Psy 407 Exam 2

Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory
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Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory
the approach that emphasizes how cognitive development proceeds as a result of social interactions between members of a culture
According to Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory, what is the most important mental tool?
language
What were the two main points of Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory?
1. Social Interactions are key
2. Emphasized importance of language/speech
(Vygotsky's Theory) What does culture influence?
-What children think about and acquire skills in
-How they acquire information and skills
-When in their development they're allowed to participate in certain activities
-Who is allowed to participate in certain activities
According to Vygotsky, we develop within what?
zone of proximal development
Where does the zone of proximal development occur?
The zone of proximal development falls between "what a child can do alone" and "what a child can do with assistance"
Vygotsky emphasized what?
guided participation with more mature others (prompting, giving clues, modeling, explaining, leading, questioning---all help children learn better)
Scaffolding
Adjusting the support offered during a teaching session to fit the child's current level of performance
Perception
the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events
-it's the bridge between the study of physiological changes and cognitive development
-form a part of every motor or cognitive skill that's developed
Ways of studying early perceptual skills
1. high-amplitude sucking
2. Habituation/dishabituation
3. preference technique
4. operant conditioning
5. physiological measures
What are the basic sensory skills?1. vision 2. hearing 3. smell and taste 4. touchacuitysharpness [of vision] [of hearing]What are the perceptual skills?1. skills for lookingdepth perceptionthe ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distanceBinocular cues2-eyed cues; retinal display and convergence -develop at about 4 monthsMonocular cueseyes function as one; use this when object is further away and retinal disparity/convergence doesn't occur -last to emerge, somewhere around 5-7 monthsKinetic cuesthese come from either your own motion or the motion of some object -most 6 month olds show depth perception using the visual cliff technique -develop first, perhaps by about as early as 2-3 monthsPattern perceptionbabies prefer patterns with curved edges rather than straight edges; from as young as 2 days old, prefer patterns that are symmetrical; by 2 months, prefer complex over simple patterns (aka 2 month shift)Social referencingreading emotional cues in others to help determine how to act in a particular situation -by about 2-3 months, babies begin to respond differently to various emotional expressions -by 5-6 months, babies can tell the difference between happy and sad voices and between happy, surprised, fearful faces -by 1 year, can use their caregivers' emotional cues to help them figure out what to do in new situationsGibson's Ecological Theory of Perception-Nature-nurture are inseparable -Proposes that information important for perception is readily and directly available in the environment -Perception drives action -we evolved to act within an environment and perception is designed for action4 systematic patterns of change in perceptual skills that produce development1. purposefulness of perceptual activity 2. awareness of the meaning of perceptual information 3. degree of differentiation 4. ignoring the irrelevantPurposefulness of perceptual activitynewborn actively explores the world around self - is a purposeawareness of the meaning of perceptual informationinfinite and child gradually learns links between how objects appear and what those objects can be used for -affordancesdegree of differentiationover time, child focuses more and more on details, on finer gradations, on more discriminations among things; attend to many more properties of objects (e.g., texture, shape, color, density)ignoring the irrelevantchild becomes slowly more efficient at focusing on the essentials in some situations and ignoring everything else -executive functionI-P Model of Memory-separate memory stores and processes: sensory memory, short-term/working memory, long-term memory -info moves through system seriallyRepresentation of knowledge in Long-Term Memory-declarative memory (explicit memory) -nondeclarative/procedural memory (implicit)Automatic Processesuncontrolled, often implicit -require little or no working memory capacity, unavailable to consciousness, doesn't interfere with other processes. doesn't improve with practiceEffortful Processescontrolled -require mental effort, can interfere with other processes, improve with practiceSemantic Memorya category of long-term memory that involves memory for knowledge about the worldEpisodic MemoryA category of long-term memory that involves the recollection of specific events, situations and experiences.Declarative Memorythe cognitive information retrieved from explicit memory; knowledge that can be declared -memories for "knowing that..."Nondeclarative/Procedural Memorydeals with how - shown by performance rather than conscious recollection -measured with reaction times, subliminal priming, physiological measures -implicit..does not show much developmental changeBaddeley and Hitch's model of working memory- They viewed working memory as a more complex processing system - Proposed that working memory is made up of four components: 1. Central Executive 2. Phonological Loop 3. Visuospatial Sketchpad 4. Episodic BufferPascual-Leone's Capacity Modelwith age a child can keep more things in mind at once and as their capacity expands, they're increasingly able to use new strategies or ides and so they change stagesCase's Efficiency Modelas each new developmental skill is mastered and becomes practiced, the increase in processing efficiency frees processing space (attention) for doing other mental work -4 maturational stages and wishing each stage a child gets better and better at acquiring information and using strategies--this in turn, fosters greater efficiency, which leads to faster processing