Content
to faster processing are myelination
Knowledge and increased connectivity among
brain regions
5
9/25/2017
Connectionist Parts
Theories/Neural
Body Motion
Network
Approach Core-Knowledge Theories
•The simultaneous View of
Fast-learning
activity of (FL)
hidden layer
Slow-learning
(SL) Children’s Nature
neurons, hidden layer
units
decay
Slow-learning (SL) links
with lower weight decay Developmental
Direct-copy connections from
•Sequential and
Context to hidden layer
Issues
parallel
processing
Input
groups
6
9/25/2017
Psychology
Information-processing view Core-knowledge view
Biology
Physics
Language
Methods
Perception of Objects as Distinct, Bounded Wholes
7
9/25/2017
Core-Knowledge Theories
Domain specificity: Children’s innate understanding and
specialized learning mechanisms
Allows rapid learning in certain areas
Developing Understanding
Can Infants Add?
of Support Relations
8
9/25/2017
Novel
None
Familiar
Familiarization time
Xu and Garcia (2008)
Sociocultural Theories
View of Children’s Nature
Central Developmental Issues
9
9/25/2017
10
9/25/2017
Children succeed
where they would Puzzle task
have failed without
help
11
9/25/2017
Why do 5-year-olds talk aloud to themselves during activity? Why do 5-year-olds talk aloud to themselves during activity?
Piaget (1923): egocentric speech: can’t imagine other’s perspective Piaget (1923): egocentric speech: can’t imagine other’s perspective
Vygotsky (1934): self-guidance and self-direction. Vygotsky (1934): self-guidance and self-direction.
Potentially the foundation for higher-order cognition. Potentially the foundation for higher-order cognition.
Educational Implications
Ann Brown’s
community-of-learner
program is one impressive
effort to meet these goals
12