Cognition and Development | AQA A-Level Psychology (7182)
Cognition and Development
- 63 questions
- 4 subtopics
- Paper 3: Issues and options in psychology
- Paper 3
Cognition and Development is an optional topic for Paper 3.
It covers Piaget's and Vygotsky's accounts of how thinking develops, Baillargeon's evidence that infants know more than Piaget allowed, and the development of social cognition including theory of mind.
Sample questions from Cognition and Development
Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.
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Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development
Who is a 'more knowledgeable other'?
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Anyone with greater knowledge or skill, such as a teacher, parent or more able peer. -
Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development
How does the relationship between language and thought change with development?
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Language and thought are initially separate, then merge, and inner speech becomes a tool for reasoning. -
Piaget's theory of cognitive development
What key ability develops in the sensorimotor stage?
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Object permanence: understanding that objects continue to exist when out of sight. -
Piaget's theory of cognitive development
What characterises the formal operational stage?
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The ability to reason abstractly and to solve problems systematically. -
Baillargeon's explanation of early infant abilities
What is the violation of expectation paradigm and what does it measure?
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It is a research method that measures infant looking time, based on the principle that infants look longer at events that violate their expectations about how the physical world should behave. -
Baillargeon's explanation of early infant abilities
Why does Baillargeon's research suggest that Piaget underestimated infant cognitive abilities?
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Because Piaget's tasks required motor responses that infants lacked the physical coordination to perform, masking their true cognitive understanding. -
The development of social cognition
At approximately what age does theory of mind typically develop, and how is this demonstrated?
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Around age 4, when children begin to pass false-belief tasks. -
The development of social cognition
Define mirror neurons.
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Brain cells that fire both when an individual performs an action and when they observe the same action performed by another.
The 4 subtopics
One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.
| Subtopic | What it covers | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development | The zone of proximal development, scaffolding and how it is withdrawn over time, and the role Vygotsky gave language in the development of thought. | 11 |
| Piaget's theory of cognitive development | Assimilation and accommodation, the four stages of development in order, and the tasks Piaget used to identify egocentrism and conservation. | 18 |
| Baillargeon's explanation of early infant abilities | Infant core knowledge, the violation of expectation method, the drawbridge study, and how Baillargeon's age for object permanence compares with Piaget's. | 13 |
| The development of social cognition | Selman's levels of perspective-taking, theory of mind and the Sally-Anne task, and what that research suggested about autism. | 21 |
How the guide is worked
Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.
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Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
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Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
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Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.
Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.
Nearby topics
AQA A-Level Psychology Active Recall Guide
Every topic, not just this one. 2,999 questions with their answers.