LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT

1. 7 A Topical Approach to LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT Information Processing John W. Santrock

2. The Information-Processing Approach What Is the Information-Processing Approach? • Focuses on ways people process information about their world • Manipulate information • Monitor it • Create strategies to deal with it

3. The Information-Processing Approach Computers and Human Information Processing

4. The Information-Processing Approach Mechanisms of Change Encoding Mechanism by which information gets into memory Ability to process information with little or no effort Automaticity Discovering new procedure for processing information StrategyConstruction Cognition about cognition, or “knowing about knowing” Metacognition

5. The Information-Processing Approach Changes in Processing Speed with Age • Improves dramatically through childhood and adolescence • Experience • Myelination • Begins to decline in early adulthood (Schaie’s Seattle Longitudinal Study) • Declines continue in middle and late adulthood

6. The Information-Processing Approach Age and Reaction Time

7. Does Processing Speed Matter? • Linked with competence in thinking • Can compensate with strategies for many everyday tasks • Example: older typists type just as quickly as younger typists by looking further ahead to compensate for slower processing speed type

8. Attention Types of Attention Attention Concentrating and focusing mental resources State of readiness to detect and respond to small changes occurring at random times in environment; also called vigilance SustainedAttention Focusing on specific aspect of experience that is relevant while ignoring others SelectiveAttention Concentrating on more than one activity at a time Divided Attention

9. Attention Changes in Attention in Childhood and Adolescence • Cognitive control of attention • Attention to relevant, rather than salient aspects • Improvements in shifting attention and divided attention

10. Attention Aging and Attention • Older adults may not be able to focus on relevant information as effectively as younger adults • Less adept at selective attention • Older adults (50-80) performed worse in the divided attention condition than two younger groups

11. Memory What Is Memory? • Retention of information over time

12. Memory Processes of Memory

13. Memory Constructing Memories • Schema theory—when people reconstruct information, they fit it into information that already exists in their mind • Schemas—mental frameworks that organize concepts and information • False Memories

14. Memory Memory in Infancy • First Memories • Implicit memory—memory without conscious recollection; memory of skills and routine procedures performed automatically • Explicit memory—conscious memory of facts and experiences. Doesn’t appear until after 6 months. • Infantile Amnesia—adults recall little or none of first three years

15. Memory Long-Term Memory Strategies • Rehearsal - repetition • Organizing - trying to group related information • Imagery - creating mental images • Elaboration - engaging in more extensive processing of information

16. Memory Imagery and Memory of Verbal Information

17. Memory The Role of Expertise in Memory

18. Memory Episodic and Semantic Memory • Episodic memory—retention of information about where and when of life’s happenings • Semantic memory—person’s knowledge about world • Fields of expertise • General academic knowledge • “Everyday knowledge”

19. Systems of Long Term Memory

20. Memory Aging and Memory • Younger adults have better episodic memory than older adults • Older adults remember older events better than more recent events • Older the semantic memory, the less accurate it is • Implicit memory less likely to be adversely affected by aging than explicit memory

21. Memory Prospective Memory • Remembering to do something in the future • Age-related declines depend on task • Time-based tasks decline more • Event-based tasks show less decline

22. Memory Influences on the Memory of Older Adults • Physiological factors and health • Beliefs, expectations, and feelings • Education, memory tasks, and assessment • Memory training

23. Thinking Thinking in Adulthood • Practical Problem SolvingImproves – peaks in middle adulthood • Expertise—extensive, highly organized knowledge and understanding of particular domain • Use It or Lose It - practice helps cognitive skills • Cognitive Training - can learn to use other skills to compensate for lost skills

24. Metacognition What Is Metacognition? • Theory of mind—thoughts about how mental processes work • Metamemory—knowledge about memory

25. Children’s Understanding of False Beliefs

26. Metacognition Metamemory in Children • relatively poor at beginning of elementary school years • Improves considerably by 11 to 12 years of age

27. Metacognition Metacognition in Adolescence and Adulthood • Adolescents more likely than children to manage and monitor thinking • Middle age adults have accumulated a great deal of metacognitive knowledge • Older adults tend to overestimate memory problems they experience on daily basis