Developmental Psych Chapter 4

Front 1

Adaptation

Back 1

the tendency to respond to the demands of the environment in ways that meet one's goals

Front 2

Organization

Back 2

the tendency to integrate particular observations into coherent knowledge

Front 3

Assimilation

Back 3

the process by which people translate incoming information into a form that fits concepts they already understand

Front 4

Accommodation

Back 4

the process by which people adapt current knowledge structures in response to new experiences

Front 5

Equilibrium

Back 5

the process by which children (or other people) balance assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding

Front 6

Sensorimotor Stage

Back 6

(Birth to 2 years) within Piaget's theory in which intelligence is expressed through sensory and motor abilities

Front 7

Preoperational Stage

Back 7

(2-7 years) within Piaget's theory in which children become able to represent their experiences in language, mental imagery, and symbolic thought

Front 8

Concrete Operational Stage

Back 8

(7-12 years) within Piaget's theory in which children become able to reason logically about concrete objects and events

Front 9

Formal Operational Stage

Back 9

(12+ years) within Piaget's theory in which people become able to think about abstractions and hypothetical situations

Front 10

Object Permanence

Back 10

the knowledge that objects continue to exist even when they are out of view

Front 11

A-not-B error

Back 11

the tendency to reach for a hidden object where it was last found rather than in the new location where it was last hidden

Front 12

Deferred Imitation

Back 12

the repetition of other people's behavior a substantial time after it originally occurred

Front 13

symbolic representation

Back 13

the use of one object to stand for another

Front 14

Egocentrism

Back 14

the tendency to perceive the world solely from one's point of view

Front 15

Centration

Back 15

the tendency to focus on a single, perceptually striking feature of an object or event

Front 16

Conservation Concept

Back 16

the idea that merely changing the appearance of objects does not change their key properties

Front 17

Tast Analysis

Back 17

the research technique of identifying goals, relevant information in the environment, and potential processing strategies for a problem

Front 18

Structure

Back 18

the basic organization of the cognitive system, including its main components and their characteristics

Front 19

Processes

Back 19

the specific mental activities, such as rules and strategies, that people use to remember and to solve problems

Front 20

Problem Solving

Back 20

the process of attaining a goal by using a strategy to overcome an obstacle

Front 21

Sensory Memory

Back 21

the fleeting retention of sights, sounds, and other senstations that have just been experienced

Front 22

Long-Term Memory

Back 22

information retained on an enduring basis

Front 23

Working (short term) Memory

Back 23

a kind of workspace in which information from sensory memory and long-term memory is brought together, attended to, and processed

Front 24

Encoding

Back 24

the process of representing in memory information that draws attention or is considered important

Front 25

Rehearsal

Back 25

the process of repeating information over and over to aid memory of it

Front 26

Selective Attention

Back 26

the process of intentionally focusing on the information that is most relevant to the current goal

Front 27

Overlapping-Waves Theory

Back 27

an information-processing approach that emphasizes the variability of children's thinking

Front 28

Core-Knowledge Theories

Back 28

approaches that emphasize the sophistication of infants' and young children's thinking in areas that have been important throughout human evolutionary theory

Front 29

Domain Specific

Back 29

limited to a particular area, such as living things or people

Front 30

Personification

Back 30

generalizing knowledge about people to infer properties of other animals

Front 31

Sociocultural Theories

Back 31

approaches that emphasize that other people and the surrounding culture contribute to children's development

Front 32

Guided Participation

Back 32

a process in which more knowledge individuals organize activities in ways that allow less knowledgeable people to learn

Front 33

Cultural Tools

Back 33

the innumerable products of human ingenuity that enhance thinking

Front 34

Private Speech

Back 34

the second phase of Vygotsky's internalization-of-thought process, in which children develop their self-regulation and problem-solving abilities by telling themselves aloud what to do, much as their parents did in the first stage

Front 35

Intersubjectivity

Back 35

the mutual understanding that people share during communication

Front 36

Joint Attention

Back 36

a process in which social partners intentionally focus on a common referent in the external environment

Front 37

Social Scaffolding

Back 37

a process in which more competent people provide a temporary framework that supports children's thinking at a higher level than children could manage on their own

Front 38

Dynamic- Systems Theories

Back 38

a class of theories that focus on how change occurs over time in complex systems