Cognitive Development: Information Processing Theories -- Chapter 7

Attention

Memory (to be covered in class)

Thinking

Metacognition

Piaget vs. Information Processing Approach

Piaget conceived of cognition as a whole. When transition occurs from one to the next stage, he said, all of the cognitive processes show qualitative and quantitative shifts.

In contrast, Information Processing theories view cognition in units or smaller components. Different theories examine different components of cognition.

Components of Cognition in Processing Information

Stimulus Attention Memory Thinking Response

Mechanisms of developmental change (Robert Siegler)

Encoding -- recording of information Automaticity – processing information with

very little or no effort Strategy construction – constructing new

ways of processing information

Metacognition also improves as children get older

Memory Memory is the retention of information over

time. Processing information through the memory

system involves 3 steps:

1. Encoding -- Recording

2. Storage -- Retention

3. Recall -- Retrieval

Which is the correct penny?

Memory in Infancy

Infants’ memories are generally studied using the habituation / dishabituation technique.

According to Rovee-Collier’s findings, even

2 ½ mo. old babies have detailed memories. However, other researchers point out that at

this age only implicit memories are displayed. That Rovee-Collier’s findings are not measures of explicit memory.

Infantile amnesia

Inability to remember information from the first 3 years of life is explained in three ways:

1. Biological – the pre-frontal cortex is immature

2. Linguistic – child does not have the language skills for encoding information

3. Psychoanalytic – Freudian theory claims that the first three years of life include traumatic experiences which are repressed

Memory during childhood

Throughout childhood there are significant improvements in memory performance.

Both short-term and long-term memory improve with age.

While long-term memory is relatively permanent, short term memory is both time-limited and capacity-limited.

Working memory

This is the information that is being used and manipulated while working on a particular problem, making decisions, etc.. It is the information that is actively being processed.

Some cognitive psychologists liken this memory system to a mental ‘workbench.’

Children’s long-term memories vary in their accuracy.

Preschoolers are more suggestible and more likely to accept false information than older children. However, variables such as the child’s verbal skills and self-concept as well as the skills and motivations of the interviewer influence the level of the child’s suggestibility.

Use of Strategies

The processing of information improves steadily as children begin to use better strategies or mental activities in order to remember with better accuracy.

Imagery – helps improve verbal memory of older grade school children but not younger grade school children

Elaboration– spontaneously used by adolescencts

Use of Strategies, con’t

The role of knowledge / expertise – The Chess experiment (Chi, 1978)

Fuzzy Trace Theory: This theory states that we can retain information in one of two ways:

1. Verbatim memory trace (precise details)

2. Gist (the general idea) Retaining the gist of information is said to

build up fuzzy traces which are more enduring and less likely to be forgotten.

Unfortunately, younger children are more likely to store information verbatim, which is more likely to be lost over time.

Memory during adolescence & adulthood

Among the significant improvements in information processing as people age is in increases in working memory capacity and in processing speed.

Research indicates that working memory capacity peaks at about 45 years of age and declines after 57 years of age. Processing speed also decreases in middle adulthood and old age.

Explicit and implicit memory in adulthood

Explicit memories are also called declarative memories (knowing that).

These memories are classified as either episodic or semantic.

Implicit memories are often procedural (knowing how).

As people age, they report difficulties with short term memory but claim to have good memory for past episodic information.

However, data indicates that the accuracy of memories for past information decreases in old age, especially as the information to be remembered becomes older.

Declines in semantic memory are less significant, although the retrieval of the information may take longer in older adults.