Showing papers in "Advances in Child Development and Behavior in 1987"

Gender segregation in childhood.

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter argues that gender segregation is a powerful phenomenon of childhood. The extent of its occurrence does depend on situations arranged by adults for children's interactions and therefore cross-cultural and within-culture situational variations make a great deal of difference in the amount of interactive contact male and female children have with one another. The implication of analysis is that, over and above situational variation, there are forces for children to segregate themselves spontaneously in situations, such as school playgrounds where there are large numbers of children and where a child's behavior is open to the observation of other children. The chapter suggests that gender segregation results from a combination of several forces, including the dominance relations between the sexes, age-specific avoidance of romantic or sexually toned relationships, and gender labeling. The last is of paramount importance and may account, in part, for both the dominance relationships and sexual avoidance.

Content knowledge: its role, representation, and restructuring in memory development.

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter provides a knowledge-based framework that could be useful in interpreting much of the memory development literature of the 1970s and 1980s. The resulting framework was largely composed of a scaffolding of content knowledge of various types. It argues that most of the age differences that were observed in previous studies could be explained in terms of the ways in which content knowledge developed. Thus, the chapter focuses on a reanalysis of these studies almost exclusively in the context of age-related differences in content knowledge. A danger in this approach is that it may create the impression that changes in content knowledge are the sole source of knowledge-based developmental differences in memory. Many other types of knowledge also change: planning knowledge, “meta” knowledge, and procedural skills.

Reactivation of infant memory: implications for cognitive development.

Abstract: Publisher Summary Studies have shown that procedures that tap long-term memory yield a picture of infant memory radically different from that provided by paradigms involving measures of visual attention Not only can 2- to 3-month-old infants recognize a specific cue, but they also can remember its predictive significance In addition, their long-term memories are highly specific Whether they remember or not on any given occasion depends upon the context, both proximal and distal, in which the retrieval cue is encountered However, infants' memories are hierarchically organized They forget specific details of the proximal context more rapidly than its general features; as this occurs, they increasingly exploit distal contextual cues Distal contextual information sharpens their discrimination of the test situation after increasingly longer delays, thereby protecting the original memory against retrieval in an inappropriate context

Descriptions: A Model of Nonstrategic Memory Development

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter describes model of memory development, termed as descriptions model The model concerns nonstrategic aspects of memory that are largely ignored in the strategy-search model and, in this sense, complements the strategy-search model The model is described in terms of its core constructs and focal experimental domain The chapter also provides the descriptions of developmental differences in memory performance conceptualized within the framework of the model and explanations of those differences It concludes with a discussion of some of the problems and implications of the model The descriptions model is derived from work by Norman and Bobrow and concerns retrieval of episodic event information from memory, focusing on problems of gaining access to memory units The model is based on the idea that retrieval is cue dependent, where the cue represents a question asked of the memory system The cue, and question, can range from specific to general, and cue effectiveness depends on the degree to which the cue information specifies, or “describes,” the semantic and perceptual characteristics of an event representation in memory In essence, the cue information acts as an address that specifies the spatio-temporal location and conceptual attributes of an item

The Development of Conditional Reasoning: An Iffy Proposition

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter attempts to make some sense of the competing claims concerning conditional-reasoning competence. The competence model is based on the natural deduction approach to standard logic; modus ponens and the schema for conditional proof provide inference rules for simple conditionals and, together with the recognition of the constraints imposed by universal quantification, they provide a model for reasoning with universally quantified conditionals. Piaget's account of conditional reasoning is inadequate on logical grounds, that is, it confuses simple and quantified conditionals, but it is possible to make fairly clear empirical predictions when quantifiers are assumed. Ennis and Brainerd have argued that Piaget's account of formal operational thought is wrong because children have some ability to evaluate conditional syllogisms correctly. However, Piaget argued that successful performances on many conditional reasoning tasks can be obtained without a formal operational appreciation of the conditional. Given that the class-inclusion logic structure of concrete operational thought should be sufficient for reasoning with simple conditionals; this does not appear to be a warranted dismissal of the theoretical expectations. Rather, the appropriate assessment of formal operational competency with conditionals appears to concern performances in judging universally quantified conditionals.

Piaget, Attentional Capacity, and the Functional Implications of Formal Structure

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter argues that a synthesis between structural and functional approaches to cognitive developmental theory is both possible and necessary for further progress in this field. It reviews some aspects of Piaget's theory conducive to such a synthesis, specifically his distinction between simultaneous and successive coordinations and his conception of the attentional field as a capacity like construct related to the logical structure of thought. Four developmental theories of attentional capacity is reviewed, each of which maintained that attentional capacity, however differently it was conceived, imposes a functional constraint on the form of children's thinking. The chapter identifies several problems with these theories, centering on the difficulties of task analyses and the definition and measurement of capacity. It concludes with a new model of the relation between capacity and reasoning. In this model, capacity was defined in terms of the number of representational schemes assimilated simultaneously to a superordinate scheme, and Piaget's operatory logic served as a guide for task analysis. The results of two studies were presented which supported predictions generated by the model. One task that remains is to describe how this model is related to previous theories.

Variation in Body Stockiness Among and Within Ethnic Groups at Ages from Birth to Adulthood

Abstract: Publisher Summary Human body form has been depicted by means of sculptures, casts, photographs, silhouettes, ratings, and indices In the application of scientific method, the most desirable procedure, whenever feasible, is to move beyond using as primary data notations derived from body inspection or ratings obtained with the aid of descriptive categories to using as primary data quantitative values such as somatic indices This chapter emphasizes body build, body proportion, body configuration, physique, and body shape It reveals the variation in Rohrer's index of body stockiness during the period of human ontogeny between birth and age 30 years On average, Rohrer's index was found to decrease rapidly during infancy, continue decreasing at slowing rates during early and middle childhood, remain almost constant during late childhood and early adolescence, and increase at moderate rates from mid-adolescence into adulthood At ages prior to early adolescence, no systematic difference is evident in index averages for males and females; at ages after mid-adolescence averages are lower for males than females