PSYC 4230 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Cognitive Development, Synaptogenesis

• School: University of Windsor
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 4230
• Professor: Kim Babb

Document Summary

Nature: development is determined by genetic or biological. Nurture: development is determined by experience or factors environmental factors. Continuous development: development is a cumulative process of adding on more of the same types of skills that were there to begin with. Discontinuous development: development reflects new and different ways of interpreting and responding to the world that emerge at particular time periods. Cognitive development results from continuous and bidirectional interactions between aspects of the developing child. Self-organizing: certain combinations of factors interact together on their own and results in patterns of behavior that we can observe. Domain-general: children"s thinking is influenced by a set of single factors that impact areas of thought equally. Evidence: increased memory, increased speed of processing. Domain-specific: different cognitive domains are controlled by different brain functions/areas; modularity. Evidence: non-homogeneity of cognitive skills, prodigies and savants, language areas of the brain. Stability: the extent to which cognitive functions are resistant to change.