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PSY 220 Chapter 6
Cognition
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| cognition | the activity of knowing and the processes through which knowledge is aquired (ex. attending, perceiving, remembering, and thinking) |
| clinical method | an unstandardized interviewing procedure used by Piaget in which a child's response to each successive question (or problem) determines what the investigator will ask next |
| scheme | a cognitive structure or organized pattern of action or thought used to deal with experiences |
| organization | in Piaget's cognitivedevelopmental thoery, a person's inborn tendency to combine and integrate available schemes into more coherent and complex systems or bodies of knowledge; also grouping stimuli into clusters |
| adaptation | in Piaget's cognitivedevelopmental theory, a person's inborn tendency to adjust to the demands of the environment, consisting of the complementary processes of assimilation and accomodation |
| assimilation | Piaget's term for the process by which children interpret new experiences in terms of their existing schemata, contrast with accommodation |
| accommodation | in Piaget's cognitivedevelopmental theory, the process of modifying existing schemes to incorporate or adapt to new experiences. contrast with assimilation |
| equilibriation | in Piaget's theory, the process of seeking a state of mental stability in which our thoughts (schemes) are consistent with the information we receive from the external world |
| zone of proximal development | Vygotsky's term for the difference between what a learner can accomplish independently and what a learner can accomplish with guidance and encouragement of a more skilled partner |
| guided participation | a process in which children learn by actively participating in culturally revelant activities with the aid and support of their parents and other knowledgeable individuals |
| scaffolding | Jerom Bruner's term for providing structure to a less-skilled learner to encourage advancement |
| private speech | nonsocial speech, or speech for the self, commonly used by preschoolers to guide their activities and believed by Vygotsky to be the forerunner of inner speech, or silent thinking in words |
| neuroconstructivism theory | approach that explains the construction of new knowledge by a child in terms of changes in neural structures in response to experience |
| reaction time | the inerval between the presentation of a stimulus and a response to it |
| dynamic | in Fischer's dynamic skill framework, the idea that human performance changes in response to changes in context |
| skill | in Fischer's dynamic skill framework, a person's ability to perform a particular task in a specific context |
| developmental range | in Fisher's dynamic skill framework, the concept that people's abilities vary depending on the context, from optimal levels in highly supportive contexts to lower levels in unsupportive situation |
| pretend play | symbolic play in which one actor, object, or action symbolizes or stands for another |
| object permanence | the understanding that objects continue to exist. when they are no longer visible or otherwise detectable to the senses; fully mastered by the end of infancy |
| A-not-B error | he tendency of 8-12 month old infants to search for a hidden object in the place they last found it (A) rather than in its new hiding place (B) |
| symbolic capacity | the capacity to use symbols such as words, images, or actions to represent or stand for objects and experiences; representational thought |
| primary circular reaction | during Piaget's sensorimotor period, the infant's repetition of interacting acts centered on his or her own body (ex. repeatedly kicking) |
| secondary circular reaction | during Piaget's sensorimotor period, the infant's repetition of interesting actions on objects (ex. repeatedly shaking a rattle to make a noise) |
| coordination of secondary schemes | during Piaget's sensorimotor period, the infant's combining of actions to solve problems, using one scheme as a means to an end, as in batling aside a barrier in order to grasp a toy |
| tertiary circular reaction | during Piaget's sensorimotor period, the infant's experimenting with actions to find new ways to solve problems or produce interesting effects |
| imaginary companion | a play companion invented by a child in the preoperational stage who has developed the capacity for symbolic thought |
| perceptual salience | phenomenon in which the most obvious features of an object or situation have disproportionate influence on the perceptions and thoughts of young children |
| conservation | the recognition that certain properties of an object or substance do not change when it's appearance is altered n some superficial way |
| decentration | the ability to focus on two or more dimensions of a problem at one time |
| centration | in Piaget's theory, the tendency to focus on only one aspect of a probem when two or more aspects are relevant |
| reversibility | in Piaget's theory, the ability to reverse or negate an action by mentally performing the opposite action |
| transofmrational thought | in Piaget's theory, the ability to conceptualize transformations, or processes of change from one state to another, which appears in the stage of concrete operations. contrast with static thought |
| static thought | in Piaget's theory, the thought characteristic of the preoperational period that is fixed on end states rather than on the changes that transform the state into another. contrast with transformational thought |
| egocentrism | the tendency to view the world from the person's own perspective and fail to recognize that others may have different points of view |
| class inclusion | the logical understanding that parts or subclasses are included in the whole class and that the whole is therefore greater than any of its part |
| seriation | a logical operation that allows a person to mentally order a set of stimuli along a quantifiable dimension such as height or weight |
| transitivity | the ability to recognize the necessary or logical relations among element in serial order (ex. if A is taller than B, and B is taller than C, then A must be taller than C) |
| hypothetical-deductive reasoning | a form of problem solving in which a person starts with general or abstract ideas and deduces or traces their specific implication; "if-then" thinking |
| confirmation bias | our tendency to seek and interpret new information that confims our existing beliefs about something |
| adolescent egocentrism | a characteristic of adolescnet thought that involves difficulty differentiating between the person's own thoughts and feelings and those of other people; evident in the personal fable and imaginary audience phenomena |
| imaginary audience | a form of adolescent egocentrism that involves confusing one's own thoughts with the thoughts of a hypothesized audience for behavior and concluding that others share these preoccupations |
| personal fable | a form of adolescent egocentrism that involves thinking that oneself and one's thoughts and feelings are unique or special |
| postformal thought | proposed stages of cognitive development that lie beyond formal operations |
| relativistic thinking | a form of postformal operational thought in which it is understood that there are multiple ways of viewing a problem and that the solutions people arrive at will depend on their starting assumptions and perspectives |
| dialectical thinking | an advanced form of thought that involves detecting paradozes and inconsistencies among ideas and trying to reconcile them |