Exam 6: Theories of Cognitive Development

"The swings are sad today because I couldn't play on them because it is raining." This statement is an example of what Piagetian concept that is typical of preoperational children?

During Piaget's __________ stage, individuals become capable of abstract, hypothetical thought and deductive reasoning.

Which of the following is NOT a weakness of Piaget's theory?

Compared to adults, when children perform complex tasks they

Distinguish between assimilation and accommodation and give an example of each. Explain how they are related to Piaget's concepts of equilibrium and disequilibrium.

Which of the following is the correct order of Piaget's stages?

Information-processing theorists refer to sensory memory, working memory, and long-term memory as mental

Long-term memory is like a computer's hard drive, a fairly permanent storehouse of programs and data.

Before you read this question, the name of the first president of the United States was most likely stored in your

Renee Baillargeon studied object permanence by showing infants possible events and impossible events. In the possible event, a screen rotated until it made contact with a box, at which point it began rotating backwards. In the impossible event, when the rotating screen reached the box, it continued to rotate, the box appeared to disappear, and the box reappeared after the screen rotated past it. She found that 4 ½-month-old infants looked

Which of the following is characteristic of formal operational thought?

According to information-processing, as children grow, they develop better strategies, increased capacity of working memory, and more effective executive function.

Recently your friend Martha took her sons to a hands-on children's museum. Martha noticed that her 8-year-old son and her 12-year-old son interacted with some of the displays in very different ways. One display involved opening doors to safes by determining the correct combination. Each safe had three, four, or five buttons that had to be pressed in a particular order to open the door. Martha's 8-year-old son randomly pushed the buttons and never found the correct combinations to any of the safes. Martha's 12-year-old son approached the task in a very systematic manner - trying all possible combinations of buttons until the doors opened. Now Martha is concerned that there is something wrong with her younger son. What can you tell Martha about the differences in concrete operational and formal operational thought that might explain her sons' behavior?

How is the cognitive functioning of Rachel, an 8-year-old, likely to compare with Bethany, a 16-year-old?

Which of the following is TRUE concerning infants' naïve theories of physics?

Piaget's view of cognitive development has some straightforward implications for teaching practices. Which teaching strategy is NOT an application of Piaget's theory?

Suppose a child is given these two facts: 1) If you hit a glass with a feather - the glass will break, and 2) Jason hit a glass with a feather. Which of the following statements is CORRECT?

Adults' theories of living things begin in infancy when babies first distinguish animate objects from inanimate objects.

A person's beliefs about connections between mind and behavior are central to

Children's naïve psychology flourishes in