HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1 PSYCHOLOGY 3050: Information Processing Theory Ch'5 2

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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1PSYCHOLOGY 3050Information
Processing Theory Ch.5 (2)
Dr. Jamie Drover SN-3078, 737-8383 e-mail
jrdrover_at_mun.ca Winter Semester, 2009
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Developmental Differences in Efficiency of
Processing

• Childrens performance on cognitive tasks can be
  accounted for by the amount of information that
  can be held in mind at one time.
• Domain general cognitive resources increase with
  age.
• But it cannot explain the performance of chess
  experts.
• Seems cognitive specific.

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Developmental Differences in Efficiency of
Processing

• Contemporary theories explain these findings in
  terms of efficiency.
• Case postulated that children go through
  maturational stages in which amount of mental
  effort declines.
• They become more adept at acquiring information
  and using strategies.
• Storage Space mental space an individual has for
  storage purposes.

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Developmental Differences in Efficiency of
Processing

• Operating space mental space that can be
  allocated to the execution of intellectual
  operations.
• Total Processing Space the sum of storage and
  operating space.
• Operating space shows a developmental decrease.
• Skills become mastered, freeing attention.

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Last Class

• Working Memory Central Executive, visuo-spatial
  sketchpad, articulatory loop.
• Articulatory loop may explain memory span
  improvement.
• Speed of processing is important
• Kail and Salthouse reaction time tasks
• May be due to brain maturation
• Pascual Leone M a k
• Increases in k may lead to stage transition
• Efficiency in processing may also be important
• How we use limited capacity

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Developmental Differences in Efficiency of
Processing
Young child
Older child
Operating space
Storage space
Storage space
Operating space
With age Less space needed for operating (due to
more efficient thinking, processing) means more
information can be stored in WM
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Developmental Differences in Efficiency of
Processing

• Perhaps there is a general-processing mechanism,
  in combination with more specific mechanisms.
• Capacity models can be expressed in terms of
  time.
• Older children require less time to process
  information.
• Kail and Salthouse (1994) proposed a global
  processing mechanism.
• Influences performance directly and indirectly

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Developmental Differences in Efficiency of
Processing
Global Processing Speed
Cognitive Performance
Age
Specific Processing Speed
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Developmental Differences in Efficiency of
Processing

• Both factors improve with age.
• Age differences in speed of processing do not
  account for all differences in cognitive
  performance.

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Attention as Resources

• Attention Concentration
• Attention may consume mental resources.
• Age differences in the ability to attend to a
  task may lead to differences in the ability to
  allocate limited mental resources.
• There are individual differences and age
  differences in the ability to stay on task.
• Attention span increases with age.

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Inhibition and Resistance to Interference

• Inhibition Active suppression process, such as
  the removal of task-irrelevant information from
  working memory.
• As children get older, they are better able to
  inhibit inappropriate responses which permits
  more efficient execution of other operations.
• Resistance to Interference susceptibility to
  performance decrements under conditions of
  multiple distracting stimuli.

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Neurological Locus

• Inhibition and resistance to interference appear
  to be under the control of frontal cortex.
• Frontal lobe damage in humans leads to difficulty
  with planning and concentration.
• This has been shown on the Wisconsin Card Sorting
  Task.

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Neurological Locus

• The participant must sort the cards based on one
  of the dimensions.
• The sorting dimension changes after a number of
  trials.

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Neurological Locus

• The importance of the frontal cortex has also
  been shown with fMRI.

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Developmental Differences

• With developmental changes in the frontal cortex,
  there should be improvements in inhibition.
• Three year-olds show rigidity on the Bunny/Boat
  task.
• Must sort initially based on one dimension
  (shape) and are then told to sort cards based on
  another dimension (colour).
• They can not change sorting dimensions.

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Developmental Differences

• Childrens ability to regulate behavior improves
  with age.
• Young children often show the same inhibitory
  problems that adults with frontal lobe lesions
  show.
• They show difficulty on the day/night task.
• Children show difficulty in inhibiting speech
  (Kipp Pope, 1997).

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Developmental Differences

• As children get older, they are better able to
  execute inhibitory processes.
• Harnishfeger and Bjorklund (1990 1994) propose
  that differences in the ability to keep
  task-inappropriate information out of working
  memory influences task performance.
• Young children can not ignore task irrelevant
  info
• Cant keep task irrelevant thoughts out of WM.
• Task-irrelevant info clutters WM reducing
  functional memory space.

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Developmental Differences

• Lorsbach, Katz, and Cupak (1998) provided
  evidence for this model.
• Used a butterfly-bird story.
• Dempster believes resistance to interferences is
  not a unitary thing.
• Three types of interference phenomena with
  different developmental time courses.
• Motor
• Perceptual
• Language

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Developmental Differences

• Inhibition, working memory, and speed of
  processing may all be under the control of the
  same mechanism.

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Last Class

• Cases total processing space.
• Operating space is reduced as we get older.
• Kail Salthouse Global processing speed
  mechanism.
• Direct and Indirect
• Inhibition and Resistance to Interference
• Controlled by frontal cortex
• Frontal lesions and WCST
• Developmental Differences
• Bunny/boat Day/night
• As we get older, we inhibit task irrelevant
  information
• Butterfly-Bird Story

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Inhibition and ADHD

• Hyperactivity, impulsiveness, difficulty in
  sustaining attention
• Children and adults
• 3 to 7 in USA, more common in boys
• One third of these persist into adulthood
• Children with ADHD more likely to have problems
  in and outside school
• Learning
• Antisocial behavior
• Peer relationships

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Inhibition and ADHD

• Barkley (1997) believes the principal cause of
  ADHD is deficits in behavioral inhibition.
• BI requires the ability to
• Inhibit a prepotent (dominant) response
• Stop an ongoing response
• Resist interference
• BI influences
• Working memory
• Self-regulation of emotion
• Internalization of speech

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Inhibition and ADHD

• Children with ADHD (compared to those without) do
  show deficiencies in these areas
• Do poorly on WM tasks
• Less proficient at imitating long sequences of
  actions
• Poor sense of time
• Adversely affected by delay
• More likely to be irritable, excitable
• Less likely to use task appropriate strategies
• BI is likely at least part of the problem of ADHD

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The Role of Knowledge Base in Development

• Information processing is seen as domain general.
• There is evidence of domain specificity (i.e.
  chess experts).
• The amount of knowledge one has in a specific
  domain may affect how that info is operated on.

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Experts and Novices

• Experts group domain relevant info more easily
• Faster
• Recognition of chunks
• Increased span
• Note Chess experts advantage reduced when pieces
  were placed at random rather than in
  game-possible positions

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Experts and Novices

• Experts group facts relevant to their expertise
  in terms of higher level concepts -- organization
• e.g., physics experts classify problems with
  respect to underlying principles, novices group
  more superficially
• Child experts also do this
• This is sometimes unconscious

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Fuzzy Trace Theory

• Based on intuitionism People think, reason, and
  remember by processing inexact fuzzy memory
  representations.
• Cognition is intuitive.
• Memory traces exist on a literal/verbal
  fuzzy/gistlike continuum.
• People of all ages prefer to use fuzzy traces
  when solving problems.
• The extent of this preference changes with age.
• Reduction to essence rule

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Fuzzy Trace Theory

• Fuzzy traces are more easily accessed than
  verbatim traces.
• Verbatim traces are more susceptible to
  interference.
• Making responses produces output interference
  that hinders performance.
• Scheduling effects caused by serial nature
• Feedback effects

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Developmental Differences

• There are changes in gist extraction.
• Young children are biased toward storing and
  retrieving verbatim traces.
• A verbatim to gist shift occurs during the
  elementary school years.
• Brainerd and Gordon (1994) have provided evidence
  for this (p. 144).
• Preschool children showed better memories for
  verbatim questions than for other questions.

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Developmental Differences

• Age differences have been found in sensitivity to
  output interference.
• Verbatim memory traces are more sensitive to
  interference than fuzzy traces.