Deck 6: Development of Folk Knowledge

Question 1

Core-knowledge theorists argue that infants possess knowledge about aspects of their physical and social environments from birth or shortly thereafter and upon which new and flexible skills and belief systems are built.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Which of the following is not true of the concept of children as intuitive theists?

A) They believe in the existence of supernatural beings.
B) They attribute belief-desire reasoning to such characters.
C) They assume everything happens for a reason.
D) They come into the world with a concept of God.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Explain Baron-Cohen's mind-reading and empathizing systems of theory of mind.

Answer 3

When responding to this question students should refer to Table 6.2, p. 214 in the text as well as the information written in the section titled "The Mind-Reading System,"

Question 4

Shared attention refers to the triadic interaction between two social partners and a third object.

Question 5

What was shown by Chandler and colleagues (1989) with regard to the percentage of 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old children using various deceptive strategies?

A) These findings leave little room for doubt that even children as young as 2.5 are already capable of engaging in a variety of well-crafted deceptive practices, best interpreted as strategies aimed at instilling false beliefs in others.
B) Children of all ages in the study do not use deception.
C) These findings suggest that only 4-year-old children are capable of deception.
D) These findings suggested that if the children's parents were using deceptive strategies themselves then the children would follow suit but only at 3 years of age.

Question 6

Discuss in detail Baron-Cohen's concept of Mindblindness as it relates to children with autism spectrum disorder and provide examples.

Question 7

Teleology refers to the tendency to reason about events and objects in terms of objectification-why they "exist".

Question 8

Children's tendencies to tell lies decrease over the preschool years but increase in middle childhood and are related to their improved executive function but not their theory-of-mind skills.

Question 9

Which of the following is not one of the elements of the child's theory of mind as proposed by Wellman:

A) Children's perception of the world affects their knowledge, or beliefs.
B) Children's emotions influence their wants and desires.
C) Beliefs and desires, motivate one's actions.
D) Children's emotions do influence their wants only their desires and not one's actions either.

Question 10

Baron-Cohen claims that children with autism spectrum disorder have an inability to read minds, or what he calls mindblindness.

Question 11

Young children's problem with false-belief tasks is not one of general memory. Which of the following wound not be indicative of what can account for their poor performance?

A) Three-year-old children lack the conceptual structures necessary to solve problems dealing with beliefs.
B) Three-year-old children have a representational deficit and do not possess a true theory of mind.
C) Young children have difficulty with contradictory evidence; they cannot deal with two representations of a single object simultaneously.
D) Young children do not lack the conceptual structures necessary to solve problems dealing with the theory of mind.

Question 12

In research conducted by Sodian and Kristen-Antonov (2015) which provided evidence consistent with the position that joint attention and referential communication are necessary skills in the development of more advanced forms of theory of mind. What was indicated in their short-term longitudinal study where they assessed infants on a series of social-cognitive tasks from 12 to 50 months?

A) They reported that 12-month-old infants' imperative pointing predicted children's performance well before 50 months.
B) Tasks garnered at 50 months were a direct result of the infants' ability to predict how well they imperatively point.
C) They reported that 12-month-old infants' declarative pointing-intended to convey information about a target object and thus a form of referential communication-predicted children's performance on theory-of-mind tasks at 50 months.
D) Nothing could be determined with regard to social-cognitive tasks as this does not appear until after the age of 60 months.

Question 13

What are the two complementary systems of interacting modules involved in mind reading that develop during infancy and early childhood according to Baron-Cohen (1995, 2005)?

A) the mind-reading system and the dual process system
B) the mind-reading system and the empathizing system
C) the mind-reading system and the sympathizing system
D) the mind-reading system and the infant bound strategy system

Question 14

Wellman (1990) believes that adults' theory of mind is based on belief-desire reasoning which is:

A) how we explain and predict what people do based on what we understand their desires and beliefs to be-that is by referring to their wants, wishes, hopes, and goes (their desires) and to their knowledge, ideas, opinions, and suppositions (their beliefs).
B) how we explain what people hope for in the future by predicting their ongoing thought processes.
C) how we acknowledge people's dreams at the point of them having particular dreams and goals.
D) the fostering of motivational techniques in order to ensure people achieve life's goals.

Question 15

What are the two most elementary social-cognitive abilities required for a theory of mind?

A) viewing others as non-intentional agents lacking the ability to take the perspective of another.
B) viewing oneself and other individuals as intentional agents and the ability to take the perspective of another.
C) viewing others as oneself and being aware of the social environment.
D) understanding the cognitive abilities that people lack and the ability to acquire those later in life.

Question 16

Why is performance on false-belief tasks in 3- and 4-year-old children related to family size?

Question 17

Explain in detail the concept of shared attention and provide an example.

Question 18

Artificialism is the belief that everything that exists was constructed by people (or God) for specific purposes, much as artifacts (e.g., tools, tables, automobiles) are constructed.

Question 19

Explain in detail how theory theorists see cognitive development as being a constructive process.

Question 20

A preschool-age child who, upon being asked where the rain comes from, answers that the rainmaker in the sky pushes the button to make the rain fall down, is an example of what concept?

A) finalism
B) intuitivism
C) artificialism
D) promiscuous teleology