EDST1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Sensory Memory, Coding Theory, Object Permanence
16 May 2018
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Lecture 5
Different types of knowledge held in LTM:
• declarative and procedural
• semantic and episodic
• implicit and explicit
The building blocks of LTM are schemas
• Schema: Organized knowledge structures that represent generic
concepts and categorize information according to the way in which
we use it
• Facts about schemas:
• Schemas are held in LTM and affect what is in WM and what
selected in sensory memory
• Most commonly used framework for understanding LTM
• Schemas control encoding, storage, and retrieval of LTM
• LTM is actively constructed using schemas
• Activated schemas determine what incoming information is
relevant
• Schemas are continually reconstructed
• Bartlett (1932): War of the Ghosts - Native American folktale
• Unfamiliar information (no schemas: e.g. ghosts and spirits) was
omitted - process of leveling or flattening
• Other material was altered (e.g. canoes became boats) and
undergone sharpening process (strong schemas of warfare)
• Implications: memory is actively constructed using schemas,
Instantiation moulds new information into a familiar form
• Pre-existing schemas determine what incoming material is relevant
• Relevant material processed
• Irrelevant material discarded
• Schema automation is achieved by practicing skills until they do
not require consciously controlled and effortful processing
• Comprehension is selection of a schema that allows assimilation to
something we know
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Lecture 6
• Two mechanisms for schema modification (Piaget):
• Assimilation: new information that fits into an existing schema
is added
• Accommodation: existing schemas are modified in the face of
new, conflicting information
• Cognitive development depends on interaction between the child and
the learning environment (Piaget)
• Two aspects of Piaget theory:
• General theory (how schemas are acquired and developed)
• Stage theory (stages of cognitive development)
• State of equilibrium
• At any given time a child is in a state of equilibrium: the child’s
schemas allow her/him to deal with the world.
• As new experiences accumulate, they could be dealt in two
ways:
▪ Assimilation
▪ Accommodation
• Assimilation - Relating new experiences to existing schemas
without changing them (keeping old equilibrium) – treating variety of
experiences as invariants
• Accommodation - Altering existing schemas or creating new ones
in response to new experiences (finding a new state of equilibrium)
• Stages of cognitive development
The process of equilibration was divided by Piaget into four stages
involving massive changes through accommodation until a child sees
the world in a way we do
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Sensorimotor stage: Birth – 2 years
Begins to interact with the world:
• Initially, in a reflex state
• Undifferentiated world
• Learning occurs through sucking, looking, grasping, moving objects
• Begins to use imitation, memory, thought
• Starts to categorise and sort
• Development of object permanence (objects exist even when can’t be
seen)
Preoperational stage: 2 – 7 years
• Difficulty seeing perspectives of others
• Irreversibility
• Limited by centration (one aspect/dimension)
• Egocentrism
• Language development
Concrete operational stage - 7 – 11 years
Child has mastered many operations required for cognitive activity:
+ves
• Reasoning is logical, flexible, organised
• Reversibility and concentration
• Loss of egocentrism
• Able to classify
• Able to consider different perspectives
-ves
• Difficulty with using symbols
• Logical reasoning applies only to manipulation of concrete objects
• Can’t form hypotheses about situations which may not exist and
logically test them
• Schemas refer to concrete objects and do not allow to make inferences
and go beyond the evidence
Formal operational stage - 11 – Adult
• Abstract , hypothetical and deductive reasoning (possibilities that exist
only in the mind)
• Logical inferences, causal relations
• Understanding of symbolic meanings and metaphors
• Scientific thought (hypotheses with systematic logical testing by
controlling all variables but one, e.g., oscillation of pendulum task)
• Concern about identity and moral issues (e.g., generalizing stories
with a moral)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Different types of knowledge held in ltm: declarative and procedural, semantic and episodic implicit and explicit. The process of equilibration was divided by piaget into four stages involving massive changes through accommodation until a child sees the world in a way we do. Preoperational stage: 2 7 years: difficulty seeing perspectives of others, irreversibility, limited by centration (one aspect/dimension, egocentrism, language development. Concrete operational stage - 7 11 years. Child has mastered many operations required for cognitive activity: +ves: reasoning is logical, flexible, organised, reversibility and concentration, loss of egocentrism, able to classify, able to consider different perspectives. The child"s culture shapes cognitive development by determining what and how the child will learn about the world. Cognition: develops in stages, social interaction through cultural settings, zone of proximal development: area between a person"s current level of independent functioning and what they can achieve with support.
