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EXAMINATIONS October/November 2023 PYC4805 Developmental Psychology
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EXAMINATIONS October/November 2023 PYC4805 Developmental Psychology
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UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONSOctober/November 2023 PYC4805 Developmental Psychology
NAME: STUDENT NUMBER:
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October/November 2023 PYC4805 Developmental Psychology
October/November 2023
PYC4805 Developmental
Psychology
1
,PYC4805 October/November 2023
QUESTION A1
Compare and contrast the cognitive development of infants and pre-schoolers
using the Information Processing Theory. Refer to relevant research findings
where appropriate. [20]
Cognitive-development Theory
• Is one of the approaches to development which focuses on thought processes
and a person constructing knowledge actively.
• In cognitive-developmental theory, the key is how people think and how
thinking changes over time.
Three distinct approaches have been developed:
• One approach suggests that thinking develops in a universal sequence of
stages; Piaget's theory of cognitive development.
• The second approach proposes that people process information as computers
do, becoming more efficient over much of the life span – Information
Processing Theory.
• The third approach emphasises the contributions of culture on thinking and
cognitive growth.
With regard to Information Processing Theory:
• Information processing theorists draw heavily on how computers work to explain
how thinking develops through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
Information-processing theory proposes that human cognition consists of mental
hardware and mental software, in the way that computers consist of both
hardware (disk drives, random-access memory, and the central processing unit)
and software (the programs the computer runs).
• Mental hardware refers to cognitive structures, including different memories
where information is stored.
• Mental software includes cognitive processes that enable people to complete
specific tasks such as reading a sentence, playing a video game, or hitting a
2
, baseball. For example, an information-processing psychologist would say that for
students to do well in an exam, they must encode the information as they study,
store it in memory, and then retrieve it during the test.
• To explain developmental changes in thinking, information-processing
psychologists believe that like computers, adolescents and adults have better
hardware and better software than do younger children - infants and pre-
schoolers, who have less powerful and sophisticated processors. For example,
adolescents typically solve maths word problems better than infants and pre-
schoolers. This is because adolescents have greater memory capacity to store
the facts in the problem and because their methods for performing arithmetic
operations are more efficient. Some researchers also point to deterioration of the
mental hardware - along with declines in the mental software - as explanations of
cognitive ageing
With regard to Piaget's theory
a) The cognitive-developmental perspective began with a focus on how children
construct knowledge and how their constructions change over time
b) Jean Piaget (1896-1980), the most influential child and adolescent
developmental psychologist of the 20th century, proposed the best known of
these theories. Piaget believed that children naturally try to make sense of their
world.
c) Throughout infancy, childhood, and adolescence, individuals want to understand
the workings of both the physical and social world.
d) As children try to comprehend their world, Piaget believed that they act like
scientists, creating theories about the physical and social worlds. Children try to
combine all that they know about objects and people into a complete theory,
which is tested daily by experience because their theories lead children to expect
certain things to happen.
e) As with real scientific theories, when the predicted events do occur, a child's
belief in her theory grows stronger. When the predicted events do not occur, the
child must revise her theory.
f) Imagine an infant whose theory of objects includes the idea that “Toys pushed
off the table fall to the floor’ If the infant pushes some other object - a plate or an
3
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