Required Question 1 (this question was graded out of 32, but scores were converted to
a 50-point scale)
Contemporary theories of cognitive development generally agree that mental
representations play an important role in cognition and cognitive development, although
they do dispute when mental representations first develop and how mental
representations are internally structured. How would you define mental representation?
Why and how are mental representations important for cognition? What is some of the
evidence that has been used to argue for the very early advent of mental representations
in infancy?
There were three components to the answer: defining mental
representations (12 points), noting why mental representations are
important (8 points), and providing research evidence that has been used
to argue for the very early advent of mental representations (12 points).
One additional point was held in reserve for truly outstanding answers.
1. Definition
A complete definition of mental representation included the following
components (12 points):
· Private, interior, or contained in the mind
· Image, symbol, picture, encoding, pattern of activation, or similar –
something other than a copy of the external world. A point was deducted
for defining a metal representation as 'a representation'.
· Often, but not necessarily, related to objects, events, or qualities in the
environment (we can have representations of imaginary objects or events
or of interior mental processes, including other representations)
2. Importance
Noting both of the following in some fashion was required for full credit
(4 points):
· Mental representations allow us to conceive of objects, events, or
qualities that are not immediately available to our senses, allowing our
thinking to span space and time and freeing our thinking from the bonds of
the concrete world.
· Mental representations allow us to construct theories or perform
simulations of the world so that we can solve problems without resorting
to direct trial-and-error sensorimotor manipulation of the environment.
3. Evidence for very early mental representations
Any one of the following (or similar) earned credit (12 points):
· Studies by DeCasper and colleagues showing that newborns prefer to
listen to auditory stimuli they were exposed to prenatally (e.g., mother's
voice, a particular story, etc.), thereby demonstrating that infants can form
auditory memories before birth.
· Studies by Meltzoff and colleagues showing that 1- to 2-week-old infants
can imitate facial expressions (imitation of nonvisible gestures).
· Studies by Rovee-Collier and colleagues showing that 2- and 3-monthold infants retain detailed visual memories of mobiles for spans of several
hours to several days.
· Studies by Baillergeon and colleagues showing the 3- to 4-month-old
infants look longer at a display in which a screen passes through space that
had been occupied by an object that became occluded by the screen.
For full credit, indications of the approximate age, the task, and why the
task is relevant for revealing mental representations was required.
Choice Question 1: One of the components of the definition of development offered in
class is that it involves change that is cumulative. That is, advances in development build
on existing abilities, rather than being created de novo. One consequence of this assertion
is that the scope of possible development at any given point in time is rather limited, as
notions like Piaget’s moderate novelty have attempted to capture. Focusing on a specific
ability of your choice, provide a series of concrete examples from class or the reading,
illustrating how infants may build more elaborated later capacities from simpler earlier
ones.
A series of examples should include a sequence of three of more behaviors. Points
were apportioned as follows:
1. IDENTIFY behaviors (6 points each, up to a total of 18)
2. For each behavior, give some indication of its TIMING (by age or stage) (4
points each, up to a total of 12)
3. For each behavior in the sequence, show its RELATION to the preceding
behavior. In particular, why could behavior 2 not occur without the prior
acquisition of behavior 1? (6 points each, up to a total of 12).
4. Give some suggestion of the MECHANISM underlying development of the
sequence and/or give some indication of the nature of change involved in the
sequence (continuous vs. stage-like). (4 points each, up to a total of 8 points).
Choice Question 2: Piaget argued that cognitive development occurred in structural
stages, so that the cognitive achievements at each stage could be described largely
without reference to their content, or the domain of knowledge to which they applied.
That is, according to Piaget, cognition is integrated over multiple domains. Provide an
argument, citing at least two pieces of relevant evidence, either for or against this
position with respect to some aspect of cognitive development in infancy.
1. DEFINITIONS: What is “domain generality”? What is “domain specificity”?
Distinguishing characteristics should be noted somewhere in the answer. (15
points).
2. State a POSITION for or against domain-specificity. (5 points).
3. Cite two (or more) pieces of relevant EVIDENCE (10 points each, up to a
total of 20 points).
4. For each piece of evidence cited, indicate why and how it bears on the
question of domain specificity. (5 points each, up to a total of 10 points).
Choice Question 3: Theories of cognitive development all address a common set of
basic questions. Below is a table that notes how Piaget’s theory addressed some of these
… How should the remainder of the table be filled in for Information Processing Theory?
Identify and define what should go into each of the following cells in the table (A. What
is innate? B. What are the basic mechanisms of development? C. How does development
proceed?)
We looked for some mention of each of the following:
1. Part A: STRUCTURES (i.e., architecture) relating to functional components of
the brain (10 points).
2. Part A: General FUNCTIONS of information processing, such as memory,
attention, learning (8 points).
3. Part B: development occurs via LEARNING (8 points).
4. Part B: Underlying MECHANISM may involve changes in connections (e.g.,
connectionisms), or acquisition and choice of strategies (e.g., Siegler) (8 points).
5. Part C: Change is CONTINUOUS, rather than stage-like (10 points).
6. Part C: Give some indication of how superficially stage-like changes in behavior
ay be accounted for by a mechanism that is essentially continuous (6 points).