Cognitive Development — Flashcards & Quiz

Q1: Why are infancy and adolescence periods of rapid brain change?

Myelination (the coating of axons with myelin) speeds neural transmission and continues from infancy into early adulthood, with the frontal lobes among the last areas to finish. Synaptic pruning removes unused connections after an early overproduction of synapses, making the remaining pathways more efficient (“use it or lose it”). In adolescence the forebrain, especially the prefrontal cortex that supports planning and impulse control, is still developing, while emotional areas mature earlier.

Q2: What is neural plasticity, and how do environments, critical and sensitive periods, and brain damage relate to it?

Neural plasticity is the brain’s ability to change its structure and connections in response to experience. Enriched environments (stimulation, social contact) promote more synaptic connections than deprived ones; rats raised in enriched cages developed a thicker cortex. A critical period is a fixed window in which certain experience must occur for normal development; a sensitive period is a window when development is easiest but still possible later. After brain damage, plasticity allows undamaged areas to take over some functions, generally more effectively in young brains.

Q3: What role does attachment play in psychological development, according to Lorenz, Harlow, Bowlby and Ainsworth?

Konrad Lorenz (1937) showed that goslings imprint on the first moving object they see during a brief critical period. Harlow and Zimmermann (1958) found that infant rhesus monkeys preferred a soft cloth “mother” over a wire one that provided milk, showing the importance of contact comfort. John Bowlby (1969) proposed that attachment is an innate, adaptive bond that forms an internal working model for later relationships. Mary Ainsworth and colleagues (1978) used the Strange Situation to classify secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant attachment.

Q4: What are the detrimental effects of early abuse or deprivation on cognitive development?

Severe early neglect, abuse or institutional deprivation can reduce stimulation and stable care during sensitive periods, leading to delays in language, lower IQ scores, attention difficulties and problems forming relationships. Studies of children raised in Romanian orphanages found that those adopted or placed in foster care earlier generally recovered more than those who stayed in institutions longer. Research in this area must follow strict ethical principles because the participants are vulnerable children.

Q5: Summarise Piaget’s cognitive theory of development.

Jean Piaget proposed that children actively construct knowledge using schemas, adapting them through assimilation (fitting new information into existing schemas) and accommodation (changing schemas). Development passes through four stages: sensorimotor (birth–2, object permanence develops), preoperational (2–7, symbolic thought but egocentrism and no conservation), concrete operational (7–11, logical thinking about concrete objects, conservation) and formal operational (11+, abstract and hypothetical reasoning).

Q1: Synaptic pruning increases the total number of synapses in the adolescent brain.

Answer: FALSE

Pruning removes unused synapses, making remaining connections more efficient.

Q2: The prefrontal cortex is one of the last brain areas to fully mature.

Answer: TRUE

The prefrontal cortex continues developing into early adulthood, which helps explain adolescent impulsivity.

Q3: A sensitive period is a fixed window after which the relevant development cannot occur at all.

Answer: FALSE

That describes a critical period. A sensitive period is an optimal window, but development can still occur later, though less easily.