Cognitive development

Cognitive development Piaget Thinking about possibilities - Hypothetical Thinking abstractly Thinking about multiple dimensions Thinking logically Tasks Beyond Piaget Competence/performance issues Information Processing “Adolescent” Errors in Thinking Relativism & Extreme Skepticism Pseudostupidity Idealism Arguing Adolescent egocentrism Imaginary audience Personal fable Risk & Decision Theory

Cognitive development Piaget Beyond Piaget Information Processing “Adolescent” Errors in Thinking Risk & Decision Theory

Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development Characteristics of Stage Approx. Ages Thinking Sensorimotor Birth – 2 years Trial-and-error learning through sensory and motor behavior Preoperational 2-7 years Use of words, images, and signs to represent objects internally, but thinking remains rigid and perception-bound Concrete 7-11 years Use of operations- mental activities that Operations are reversible-leads to more organized and rational thinking, to simple concepts such as number, space, and volume Formal 11 or 12 and up Gradual attainment of abstract, hypothetical, Operations and logical reasoning

Piaget’s Pendulum Task

Piaget Thinking about possibilities - the hypothetical Thinking about multiple dimensions Thinking abstractly Thinking about thinking Thinking logically

Logical Reasoning

If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other. A F 4 7 1. 2. 3. 4.

If someone is drinking an alcoholic beverage, then they are over 21 years old. Mike - wine Jim - 22 years old Jane - water Sally - 19 years old

Ward & Overton (1990)

Information Processing • Increasingly automatic processing • Increased capacities - working & LTM • Improved strategies - complexity & monitoring • Improved attentional capacities - selective & divided • Increased speed of processing

Information Processing

“Adolescent” Errors in Thinking Relativism & Extreme Skepticism Pseudostupidity Idealism Arguing Adolescent egocentrism Imaginary audience Personal fable

Self-regulation • Getting off a “runaway” train (interrupting a risky behavior) • Pausing during sex to put on a condom • Not jumping the gun (thinking before acting) • Diving into a lake of unknown depth • Doing the right thing (choosing the least risky among alternatives) • Turning down a ride from a driver who has been drinking

Among the most important brain changes to take place at adolescence are those in the prefrontal cortex and limbic system.

Brain Development Prefrontal Cortex • Judgment, Organization, Planning, Impulse control • Thickening of gray matter peaks at 11 - 12 yrs. • Last area to become fully myelinated • Full maturation in late teens / early 20s

Brain Development • In the limbic system, changes in levels of certain neurotransmitters, like dopamine, affect reward sensitivity • Causes adolescents to seek novelty, reward, & stimulation at higher rates to achieve the same subjective feeling of pleasure

Implications of the Timing of Brain Maturation • Limbic system matures at puberty • Prefrontal cortex matures several years later • Time gap is partly why adolescence is a period of heightened experimentation with risk • Capacities for action (physical & cognitive abilities) & desire for action (limbic system) precede regulatory capacities (prefrontal cortex) • Get, use gun to commit murder

Result: 15-year-olds are unbelievably smart - particularly memory & ability to absorb new information & reason through complex problems. UNTIL they do something incredibly stupid.

Adolescent Risk • Half of all HIV infections • Almost all addictions • Highest rate of car accidents • Highest rates of criminal behavior

Emotional, Intuitive, and Non-conscious Risk • Willingness vs. Intention/Expectation • Favorability ratings of risk-takers • Impulsiveness from temporary drive states • Social conventions • Frontal lobe – adolescents vs. brain damaged adults

Behavioral Decision Theory • Goals • Perceived outcomes • Perceived vulnerability • Perceived severity of threat • Belief that behavior is relevant

Optimistic Bias • A concept related to the personal fable • Comes from health psychology research • The tendency to assume that accidents, diseases and other misfortunes are more likely to happen to others than ourselves • Both adolescents and adults have an optimistic bias with regard to health risk behaviour • Adolescents tend to have a stronger optimistic bias than adults

Strong majorities of both adolescents and adults, both smokers and non-smokers, believed that smoking is addictive and deadly “for most people” Optimistic Bias: Smoking

… But look at what happens when the risk is applied to themselves Smokers were more likely than non-smokers to believe that they would not die from smoking for 30-40 years. Optimistic Bias: Smoking

Behavioral Decision Theory

Decision Making • Lack impulse control • Need for instant gratification  • Lead to an increase in experimentation & risk-taking

Teen Driving

Intellectual Abilities that Decline in Adolescence Brain regions involved in language acquisition grow rapidly in preadolescence • These regions stop growing at puberty • More difficult to learn a new language as a teen than as a child

Cognitive development