age-related macular degeneration
Damage to cells in the retina responsible
for central vision.
attention
Focusing perception and cognition on
something in particular.
cataracts
A pathologic condition of the eye involving
opacication (clouding) of the lens that can
impair vision or cause blindness.
cochlear implant
A surgically implanted amplification device
that stimulates the auditory nerve to
provide the sensation of hearing to a deaf
individual.
constructivism
The position taken by Piaget that children
actively create their own understandings
of the world from their experiences, as
opposed to being born with innate ideas or
being programmed by the environment.
contour
The amount of light-dark transition or
boundary area in a visual stimulus.
cross-modal perception
The ability to use one sensory modality to
identify a stimulus or a pattern of stimuli
already familiar through another modality.
dark adaptation
The process by which the eyes become
more sensitive to light over time as they
remain in the dark.
glaucoma
A condition in which increased uid
pressure in the eye damages the optic
nerve and causes progressive loss of
peripheral vision and ultimately blindness.
Habituation
A simple form of learning that involves
learning not to respond to a repeated
stimulus; learning to be bored by the
familiar.
intuitive theories
Organized systems of knowledge,
believed to be innate, that allow children to
make sense of the world in areas such as
physics and psychology.
macular degeneration
See age-related macular degeneration.
Nativist
An individual whose approach to human
development emphasizes the contribution
of genetic factors; specically, a person
who believes that infants enter the world
equipped with knowledge that allows them
to perceive a meaningful world from the
start. Contrast with empiricist.
olfaction
The sense of smell, made possible by sensory
receptors in the nasal passage that react to
chemical molecules in the air.
perception
The interpretation of sensory input.
phoneme
One of the basic units of sound used in a
particular spoken language.
presbycusis
Problems of the aging ear, which commonly
involve loss of sensitivity to high-frequency or
high-pitched sounds.
presbyopia
Problems of the aging eye, especially loss of
near vision related to a decreased ability of
the lens to accommodate to objects close to
the eye.
retinitis pigmentosa (RP)
A group of hereditary disorders that involve
gradual deterioration of the light-sensitive
cells of the retina.
selective attention
Deliberately concentrating on one thing and
ignoring something else.
Sensation
The process by which information is detected
by the sensory receptors and transmitted to
the brain; the starting point in perception.
sensitive period
As compared to a critical period, a period of
life during which the developing individual is
especially susceptible to the effects of
experience or has an especially high level of
plasticity.
sensory threshold
The point at which low levels of stimulation
can be detected.
size constancy
The tendency to perceive an object as the
same size despite changes in its distance
from the eyes.
Tinnitus
Condition caused by exposure to high noise
levels that involves ringing sounds in one or
both ears and that can last for days, weeks, or
indenitely.
A-not-B error
The tendency of 8- to 12 month-old infants to
search for a hidden object in the place they
last found it (A) rather than in its new hiding
place (B).
Accommodation
In Piaget's cognitive developmental theory,
the process of modifying existing schemes to
incorporate or adapt to new experiences.
Contrast with assimilation. In vision, a change
in the shape of the eye's lens to bring objects
at differing distances into focus.
Adaptation
In Piaget's cognitive developmental theory, a
person's inborn tendency to adjust to the
demands of the environment, consisting of the
complementary processes of assimilation and
accommodation.
adolescent egocentrism
A characteristic of adolescent thought that
involves difculty differentiating between the
person's own thoughts and feelings and those
of other people; evident in the personal fable
and imaginary audience phenomena.
assimilation
Piaget's term for the process by which children
interpret new experiences in terms of their
existing schemata. Contrast with
accommodation.
centration
In Piaget's theory, the tendency to focus on
only one aspect of a problem when two or
more aspects are relevant.
class inclusion
The logical understanding that parts or
subclasses are included in the whole class
and that the whole is therefore greater than
any of its parts.
clinical method
An unstandardized interviewing procedure
used by Piaget in which a child's response to
each successive question (or problem)
determines what the investigator will ask next.
cognition
The activity of knowing and the processes
through which knowledge is acquired (for
example, attending, perceiving, remembering,
and thinking).
Conservation
The recognition that certain properties of an
object or substance do not change when its
appearance is altered in some superficial way.
coordination of secondary schemes
During Piaget's sensorimotor period, the
infant's combining of actions to solve
problems, using one scheme as a means to
an end, as in batting aside a barrier in order to
grasp a toy.[0]
Decentration
The ability to focus on two or more dimensions
of a problem at one time.
Decontextualization
Separation of prior knowledge and beliefs from
the demands of the task at hand.
ego
Psychoanalytic term for the rational
component of the personality.
egocentrism
The tendency to view the world from the
person's own perspective and fail to
recognize that others may have different
points of view.
equilibration
In Piaget's theory, the process of seeking
a state of mental stability in which our
thoughts (schemes) are consistent with
the information we receive from the
external world.
genetic epistemology
The study of how humans come to know
reality and basic dimensions of it such as
space, time, and causality; Piaget's field of
interest.
guided participation
A process in which children learn by
actively participating in culturally relevant
activities with the aid and support of their
parents and other knowledgeable
individuals.
horizontal décalage
A term used by Piaget to characterize that
different cognitive skills related to the
same stage of cognitive development
emerge at different times.
hypothetical-deductive reasoning
A form of problem solving in which a
person starts with general or abstract
ideas and deduces or traces their specic
implications; if-then thinking.
imaginary audience
A form of adolescent egocentrism that
involves confusing one's own thoughts
with the thoughts of a hypothesized
audience for behavior and concluding that
others share these preoccupations.
imaginary companion
A play companion invented by a child in
the preoperational stage who has
developed the capacity for symbolic
thought.
object permanence
The understanding that objects continue to
exist when they are no longer visible or
otherwise detectable to the senses; fully
mastered by the end of infancy.
perceptual salience
Phenomenon in which the most obvious
features of an object or situation have
disproportionate influence on the
perceptions and thought of young children.
personal fable
A form of adolescent egocentrism that
involves thinking that oneself and one's
thoughts and feelings are unique or special
postformal thought
Proposed stages of cognitive development
that lie beyond formal operations.
primary circular reaction
During Piaget's sensorimotor period, the
infant's repetition of interacting acts centered
on his or her own body (e.g., repeatedly
kicking).
relativistic thinking
A form of post-formal operational thought in
which it is understood that there are multiple
ways of viewing a problem and that the
solutions people arrive at will depend on their
starting assumptions and perspective.
Reversibility
In Piaget's theory, the ability to reverse or
negate an action by mentally performing the
opposite action.
scheme (or schema; plural: schemes or
schemata)
A cognitive structure or organized pattern of
action or thought used to deal with
experiences.
secondary circular reaction
During Piaget's sensorimotor period, the
infant's repetition of interesting actions on
objects (e.g., repeatedly shaking a rattle to
make a noise).
seriation
A logical operation that allows a person to
mentally order a set of stimuli along a
quantiable dimension such as height or
weight.
static thought
In Piaget's theory, the thought characteristic of
the preoperational period that is xed on end
states rather than on the changes that
transform one state into another. Contrast with
transformational thought.
symbolic capacity
The capacity to use symbols such as words,
images, or actions to represent or stand for
objects and experiences; representational
thought.
tertiary circular reaction
During Piaget's sensorimotor period, the
infant's experimenting with actions to find new
ways to solve problems or produce interesting
effects.
transformational thought
In Piaget's theory, the ability to conceptualize
transformations, or processes of change from
one state to another, which appears in the
stage of concrete operations. Contrast with
static thought.
Transitivity
The ability to recognize the necessary or
logical relations among elements in a serial
order (for example, that if A is taller than B,
and B is taller than C, then A must be taller
than C).
autobiographical memory
Memory of everyday events that the individual
has experienced.
childhood amnesia
A lack of memory for the early years of a
person's life.
Consolidation
In information processing, the processing and
organizing of information into a form suitable
for long-term storage.
constraint-seeking questions
In the Twenty Questions task and similar
hypothesis-testing tasks, questions that rule
out more than one answer to narrow the field
of possible choices rather than asking about
only one hypothesis at a time.
cued recall memory
Recollecting objects, events, or experiences in
response to a hint or cue. Contrast with pure
recall memory and recognition memory.
deferred imitation
The ability to imitate a novel act after a delay.
elaboration
A strategy for remembering that involves
adding something to or creating meaningful
links between the bits of information the
person is trying to retain.
encoding
The rst step in learning and remembering
something, it is the process of getting
information into the information-processing
system, or learning it, and organizing it in a
form suitable for storing.
executive control processes
Processes that direct and monitor the
selection, organization, manipulation, and
interpretation of information in the information-
processing system, including executive
functions.
explicit memory
Memory that involves consciously recollecting
the past. Contrast with implicit memory.
eyewitness memory
Remembering and reporting events the person
has witnessed or experienced.
fuzzy-trace theory
The view that verbatim and general or
gistlike accounts of an event are stored
separately in memory.
implicit memory
Memory that occurs unintentionally and
without consciousness or awareness.
Contrast with explicit memory.
information-processing approach
An approach to cognition that emphasizes
the fundamental mental processes
involved in attention, perception, memory,
and decision making.
long-term memory
Memory store in which information that
has been examined and interpreted is
stored relatively permanently.
mediation deficiency
The initial stage of mastery of memory
strategies in which children cannot
spontaneously use or benefit from
strategies even if they are taught to use
them.
Metacognition
Knowledge of the human mind and of the
range of cognitive processes, including
thinking about personal thought
processes.
metamemory
A person's knowledge about memory and
about monitoring and regulating memory
processes.
method of loci
A mnemonic technique that involves
establishing a mental map of a familiar
route and then creating images linking
each item to be learned to a landmark
along the route.
mild cognitive impairment
A level of memory loss between normal
loss with age and pathological loss from
disease.
Organization
In Piaget's cognitive developmental theory,
a person's inborn tendency to combine
and integrate available schemes into more
coherent and complex systems or bodies
of knowledge; as a memory strategy, a
technique that involves grouping or
classifying stimuli into meaningful clusters.
overlapping waves theory
Siegler's view that the development of
problem-solving skills is not a matter of
moving from one problem-solving
approach to a better one with age but of
knowing and using a variety of strategies
at each age, becoming increasingly
selective with experience about which
strategies to use in particular situations, and
adding new strategies to one's collection.
perseveration error
Mistake made when an information processor
continues to use the same strategy that was
successful in the past over and over despite
the strategy's lack of success in the current
situation.
problem solving
The use of the information-processing system
to achieve a goal or arrive at a decision.
production deficiency
A phase in the mastery of memory strategies
in which children can use strategies they are
taught but cannot produce them on their own.
recall memory
Recollecting or actively retrieving objects,
events, and experiences when examples or
cues are not provided. Contrast with cued
recall memory and recognition memory.
recognition memory
Identifying an object or event as one that has
been experienced before, such as when a
person must select the correct answer from
several options. Contrast with cued recall
memory and recall memory.
rehearsal
A strategy for remembering that involves
repeating the items the person is trying to
retain.
retrieval
The process of retrieving information from
long-term memory when it is needed.
rule assessment approach
Siegler's approach to studying the
development of problem solving that
determines what information about a problem
children take in and what rules they then
formulate to account for this information.
script
A mental representation of a typical sequence
of actions related to an event that is created in
memory and that then guides future behaviors
in similar settings.
sensory register
The first memory store in information
processing in which stimuli are noticed and
are briefly available for further processing.
short-term memory
The memory store in which limited amounts of
information are temporarily held; called
working memory when its active quality is
being emphasized.
storage
In information processing, the holding of
information in the long-term memory store.
utilization deficiency
The third phase in mastery of memory
strategies in which children fail to benefit from
a memory strategy they are able to produce.
working memory
A memory store, often referred to as a mental
scratch pad, that temporarily holds information
when it is being actively operated upon; the
active use of the short-term memory store.
automatization
The process by which information processing
becomes effortless and highly efcient as a
result of continued practice or increased
expertise.
componential subtheory
An aspect of Sternberg's triarchic theory of
intelligence that focuses on the information-
processing skills used to arrive at answers and
their efficiency.
contextual subtheory
An aspect of Sternberg's triarchic theory of
intelligence that de nes whether behavior is
intelligent or unintelligent in terms of the
sociocultural context in which it is displayed.
convergent thinking
Thinking that involves converging on the one
best answer to a problem; what IQ tests
measure. Contrast with divergent thinking.
Creativity
The ability to produce novel responses or
works.
crystallized intelligence
Those aspects of intellectual functioning that
involve using knowledge acquired through
experience. Contrast with fluid intelligence.
cultural-familial retardation
Mental retardation that appears to be caused
by some combination of low genetic potential
and a poor family environment rather than by
a specic biological cause. Contrast with
organic retardation.
culture
A system of meanings shared by a population
of people and transmitted from one generation
to the next.
culture bias
The situation that arises in testing when one
cultural or subcultural group is more familiar
with test items than another group and
therefore has an unfair advantage.
cumulative-deficit hypothesis
The notion that impoverished environments
inhibit intellectual growth and that these
inhibiting effects accumulate over time.
developmental quotient (DQ)
A numerical measure of an infant's
performance on a developmental test
relative to the performance of other infants
the same age.
divergent thinking
Thinking that requires coming up with a
variety of ideas or solutions to a problem
when there is no one right answer.
Contrast with convergent thinking.
dynamic assessment
An approach to assessing intelligence that
evaluates how well individuals learn new
material when an examiner provides them
with competent instruction.
experiential subtheory
An aspect of Sternberg's triarchic theory of
intelligence that highlights the role of
experience in intelligence and
distinguishes between what is smart in
response to novelty and what is smart in
response to familiar tasks.
fluid intelligence
Aspects of intelligence that involve actively
thinking and reasoning to solve novel
problems. Contrast with crystallized
intelligence.
Flynn effect
The rise in average IQ scores over the
20th century.
giftedness
The possession of unusually high general
intellectual potential or of special abilities
in such areas as creativity, mathematics,
or the arts.
Home Observation for Measurement of
the Environment (HOME) inventory
A widely used instrument that allows an
observer to determine how intellectually
stimulating or impoverished a home
environment is.
intelligence quotient (IQ)
A numerical measure of a person's
performance on an intelligence test
relative to the performance of other
examinees of the same age, typically with
a score of 100 defined as average.
knowledge base
A person's existing information about a
content area, signicant for its inuence on
how well that individual can learn and
remember.
mental age
A measure of intellectual development that
reflects the level of age-graded problems
that a child is able to solve; the age at
which a child functions intellectually.
mental retardation
Signicant subaverage general intellectual
functioning associated with impairments in
adaptive behavior and manifested during the
developmental period.
normal distribution
A symmetrical (bell-shaped) curve that
describes the variability of characteristics
within a population. Most people fall at or near
the average score; there are relatively few
high or low scores.
organic retardation
Mental retardation because of some
identifiable biological cause associated with
hereditary factors, diseases, or injuries.
Contrast with cultural-familial retardation.
psychometric approach
The research tradition that spawned
standardized tests of intelligence and that
views intelligence as a trait or a set of traits
that can be measured and that varies from
person to person.
savant syndrome
The phenomenon in which extraordinary
talent in a particular area is displayed by a
person who is otherwise mentally retarded.
standard deviation
A measure of the dispersion or spread around
the mean of a distribution of scores; in the
case of IQ tests with a mean score of 100, the
standard deviation is 15, meaning that about
two-thirds of people taking the test have
scores between 85 and 115.
stereotype threat
An individual's fear of being judged to have
the qualities associated with negative
stereotypes of his or her social group.
successful intelligence
Sternberg's concept that people are intelligent
to the extent that they are able to succeed in
life in their sociocultural context.
terminal drop
A rapid decline in intellectual abilities that
people within a few years of dying often
experience.
test norms
Standards of normal performance on
psychometric instruments based on the
average scores and range of scores obtained
by a large, representative sample of test
takers.
triarchic theory of intelligence
An information-processing theory of
intelligence that emphasizes three aspects of
intelligent behavior: the context in which
people display intelligence, the previous
experience they have with cognitive tasks,
and the information-processing components
they use to solve problems
ability grouping
The practice in education of grouping students
according to ability and educating them in
classes with students of comparable academic
or intellectual standing; also called ability
tracking or simply tracking.
alphabetic principle
The idea that the letters in printed words
represent the sounds in spoken words.
attachment
A strong affectional tie that binds a person to
an intimate companion and is characterized by
affection and a desire to maintain proximity.
attachment theory
The theory of close relationships developed by
Bowlby and Ainsworth and grounded in
ethological theory (with psychoanalytic theory
and cognitive theory); it says that close
emotional bonds such as parent-child
attachments are biologically based and
contribute to species survival.
avoidant attachment
An insecure infant-caregiver bond or other
intimate relationship characterized by little
separation anxiety and a tendency to avoid or
ignore the attachment object upon reunion.
babbling
An early form of vocalization that appears
between 4 and 6 months of age and involves
repeating consonant-vowel combinations such
as baba or dadada.
child-directed speech
Speech used by adults speaking with young
children, it involves short, simple sentences
spoken slowly and in a high-pitched voice,
often with much repetition and with
exaggerated emphasis on key words.
Cooing
An early form of vocalization that involves
repeating vowel-like sounds.
cooperative learning
Procedures that involve assigning students,
usually of different races or ability levels, to
work teams that are reinforced for performing
well as teams and that encourage cooperation
among teammates.
decontextualized language
Language that is not bound to the immediate
conversational context and that is about past
or remote events.
disorganized-disoriented attachment
An insecure infant-caregiver bond, common
among abused children, that combines
features of the resistant and avoidant
attachment styles and is characterized by the
infant's dazed response to reunion and
confusion about whether to approach or
avoid the caregiver.
dyslexia
Serious difficulties learning to read in
children who have normal intellectual
ability and no sensory impairments or
emotional difficulties that could account for
their learning problems.
emergent literacy
The developmental precursors of reading
skills in young children, including
knowledge, skills, and attributes that will
facilitate the acquisition of reading
competence.
expansion
A conversational tactic used by adults in
speaking to young children in which they
respond to a child's utterance with a more
grammatically complete expression of the
same thought.
functional grammar
An analysis of the semantic relations
(meanings such as naming and locating)
that children express in their earliest
sentences.
holophrase
A single-word utterance used by an infant
that represents an entire sentence's worth
of meaning.
Imprinting
An innate form of learning in which the
young of certain species will follow and
become attached to moving objects
(usually their mothers) during a critical
period early in life.
inclusion
The educational practice of integrating
handicapped students into regular
classrooms rather than placing them in
segregated special education classes;
also called mainstreaming.
internal working model
In attachment theory, cognitive
representation of self and other that
children construct from their interactions
with caregivers and that shape their
expectations about relationships.
intonation
Variations in pitch, loudness, and timing
when saying words or sentences.
joint attention
The act of looking at the same object at
the same time with someone else; a way
in which infants share perceptual
experiences with their caregivers.
language
A symbolic system in which a limited number
of signals can be combined according to rules
to produce an infinite number of messages.
language acquisition device (LAD)
A set of linguistic processing skills that
nativists believe to be innate; presumably the
LAD enables a child to infer the rules
governing others' speech and then use these
rules to produce language.
learned helplessness orientation
A tendency to avoid challenges and to cease
trying in the face of failure primarily because
of a tendency to attribute failure to lack of
ability and therefore to believe that little can
be done to improve the results. Contrast with
mastery orientation.
learning goal
A goal adopted by learners in which they seek
to learn new things so that they can improve
their abilities. Contrast with performance goal.
literacy
The ability to use printed information to
function in society, achieve goals, and
develop potential.
mastery motivation
An intrinsic motive to master and control the
environment evident early in infancy.
mastery orientation
A tendency to thrive on challenges and persist
in the face of failure because of healthy
attributions that lead to the belief that
increased effort will pay off. Contrast with
learned helplessness orientation.
metalinguistic awareness
Knowledge of language as a system.
Morphology
Rules governing the formation of words from
sounds (for example, rules for forming plurals
and past tenses).
overextension
The young child's tendency to use a word to
refer to a wider set of objects, actions, or
events than adults do (for example, using the
word car to refer to all motor vehicles).
Contrast with underextension.
Overregularization
The overgeneralization of observed
grammatical rules to irregular cases to which
the rules do not apply (for example, saying
mouses rather than mice).
performance goal
A goal adopted by learners in which they
attempt to prove their ability rather than to
improve it. Contrast with learning goal.
phonological awareness
The understanding that spoken words can be
decomposed into some number of basic
sound units, or phonemes; an important skill in
learning to read.
pragmatics
Rules specifying how language is to be used
appropriately in different social contexts to
achieve goals.
resistant attachment
An insecure infant-caregiver bond or other
intimate relationship characterized by strong
separation anxiety and a tendency to show
ambivalent reactions to the attachment object
upon reunion, seeking and yet resisting
contact.
secure attachment
An infant-caregiver bond or intimate
relationship in which the individual welcomes
close contact, uses the attachment object as a
source of comfort, and dislikes but can
manage separations.
Semantics
The aspect of language centering on
meanings.
syntax
Rules specifying how words can be combined
to form meaningful sentences in a language.
telegraphic speech
Early sentences that consist primarily of
content words and omit the less meaningful
parts of speech such as articles, prepositions,
pronouns, and auxiliary verbs.
transformational grammar
Rules of syntax that allow a person to
transform declarative statements into
questions, negatives, imperatives, and other
kinds of sentences.
underextension
The young child's tendency to use general
words to refer to a smaller set of objects,
actions, or events than adults do (for example,
using candy to refer only to mints). Contrast
with overextension.
vocabulary spurt
A phenomenon occurring around 18 months of
age when the pace of word learning quickens
dramatically.
word segmentation
In language development, the ability to break
the stream of speech sounds into distinct
words.