DP 3

Cognition

While we do not always recognize it, newborns have an amazing level of intellectual capability. Research shows that from birth, newborns can recognize, and in fact prefer, the sound of their own mother's voice. This can be observed when infants suckle. They will suckle at whatever speed necessary to hear their own mother's voice. An interesting note is that infants will suckle to hear their mother's voice while she is reading, but only if the mother is reading forward. If she is reading backwards, the infant is not interested; in other words, the infant does not recognize backward language as the mother's voice. 

Chomsky notes that children have a "language acquisition device" and can learn a new language faster than an adult. (Note that this ability seems to diminish after a certain point in childhood.) By age 2, a child can be expected to have a vocabulary of 50 to 300 words.

According to Jean Piaget, the infant, up to age 2, will be in the sensorimotor stage of cognitive development. For children in this stage, sensory awareness determines their understanding of the world around them. Their senses are their connection to the world. For example, if infants cannot see an object, the object simply does not exist for them. (Some research is now challenging that point.) This stage lasts until approximately 2 years of age, at which point the child enters the preoperational stage. This is the stage at which a child's reasoning ability is dominated by what they perceive. If you have ever tried to reason with a young child and were unable to help them understand rational thought, don't despair, as young children at this age still lack the capacity to reason.

Infants learn an amazing amount of information. Psychologists term this learning process "assimilation."  They define it as the process of taking in information and experience and incorporating the learned information into pre-existing ideas of how the world works and what it contains. When an infant takes in information and actually modifies pre-existing ideas, that process is called "accommodation." It is easy to see how childhood trauma at this time can lead to distorted views, as the modification of pre-existing ideas must now incorporate the traumatic experience.  Because the experience is so frightening and so different from the ordinary experiences others may have or have had, the individual's world view becomes distinctly different from the world view of others who have never experienced such a traumatic event.  

Learning

There are three main ways that psychologists explain how we learn: classical conditioning; operant conditioning; and imitation, or cognitive-social learning.  Classical conditioning is all around you. Prejudices, phobias, advertising influences, and politicians' messages all have the roots of their effectiveness in classical conditioning. How does this work? Well, a person is classically conditioned when they start associating stimuli with other stimuli; that is, something that normally wouldn't evoke any reaction (the neutral stimulus) is repeatedly paired with something that does evoke a reaction (an unconditioned stimulus). Eventually, the stimuli become linked in the person's mind. When the connection is made, the neutral stimulus now elicits a response similar, or identical, to the unconditioned stimulus. The neutral stimulus is no longer neutral. The most famous example of classical conditioning is Pavlov's experiment with the salivary responses of dogs.

We can look at advertising strategies to further illustrate classical conditioning. You may have noticed that advertisers will often pay huge amounts of money to athletes and celebrities to advertise products. Athletes/celebrities act as the unconditioned stimulus; that is, they produce a positive response in us. Advertisers hope that you admire the people they choose for their campaigns. As public figures, celebrities exhibit certain qualities that we associate with them. They often represent ideals to us in that their images stir favorable emotions within us. By repeatedly showing athletes/celebrities, or the unconditioned stimulus, with the advertised products, or the neutral stimulus since we have yet to form responses to them, people begin to associate the qualities of the celebrities/athletes with the products. When individuals unconsciously associate the products with those positive qualities we associate with the celebrities, the products become a conditioned stimulus, which produces a conditioned response.  We have then been conditioned to have a positive response to a product because it was repeatedly paired with someone for whom we naturally had favorable feelings. The subsequent favorable feeling toward the product is what we call the conditioned response. The stimulus and response have now been associated with one another, and we have learned to make that connection. 

Does this really work? Well, how much money are celebrities getting for endorsements? How much celebrities know about politics is debatable, yet politicians have long been appearing on the campaign trail with celebrities. It is the same principle. Stand side by side with the celebrity long enough, and the politician and celebrity are associated with one another. Now, of course, there could be a negative consequence of this association that may damage the celebrity. If politicians are shown to be corrupt or the products of advertisers to be of poor quality, the negative qualities of the politicians and products can be associated with the celebrity. The celebrity then possesses, in the eyes of the public, the same negative qualities.

The other major type of conditioning is operant conditioning.  Operant conditioning is learning that comes from imposing consequences on behavior. The behavior is more likely to be exhibited again if followed by a consequence the person deems desirable, while less likely to be exhibited again if followed by a consequence the person finds punitive. Favorable consequences are considered reinforcement. Students generally understand reinforcement well. The tricky thing to remember is that there is positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is the ADDING of a pleasurable consequence, and negative reinforcement is the SUBTRACTING of something aversive. Thus, a parent who wants to reinforce the behavior of a child when he/she is being particularly helpful can help reinforce it by buying the child a treat (something positive added—positive reinforcement) or letting them out of doing a chore (taking something negative away—negative reinforcement). Similarly, a child who doesn't study at all can be punished. Unfavorable consequences are considered punishment. Positive punishment is ADDING something negative like an extra chore, and negative punishment is subtracting something positive like television or telephone privileges.

Students often get confused between classical and operant conditioning. You should remember that in classical conditioning, you are "taught" without ever really doing anything. The conditioning takes place involuntarily. In operant conditioning, the process is more voluntary. You make specific choices, and the consequences of those choices lay the ground work of the learning. It is a powerful tool, so powerful, in fact, that it is often used by animal trainers.

Imitation, or cognitive-social learning, is based largely on the work of its most famous practitioner, Albert Bandura. This cognitive-social learning theory is the theory that may be responsible for the trend of parents to be extremely concerned about the television violence that children see. To illustrate this, if a child is watching his/her favorite superhero on television, they may be engaged in what Bandura calls observational learning. The child is paying rapt attention to the television because its flashy colors, propensity for movement and action, and engaging music attract the attention of the child. By engaging in this behavior, the child is already experiencing the first stage in the process, the stage of paying attention. The second stage is remembering the behavior that is seen. This may occur naturally, but with the repetition of episodes and/or commercialization of the hero, it is even more likely that the child retains the exhibited behaviors.  We can see the commercialization of television heroes by looking in retail stores. How many things can you find in stores with the image of Spider-Man on them? How many of these items are for elementary school children or for preschoolers? A significant number are, which is ironic considering the first two Spider-Man movies were rated PG-13. The third stage of cognitive-social learning is actually being able to engage in the behavior that is viewed, or having the ability to replicate the behavior they have just observed. The fourth process is deciding if they want to repeat the behavior based on what they saw happen to the model engaging in the same behavior. (Is the person who displayed the behavior reinforced or punished?) Now superheroes have admirable qualities as well, but at what age are children able to discern these? Lionel Tate was 13 when he killed a girl while he was imitating "pro-wrestlers."

Psychologists use the cognitive-social learning theory to caution parents to use good judgment concerning the behaviors they allow their children to be exposed to. This caution extends beyond television. Columbine murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, as well as 14-year-old school shooter Michael Carneal, certainly had issues, but did playing the violent video games Doom and Quake help relieve their pressures and solve their problems? Television is not the only medium under investigation; a similar study raises concerns about the effects of violent music on children's behavior.