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Psychology 312H Course Director: Michelle Martin-Rhee

Psychology 312H Course Director: Michelle Martin-Rhee. Fridays 1-4  Welcome!!. Outline for today. Course outline Intro to cognitive development Some evolution Some biology Questions??. Course content. Text / website Articles Outside material 2 exams 2 small assignments, 1 essay

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Psychology 312H Course Director: Michelle Martin-Rhee

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  1. Psychology 312HCourse Director: Michelle Martin-Rhee Fridays 1-4  Welcome!!

  2. Outline for today • Course outline • Intro to cognitive development • Some evolution • Some biology • Questions??

  3. Course content • Text / website • Articles • Outside material • 2 exams • 2 small assignments, 1 essay • I count grammar and spelling • E-mail is best: michelle.martin@uhn.on.ca

  4. How to pass my course • FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS • ASK QUESTIONS • Do not plagiarize

  5. Example: According to some researchers, cognition can largely be explained by underlying neurological processes (Nelson, 2001; Martin, 2004; Piaget, 1952; Johnson, 1765; Smith, 2003; Brown, 1999). DO NOT DO THIS!!

  6. How to pass my course • FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS • ASK QUESTIONS • Do not plagiarize • Do not use internet as primary source

  7. Example Writing essays is easy when you can just take thirty seconds to look up dyslexia (http:/www.ilovetostealothers’work.com). DO NOT DO THIS!!

  8. How to pass my course • FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS • ASK QUESTIONS • Do not plagiarize • Do not use internet as primary source • Do the work, hand it in on time, pay attention to green and red underlining in Word

  9. Fields of Psychology • Clinical • Clinical Developmental • Experimental • History • Theory • Developmental • Cognitive

  10. Fields of Psychology • Clinical • Clinical Developmental • Experimental • History • Theory • Developmental • Cognitive

  11. What we mean by Cognitive Development • Infancy (0-3) • Childhood (3-11) • Adolescence (12-19) • Early adulthood (20-35ish) • Middle adulthood (35ish-65ish) • Late adulthood (65+)

  12. What we mean by Cognitive Development • Infancy (0-3) • Childhood (3-11) • Adolescence (12-19) • Early adulthood (20-35ish) • Middle adulthood (35ish-65ish) • Late adulthood (65+)

  13. Definitions… • Cognition • Hidden thought processes (top-down and bottom-up) • Can’t see it directly • Development • Systematic continuities in the individual that occur between conception and death • Can be physical, mental, neurological • Structures and functions • Structures have a function, but functions affect structures • Cognitive development • Changes that occur over time to our thought processes

  14. Influences on Development • Development is somewhat regular • Lots of individual variation… • Effects of genes • E.g. personality traits • Possible developmental issues (e.g. autism, Down Syndrome) • Effects of environment • Culture • Religion • Home environment • Interaction of both • Humans as a dynamic system…

  15. Debates in developmental psychology • Nature vs. Nurture • Interactions and constraints • Stability vs. Plasticity • E.g. personality vs. social competencies • Nature of developmental change • Continuous or Discontinuous? • Qualitative or Quantitative? • Homogeneity of cognitive function • Modularity vs. domain-generality • Or general processes that control information to smaller sub-areas?

  16. Brief History of Human Evolution Art Advances in stone tools Fire Cities Earliest Homonid Fossils Earliest stone tools Brain expansion 4 3 2 1 Present Neanderthal Australopethicus Africanus Homo Erectus Homo Sapiens

  17. Evolution • R-selected vs. K-selected species • r-selected are smaller, live less time, have more offspring (mice) • K-selected are larger, live longer, have fewer offspring (humans) • Through evolution, our brains got bigger • Therefore our heads are bigger • We have to be born earlier • We are born very immature and require much care • Both before and after birth, there is a tremendous, rapid growth in brain size

  18. Neuronal Development • 3 stages • Proliferation • Migration • Differentiation

  19. Neuronal Development • 3 stages • Proliferation • Migration • Differentiation • Synaptogenesis and Synaptic pruning • Excessive synapse production…why? • Experience-expectant vs experience-dependant processes • Myelination • Critical periods • Canalization

  20. Features of the Cortex • Asymmetry • Left side typically larger than right in almost all species • Brain is actually torqued • Lateralization of function • Left vs. Right functions • Connected by corpus callosum • Plasticity of Cortex • Can we recover lost function after damage? • Adaptive value of plasticity and immaturity

  21. Summary for Today… • In this course, we will look at changes in children’s thinking over time • Lots of debate about genes vs environment, nature of developmental change, and in how we represent information in the brain • Evolution has given humans and non-human primates bigger brains, and hence we are born very immature; a lot of development occurs over the first years of life • An understanding of how the brain works can help us to understand some of the mechanisms of change in children’s cognition

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