HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1 PSYCHOLOGY 3050: Strategy Development Ch 6

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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1PSYCHOLOGY 3050Strategy
Development (Ch 6)
Dr. Jamie Drover SN-3094, 737-8383 e-mail --
jrdrover_at_mun.ca Winter Semester, 2009
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Strategies

• Memory strategies
• Goal directed processes that are adopted to
  enhance cognitive (e.g., memory) performance
• Effortful
• Deliberate
• Usually conscious or explicit

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Development of Strategies

• Influence all aspects of cognitive development
• Memory rehearsal, grouping
• Mathematics counting on fingers, mental counting
• Most research on strategy use has been done with
  school children.

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Mediational and Production Deficiencies

• Young children do not generate and use the type
  of strategies that older children do.
• Researchers have attempted to train young
  children to use such strategies.
• Young children show mediational deficiencies.
• When shown a strategy, they are unable to use it
  to guide their performance.

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Mediational and Production Deficiencies

• Older children can use such strategies, but can
  not produce them.
• production deficiency.
• Can later produce strategies on their own.
• Under some conditions, young children can be
  trained to use complex strategies such as
  rehearsal, organization, and imagery.

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What do Production Deficient Children Do?

• Preschoolers do use strategies, even though they
  lead to incorrect answers.
• McCabe et al. (1982) assessed class inclusion in
  3-8 year-olds.
• 5-6 year-olds showed the poorest performance.
• Used an incorrect strategy.
• Children as young as 18 months use strategies.

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What do Production Deficient Children Do?

• De Loache, Cassidy, Brown (1985)
• 18- 24-mo-olds watch as Big Bird hidden in their
  home environment (e.g., under sofa cushion)
• Remember wait find later
• During a distraction (attractive toy), kids
  interrupted play to comment on Big Bird or the
  hiding place
• Looked at hiding location
• strategic i.e., do something to aid recall
• Did not do this when
• Big Bird was in full view
• Experimenter (not child) was to find Big Bird

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What do Production Deficient Children Do?

• 3- and 4-year-olds use strategies during a store
  game.
• Production deficiencies are relative.

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Last Class

• ADHD Problem with behavioral inhibition.
• Do poorly on WM tasks. Poor sense of time.
  Adversely affected by delay. Less likely to use
  task appropriate strategies
• Experts
• Organize new information. Use chunks.
• Fuzzy Trace Theory Think and reason with fuzzy
  gist-like memory traces.
• Output Interference Scheduling effects
  Feedback effects.
• Strategies
• Mediational Deficiencies
• Production Deficiencies these are relative
• Utilization Deficiencies

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Utilization Deficiencies

• There is a phase in which young children use
  strategies as effective as older children, but do
  not benefit.
• Miller et al (1990) showed that young
  preschoolers showed no selective strategy.

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Utilization Deficiencies

• Later, children partially use selective
  strategies.
• Later, they use selective strategies, but they do
  not help, i.e., utilization deficiency.
• Utilization deficiencies are common.

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Utilization Deficiencies

• Bjorklund et al. (1994) assessed use of
  strategies using a sort-recall task (p 156).
• In phase 1, children were told to recall as many
  words as possible.
• In phase 2, they were told to sort the words in
  groups and told to recall them in the same way
  (i.e. clustering).
• In phase 3, told to remember any way they want
  (near extension).
• In phase 4, told to remember any way they want.

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Utilization Deficiencies

• Sorting improved the childrens performance
  (phase 2).
• Children also used this strategy on phases 3 and
  4.
• Transferred strategies to new materials.
• But, they show utilization deficiencies.
• These deficiencies may be due to lack of mental
  resources.
• Dont have enough available resources to retain
  the information.

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Utilization Deficiencies

• May be due to poor metacognition.
• Utilization deficiencies may be beneficial and
  may be short-lived.
• Coyle Bjorklund (1997).
• But see Schlagmüller Schneider (2002).

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The Development of Memory Strategies

• AKA Mnemonics.
• Rehearsal
• Flavell et al. (1966)
• Grade K, 2, and 5 children were shown pictures
  they were asked to remember.
• Age related increase in amount of rehearsal (lip
  movements), in picture recall task
• 85 of GR 5 vs. 10 of K.
• Within age more rehearsal, better recall
• greater frequency

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The Development of Memory Strategies

• Ornstein (1975) not only frequency, but type of
  rehearsal is important
• Used overt rehearsal procedure in grade 3, 6, and
  8 children.
• All kids instructed to rehearse.
• Age difference in style of rehearsal, not in
  frequency
• Young children use passive rehearsal.
• Older children use cumulative rehearsal.
• older kids showed better recall than younger

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Rehearsal sets
Word presented Eighth grade child
Third grade child
1. Yard yard, yard, yard
yard, yard, yard,

yard, yard 2. Cat
cat, yard, cat, yard cat, cat,
cat, cat,

cat 3. Man man, cat,
yard, man, man, man,
man, cat, yard,
man, man, man
4. Desk desk,
man, cat, yard, desk, desk, desk,
desk, man, cat, yard
desk, desk
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The Development of Memory Strategies

• Organization
• The structure discovered or imposed on a set of
  items that is used to guide performance.
• Often assessed by clustering.
• Adults who show high levels of clustering tend to
  recall more.
• Recall and clustering increase with age.

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The Development of Memory Strategies

• Salatas Flavell (1976) 1st graders
• Randomly presented 16 pictures from 4 categories
  (animals, clothing, toys, food)
• Named picture, identified category
• Instructed to arrange pictures to aid later
  recall
• Make groups to help you remember
• Only 27 do it

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The Development of Memory Strategies

• Older children are more likely to organize.
• If explicitly trained, young children will use
  organization and will show benefits.
• Production deficiency
• A longitudinal study has shown that children make
  a quick transition from lack of strategy to
  organization.

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Last Class

• Utilization Deficiencies Dont benefit from the
  use of strategies.
• Miller (1990), Bjorklund et al, (1994)
• Development of Memory Strategies
• Rehearsal (Flavell et al., 1966)
• Older children are more likely to rehearse.
• Frequency is important
• Ornstein (1975)
• Type of rehearsal (passive vs. cumulative)
• Organization
• Salatas and Flavell (1976)
• Only 27 of first graders will use organization

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Strategies of Attention

• What strategies of attention do children use when
  they must examine stimuli?
• Vurpillot tested this by showing children pairs
  of houses.
• Preschoolers do not scan exhaustively or
  systematically before answering.

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Strategies of Attention

• As children get older, they look at more windows.
• Children do not use a selective strategy on
  Millers task until after 6 years of age.
• Selective attention the ability to focus on
  chosen stimuli and not be distracted by other
  stimuli.
• Increases with age.
• Studies using incidental learning.

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Strategies of Attention
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Strategies of Attention

• As children get older they recall more of the
  central stimuli.
• Recall of incidental stimuli increases until age
  11.