The Development and
Application of Cognitive Skills
Chapter 7 Objectives:
-How does our Memory develop?
-How do we learn Problem-solving skills?
Do infants even have a memory??
Yes…the foundation of
memory is laid down in
the first few months
following birth. Young
babies remember events
for days or even weeks at a
time!
What kind of memory do infants have?
Scientists have confirmed that infants have
great difficulty storing new memories in their
first year.
But developmentalists have agreed that
young infants can remember if certain
conditions exist:
‐
Particularly if the experiment is similar to
real life situation
Research on Infant Memory
The most dramatic evidence comes from a series of
experiments in which 3 month-old infants were
taught to make a mobile move by kicking their legs
(Rovee-Collier, 1990).
Virtually all infants began making some random
kicks and movement, eventually realizing that these
kicks made the mobile move.
When some infants returned to the experiment 1
week later, they immediately began to kickindicating they remembered.
The Mobile Game
(2 – 6 Months of Age)
3-Month-Old
Other infants were retested at 2 weeks
and demonstrated forgetting. However,
they could remember if a reminder session
was provided that helped infants
recollect the experience.
Once a memory has been forgotten, it can
be retrieved by a reminder
Two types of reminders:
‐ Reactivation
‐ A passive reminder during which the infant
basically watches a “replay” of a portion of the
original event
‐ Experimenter controlled – mobile game
‐ Computer controlled – train game
‐
Reinstatement
‐ An active reminder during which the infant plays
with the mobile or train again
‐ It is an abbreviated training trial
Which reminder is more effective?
Reactivation and reinstatement produces different
effects
‐
At 6 months:
‐
‐
After a single reactivation – infants remember for 2 weeks
(as long as they did originally)
After a single reinstatement – infants remember for:
‐ 4 weeks using the mobile
‐ 19 weeks using the train
An active reminder is better than a passive reminder
‐
The more involved you are in the reminder – the better its
effect
These experiments show that three
important features of memory exist as
early as 2 and 3 months of age:
-An event from the past can be remembered
-An event from the past is eventually forgotten
-A cue can serve to recover the memory that seems
to have been forgotten
Infants Remember Longer As They Get
Older
Infant Memory
Research supports an increased ability to
retain learned information as infant grows
older
Because there are many types of memory, it’s
not surprising that infants remember some
things better than others
‐
Ex: language, images, actions, forgotten faces,
smells, memorized facts and so on…
Memory rapidly improves in older
infants and toddlers. Youngsters can
recall more of what they experience
and remember it longer
When shown novel actions with toys and later asked to
repeat it, toddlers can remember more than infants and
remember the actions for longer periods of time.
Memory in Children
Use of memory strategies
‐ Activities that improve remembering
‐
Rehearsal: repetitively naming information that
is to be remembered
‐
Organization: information to be remembered
should be structured so that related information
is placed together
‐
Elaboration: embellishing information to be
remembered to make it more memorable
Organization
Example: a seventh grader trying to
remember battles of the Civil War could
organize them geographically or
chronologically.
Elaboration
Example: A child cannot remember if the
second syllable of rehearsal is spelled her (as it
sounds) or hear. The child could remember the
correct spelling by reminding himself that
rehearsal is like re-hear-ing.
‐
Thus, thinking about the word in that context
makes it easier to remember its spelling.
Knowledge that allows a child to
organize information and give it
meaning increases gradually with age.
Children’s Memory of
Their Own Lives
Scripts
‐
Abstract generalized accounts of familiar
repeated events
For example, a child describing what
happens during a birthday party “you play
games, open presents, and eat cake”.
Is memory a social thing?
Autobiographical memory refers to people’s
memory of the significant events and
experiences in their own lives.
Autobiographical memories are richer when
parents talk about past events in detail and
encourage their children.
‐
In addition it allows people relate their experiences
to others, creating socially shared memories
(Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000).
Autobiographical Memory
This form of memory is very important
because it helps people construct a personal
life history.
Language helps facilitate the development of
autobiographical memory.
‐
When parents converse with their children,
parents teach children the important features of
events and how events are organized.
Children’s Memory
Preschoolers’ memories for activities are better
than their memories for objects because
children find it easier to remember events that
follow a logical order than events that do not
For example, 3 and 5 year olds have a better
memory for activities involved in making
pretend cookies out of Play-doh than they do
for activities involved in a sandbox – because
they can occur in any order
‐
(you put ingredients in a bowl, then you mix
ingredients, then you roll the dough, then you put
pieces on a tray to cook, etc…)
Metacognition
Awareness of and control of one’s cognitive
abilities, as shown by the intentional use of
cognitive strategies in solving problems
Metacognitive skills improves the
performance of children in reading and in
other areas
Metamemory
Knowledge of the functions and processes
involved in one’s storage and retrieval of
information, as shown by the use of cognitive
strategies to retain information
Let’s test YOUR memory!
Take a minute and recall your earliest
memory…write down any content that you
can remember.
‐
‐
‐
‐
How old were you?
What were the details of the event
Was the memory emotionally significant?
Do you remember the memory or do you
remember hearing about the memory?
Memory Test
Were you about 3 or 4 in your memory?
‐
Most people recall early memories at about this
age.
Was there some degree of emotion
surrounding the memory?
‐
Most early memories are either very positive or
negative.
‐
Why don’t we remember our first birthday?
Infant Memory…or lack of one
Infants have great difficulty storing new
memories in their first year known as Infantile
amnesia which is the inability to remember
events from one’s early life
‐
Usually events that happened before the age of 2.
But, we do remember a increasing number of
events from about the age of 3 or 4 years.
Think on Your Own….
How would YOU explain the cause of
infantile amnesia?
Theories Explaining Infantile Amnesia
One theory is that infants lack adequate language to
successfully store memories.
How can we recall a memory before we have the
language to organize our thoughts?
Once children learn to talk (about 2 years) they tend
to rely on language to represent their past
‐
Early prelingual experiences may be difficult to retrieve
from memory without proper language.
Inadequate Sense of Self
Infants and toddlers lack a sense of self. Their
early experiences are not represented in
autobiographical memory, so they can’t be
recalled later in life.
Some theorists argue that because infants have
no sense of self, they lack the autobiographical
timeline that’s used to organize experiences
later in life
‐
They do not have the framework for remembering
early events
Think on Your Own…
Review and think about the Focus on Research
question: Do Stereotypes and Suggestions
Influence Preschoolers’ Reports?
How Do Children Learn to
Problem-Solve?
Piaget believed that reasoning and problem-solving
become progressively more sophisticated as children
develop. We will see that young children do indeed
solve problems with far greater skill than Piaget
predicted
Children typically solve problems
more readily as they get older, but
young children sometimes solve
problems well and older children
are sometimes quite error-prone
Features of Problem-Solving
Young children sometimes fail to solve
problems because they don’t encode all the
important information in a problem
Encoding processes transform the information
in a problem into a mental representation.
‐
Quite often children's representations of
problems are incorrect or incomplete
Young children sometimes fail to
solve problems because they
don’t plan ahead
For example, “get ready for school” requires planning
because it involves coordinating a number of goalsget dressed, eat breakfast. Brush teeth, find backpackwhich must be completed under time pressure. When
faced with problems like this one, children rarely
come up with effective plans.
That doesn’t mean young children
never plan ahead
Young children can plan ahead, if the
problem is not too complex- but many
problems make it difficult or pointless for
young children to plan
Successful problem-solving depends on
knowledge specific to the problem as well as
general processes.
‐
Children need critical facts to solve problems
More often than not, older children
have more of the knowledge relevant to
solving the problem and will therefore
be more successful
Children often rely on Heuristics (general rule of
thumb) to solve problems, as well as means-ends
analysis