Cognitive Level of Analysis

1. Cognitive Level of Analysis IB Psychology

2. Principles that Define the Cognitive Level of Analysis • Cognitive psychologists assume that there is an important biological basis for all human cognitive processing and its resultant behavior but focus research on how the brain translates into mind.

3. Principles that Define the Cognitive Level of Analysis • Mental processing in the mind can be studied scientifically. Theories of cognitive processing are studied through various methods.

4. Principles that Define the Cognitive Level of Analysis • Behavior change is explained as a result of cognitive processing that goes on in the mind. The steps to cognitive processing are as follows: • Information is acquired from the world. • The information is stored. • Stored information is represented in the mind. • Internal representations direct behavior.

5. Principles that Define the Cognitive Level of Analysis • Cognitive Processes are influenced by social and cultural factors.

6. The Basics of Cognitive Psychology • Cognitive Processes • Sensation and Perception • Schema Theory • Memory • Language

7. Sensation • Vision • Hearing • Touch • Taste • Smell

8. Vision

9. Hearing

10. Smell

11. Taste

12. Touch

13. Perception • The cognitive process that interprets and organizes information from the senses to produce some meaningful experience of the world. • Video- Discovering Psychology

14. Schema • A mental representation of knowledge. • Mental representations can refer to: • Objects • Ideas • People • Mental representations are organized into categories and are stored in our memories.

15. Schema Theory • A cognitive theory about information processing. • A cognitive schema can be defined as networks of knowledge, beliefs, and expectations about particular aspects of the world.

16. Cognitive Schemas • Can be related to form systems • Are active recognition devices (pattern recognition) • Help predict the future events based on what happened before • Represent general knowledge rather than definitions

17. Cognitive Schema • We actively process information in our world. • If information is missing, the brain fills in the blanks. • This can result in mistakes--distortions.

18. Evaluation of Schema Theory • Lots of research supports schema theory. • It is useful in understanding how people categorize information, interpret stories, and make inferences. • Limitations include: • Not exactly sure how schemas are acquired. • Not sure exactly how they actually influence cognitive processes.

19. Memory Processes • Three main stages of memory.

20. Multi-Store Memory Model

21. Working Memory Model: Short Term Memory

22. Working Memory Model • Central Executive • CEO of Working Memory. • Most important job is attention control: • Automatic level: Based on Habits • Supervisory Level: Deals with new info and emergencies.

23. Working Memory Model • Episodic Buffer • Acts as a temporary and passive display store until the information is needed. • Like a television screen. • Phonological Loop • Inner voice which holds information in verbal form. • Holds information you hear. • Visuospatial Sketchpad • Inner eye. Deals with visual and spatial information.

24. Evaluation of the Working Memory Model • Provides a much more satisfactory explanation of storage and processing than the STM component of the multi-store model. • Assumes an active rather than passive process which makes more sense. • Has been supported through research.

25. Long Term Memory

26. Long Term Memory • Explicit/Declarative Memories: Fact-based information that can be consciously retrieved. • Semantic Memory: Memory for General Knowledge (Facts). • Episodic Memory: Memory for personal experiences and events.

27. Long-Term Memory • Implicit/ Non-Declarative Memories: Contains memories that we’re not consciously aware of. • Procedural Memories: non-conscious memory for skills, habits, and actions. (HOW to do things) • Emotional Memories: memories formed via the limbic system (HOW emotional states work).

28. Memory and The Brain • Hippocampus • Forms explicit memories. • When it is damaged, you can still form implicit memories. • Amygdala • Has a role in the storage of emotional memories.

29. Theories of Cognitive Development • Piaget (biologically driven model) • Vygotsky (social driven model)

30. Piaget Piaget believed that the driving force behind intellectual development is our biological development amidst experiences with the environment. Our cognitive development is shaped by errors we make.

31. Cognitive Schemas • Schema is a term used by Piaget to describe the models, or mental structures, that we create to represent ,organize, and interpret our experiences.

32. Piaget’s Cognitive Processes • Organizationis the process by which children combine existing schemes into new and more complex intellectual structures. • Adaptationis an inborn tendency to adjust to the demands of the environment. • The goal of adaptation is to adjust to the environment; this occurs through assimilation and accommodation. • Assimilationis the process of interpreting new experiences by incorporating them into existing schemes. • Accommodationis the process of modifying existing schemes in order to incorporate or adapt to new experiences.

33. Example of Piaget’s Process

34. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development • According to Piaget, a child’s development progresses through 4 qualitative stages and an invariant developmental sequence-universal pattern of development, which are: • The Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 Years) • The Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 Years) • The Concrete-Operational Stage (7 to 11 Years) • The Formal-Operational Stage (11-12 Years and Beyond)

35. Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 years) • Experiencing the world through senses and actions. • Object Permanence • Stranger Anxiety

36. Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 years) • There is an increase in their use of mental symbols to represent objects and events they encounter • The Preconceptual Period is the early substage of preoperations, from age 2 to age 4, characterized by the appearance of primitive ideas, concepts, and methods of reasoning. Marked by the appearance of symbolic function and play. • The Intuitive Period is the later substage of preoperations, from age 4 to age 7, when the child’s thinking about objects and events is dominated by salient perceptual features.

37. Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 years) • Emergence of Symbolic thought • Symbolic function • Ability to use symbols to represent objects or experiences • Symbolic play • Play where one object, action, or actor symbolizes another

38. Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 years) • Deficits in Reasoning • Animism- attributing lifelike qualities to inanimate objects • Egocentrism- viewing the world from only one’s perspective • Appearance/Reality distinction- inability to distinguish deceptive appearances from reality

39. Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 years) • Intuitive Period Here cognition is described as: • Centered a tendency to focus on one aspect of a situation and not on others due to their inability to understand: • Conservation- recognition that the properties of an object or substance do not change when its appearance is altered in some superficial way. • Reversibility- ability to reverse or negate an action by mentally performing the opposite action

40. Concrete Operational Period (7 to 11 years) • Here children are said to think more logically about real objects and experiences • Some examples of operational thought • Conservation • Reversibility • Logic • Classification • ability to create relationships between things. • Relational Logic • Mental seriation • Transitivity • The sequencing of concrete operations • Horizontal decalage- different levels of understanding conservation tasks that seem to require the same mental operations

41. Formal Operational Stage (11-12 years) • Ability to reason logically about hypothetical process and events that may have no basis in reality • Hypothetico-Deductive Reasoning • a formal operational ability to think hypothetically. • Thinking Like a Scientist • Inductive reasoning- type of thinking where hypotheses are generated and then systematically tested in experiments. • Personal and Social Implications • The formal operation stage paves the way for: • Identity formation • Richer understanding of other peoples psychological perspectives • The ability to way options in decision making

42. An Evaluation of Piaget’s Theory • Piaget’s Contributions • Founded the discipline we know today as cognitive development. • Convinced us that children are curious, active explorers who play an important role in their own development. • His theory was one of the first to explain, and not just describe, the process of development. • His description of broad sequences of intellectual development provides a reasonably accurate overview of how children of different ages think. • Piaget’s ideas have had a major influence on thinking about social and emotional development as well as many practical implications for educators. • Piaget asked important questions and drew literally thousands of researchers to the study of cognitive development.

43. Challenges to Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory: • Underestimated developing minds • Failed to distinguish competence from performance • It is believed by some that Cognitive development does not evolve in a qualitative and stage like manner- it tends to develop gradually • Provides a vague explanation on cognitive maturation • Devoted little attention to social and cultural influences

44. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective of Cognitive Development • Sociocultural theory states that: • Cognitive development occurs in a sociocultural context that influences the form it takes • Most of a child’s cognitive skills evolve from social interactions with parents, teachers, and other more competent associates

45. The role of culture in intellectual development: • Vygotsky proposed that we should evaluate human development from four interrelated perspectives: • Microgenetic-changes that occur over brief periods of time-minutes and seconds • Ontogenetic-development over a lifetime • Phylogenetic-development over evolutionary time • Sociohistorical- changes that have occurred in one's culture and the values, norms and technologies such a history has generated

46. Cognitive Development • Vygotsky (1930-1935/1978) proposed that infants are born with a few elementarymental functions – attention, sensation, perception and memory – that are eventually transformed by the culture into new and more sophisticated mental processes he called higher mental functions.

47. Vygotsky’s Theory • Cultures create mental tools which transform our mental work just like physical tools transform our physical work. • As we internalize these tools we become smarter (i.e., we develop higher psychological processes). • Language is the mother of all mental tools. • We internalize these tools as we work in our Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).

48. Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) • Zone of Proximal Development range of tasks that are too complex to be mastered alone but can be accomplished with guidance and encouragement from a more skillful partner

49. ZPD

50. ZPD Tasks I cannot do even with help ZPD Tasks I can do only with help Tasks I can do all by myself