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The Preoperational StagE

The preoperational stage is the second stage in Piaget’s theory of development. It the stage that children ages two to seven are experiencing. During this stage, children have already mastered object permanence and senses, are starting to have a theory of mind and language, but still lack conservation. Having theory of mind means they are starting to understand how people’s feelings, perceptions and thoughts predict their behavior. Lacking conservation means the child cannot understand that the quantity of an object stays the same despite a change in shape or form.

This is a link to children lacking conservation in the preoperational stage

https://youtu.be/GLj0IZFLKvg

This is a diagram of conservation experiments. Children in the preoperational stage would say the two objects in the second column are different volumes, numbers, matters, and lengths just because they aren’t the same shape

My 5-year-old niece does not understand conservation because one time we were playing with play dough and I divided the play dough into equal balls. We were playing for a little and I squished my ball down to look like a pancake. She felt bad for me “having less” and gave me some of hers. She lacked conservation because the shape of my play dough tricked her into thinking I had less even if we had the same amount to start.

Children in the preoperational stage are egocentric as well. This means that they can only see things from their point of view and cannot understand other’s point of view. An example would be a child expecting their parent to know what their teacher was wearing at school without the parent seeing the teacher.

My 5-year-old niece lives in Connecticut and I live in Pennsylvania so when we talk it is often over the phone or on FaceTime. When she was about 3-years-old, I was talking to her on the phone and she told me “Look at that puppy”. She did not understand that I was not with her and could not see things from her perspective because I was on the phone. She was being egocentric which means she thought I knew things just because she was aware of them. She was unable to distinguish between herself and her aunt.

While learning about memory in lecture 11, I was very interested in learning about source amnesia. Memory is such a complex topic because there are so many different components to how we remember things and how our brain works. I found the topic of source amnesia very interesting because I had experienced this myself. Source amnesia is attributing an event to the wrong source. It is mistaking experiences, things we have heard or read, dreamt, or imagined to the wrong source so either it happened or it did not. This topic is related to the misinformation effect which is when a persons memory becomes less accurate because of information gained after the event. Throughout my life I have told stories to my mom and sister that had never happened, and it became a joke that I would make the stories up. However, I was certain that I had experienced it. In actuality I was thinking that my dreams or things I had thought about in my head. When I would tell the stories I was attributing the story to the wrong source. It happens so often that I normally start by telling stories of my memories by saying “I may have made this up” and then continue telling the story. A distinct time that I remember attributing a memory to the wrong source was when I was recalling a time when my family and I were driving to South Carolina from New Jersey. I asked my mom if she remembered this trip, but more specifically if she remembered when it started raining really badly and thundering and lightening. We were driving on the road and lightening struck right next to our car, and I fully recall this happening. However, my mom knows for a fact that this did not happen. The more I thought about this and how I could think that something happened when it simply did not, I thought the only probable explanation was that either I dreamt of a similar situation or thought about how bizarre it would be if lightening struck near our car. I never knew what this was or why I believed that this event happened until we covered the topic of source amnesia in lecture.

One topic I have been really identifying with in class is memory and encoding. I think the idea of traditional studying has become more about being able to regurgitate information and specific details rather than learning and understanding topics. As a college student, I think this is important to acknowledge because the point of college isn’t just to obtain a degree, but to be able to walk out of college knowing you’re a well-rounded, knowledgable individual.  We weren’t meant to just memorize random facts or statistics for an exam and forget them; there’s a reason we’re supposed to be learning the information we’re given. A lot of my study habits include re-reading my notes and textbooks, making flashcards, and highlighting important words and numbers, but I’m not really learning that way.  I’m memorizing tiny details that may or may not show up on my exam that I will most definitely not remember once I walk out of the exam. This information is all going to my sensory memory, or the short-lived, almsot immediate recording of sensory information. I’m not really retaining any of the information I’m supposedly “learning”, especially if I cram, or try to study everything in one night, which is not uncommon for me to do.  As discused in class, it’s been scientifically proven that we learn better when we spread our studying out over time; re-reading our notes after class every day, writing down questions we may have missed in class, highlighting important topics to focus on daily, over a longer period of time than just a day or two. This will help the information retain longer in our brains (in our LTM, or “long term memory” rather than our STM or “short term memory”). Effortful processing, or learning information in a way that requires particular effort, is one way to achieve this. Being particularly mindful of what you’re reading rather than just skimming for big ideas, writing down ideas or other important concepts, or just going further in depth in your note taking is something that can benefit your study habits, along with beginning to review your exam information long before the exam.

Based on what we learned in this unit of Psychology, there are three different types of parenting; authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. Authoritarian parenting tends to be the most strict and involves parents imposing rules and expecting obedience from the children.  Authoritative parenting is the most common style which involves demanding rules from their children but still are responsive to their children’s needs. The last type of parenting is Permissive parenting. Permissive parenting tends to be very loving and nurturing but lacks discipline and rules. Permissive parents act more like friends rather than a parental figures. The effects that this type of parenting has on their child includes struggling with self regulation and self control. The child is also more likely to display low achievement in certain areas such as school, more likely to display aggression, and it can even lead to substance abuse. So what does this mean? For instance, if you are strict with a child who has been raised with permissive styles, then chances are the child will act out in irrational ways.

In my experience, I have had to babysit many children all of which have all had different parenting styles. The most difficult child that I had to baby sit is a perfect example of the effects that permissive parenting can have. This child was an only child and grew up with all the attention from his parents. Despite getting all the attention, the child also got anything he wanted. He had toys that filled up two rooms, a smartphone at the age of 7, and his parents rarely, if ever, told him “no”. This made my job of babysitting a lot more difficult because when I tried to enforce rules on him, he would often throw tantrums, screaming, crying, etc. In order for me to get him to do something, such as pick up his toys, I would have to bribe him of candy. Bribery and incentives are also a big part of permissive parenting because it’s easier for the child to listen to you if there’s a benefit for them. Overall, it was obvious that the kid was raised in a permissive environment where there were very little rules and his parents acted as his friends, rather than authority figures.

In class, we talked about object permanence. When babies are first developing, they have such centralized senses, that if they do not directly see the object, they will not know that its there. Piaget did a study with babies under six months old that if he hid one of their toys under a blanket, then the baby will think that the toy has just magically disappeared. The babies wouldn’t go looking for it because they don’t know where to look for it. Once the toy magically reappeared again (once the blanket was removed from the toy), the babies just smiled and would reach for their toy again. It isn’t until about 8 months of age that babies know that the toy isn’t gone, but its just hidden.

I have a baby cousin and her name is Madison. Madison is currently 6 months old, and I love to play peekaboo with her. Every time we play, she is as shocked, happy, and surprised as the very first time that I played with her. She never seems to get tired of the game, even though it’s the same thing over and over again. All I’m doing is hiding my face behind my hands, then moving them away and smiling at her, yet she loves it. Since Madison is under the 8-month-old mark, she does not have object permanence yet. Madison cannot detect that my face is there, even though my face is only hidden by my hands. Since I am not “directly” in front of her, she cannot tell that I am there.

It’s the same concept as Piaget tested with 6-month-old babies, when the blanket is placed on top of the baby’s toys, the babies think that the toy is gone. The toy never disappears, its only that the babies cannot see it, and since they don’t have object permanence, they don’t know that it’s there. It’s the same as when I play Peekaboo with Madison, since I hide my face, she thinks that I left, even though I’m right there.

Also this is Madison, I just thought I’d put her picture here because she’s so cute.

Right now, in Psych 100 we learned about memory and the topic I am going to talk about is long-term memory. Long-term memory is the biggest place you can store memories. It has an unlimited capacity and the storage is estimated to range from 1000 billion to 1,000,000 billion bits of information. Long term memory is memories that you remember from a while back. Long-term memory can be split into two types. The two are procedural and declarative also known as implicit and explicit. Procedural long-term memory is skills you have known how to do. Declarative long-term memory is able to be explained in words. Declarative can then be split into two more types which are semantic and episodic memory. An example of procedural is like how to ride a bike. An example of declarative is like directions to get to someone’s house. An experience that I have that relates to this topic is that I have declarative memories that I can explain. An example of semantic memory is knowledge about general world/events that happened to you in the past. An example of episodic is a memory that you can remember the time and place in your mind. One of the memories that I have that I can explain is directions to get from my house to my high school. This relates to the topic because I had to be able to remember how to get to my house from the high school back when I was a freshmen or sophomore so that an upperclassmen or friend’s parent would be able to drive me home after a practice when my parents could not get me. I also had to be able to do the opposite and tell someone how to get to the school from my house if I had friends over and they had to go there. My memory wouldn’t be a procedural because it isn’t a skill that I have but a memory that I can explain in words.

What is it?

In lecture eight of our psychology class we learned about binocular and monocular cues. Binocular cues are something I have really had to focus on over my last couple years of life. What these cues relate to is the way that both of your eyes work together to display an image as we see it and also, it is what helps us focus on something that is either close to us, or farther away. When the topic of how our eyes work together comes into play when dealing with seeing things in 3-D, it is the idea of retinal disparity that conveys this.  Since our eyes are located slightly apart from each other and depict a slightly different image, both eyes are needed to make a full picture. On the other hand, when we are talking about how our eyes work together to focus on objects that are close or farther away, the involves the idea of convergence. Both of these different binocular cues are vital in the way that our eyes need to work together in order for our vision to be the way it should be.

My story Involving Binocular Cues.

A few years ago, I experienced a dangerously severe concussion while playing in a basketball game. It was to the point that they were checking me for brain bleed-age and I could not stand to look at something for more than a couple seconds before I would get a massive headache.  Fortunately, slowly but surely, as time went by I gained my full motor-skills back, although, there was one problem that was not getting better, my vision. My right eye was not moving fast enough to keep up with my left, which caused me to not be able to focus on anything and feel as if I did not have the correct depth perception. In order to correct these issues, I had to attend ocular therapy for several months until I finally gained my full set of vision skills back.

How does this relate?

My story of vision issues due to my concussion directly correlate to the binocular cues that we learned about in lecture eight. It makes much more sense to me now as to why I was having so much trouble focusing on certain objects. When you get a concussion and your brain is thrown around, it can really take a toll on a lot of major functions in your body, including your vision. Convergence and retinal disparity were the two biggest issues I was having when I was concussed, although fortunately, I bounced back. It is amazing that once you learn something it is so easy to tie it into an experience you had before, without even knowing it.

While studying in college, I find cramming information into my brain is the least effective method when trying to do well for an exam. Elaborative Rehearsal is when you transfer information from Short Term Memory into Long Term Memory by making the information meaningful. Some people have used acronyms or phrases to remember information. I on the other hand, put words into songs to make sure I remember the information I need.

In eighth grade, I had a music teacher who was absolutely crazy. Everything was sang to the classroom by a song, she never was able to just speak. One of our lessons was “The African Song”. This song had every single African country in it. At first I was like “how the heck am I going to learn every country in Africa?”. After two weeks of singing the song, with repetition and putting it to a beat, I actually knew every country in Africa. To this day, I still sing it and remember all the words. “Uganda, Rwanda, Mozambique, Eritrea, Sudan, Burundi…”.

https://www.google.com/search?biw=1426&bih=673&tbm=isch&sxsrf=ACYBGNRp9gODVITIgb9vGqgwHHC-4BA2zA%3A1571240356193&sa=1&ei=pDmnXfmwC8vU5gKzmKH4AQ&q=acronyms&oq=acronyms&gs_l=img.3…38535.38535..38794…0.0..0.0.0…….0….1..gws-wiz-img.mrwyoXqWasw&ved=0ahUKEwj5kqa6jqHlAhVLqlkKHTNMCB8Q4dUDCAc&uact=5#imgrc=thQD_ByjGFOwGM:

Along with songs, acronyms are a way to remember information needed. We all grew up remembering the colors of the rainbow by saying ROY G BIV. We use acronyms every day when we text people, because this is something just stuck in our brains.

Instead of cramming words and information into my brain, I now use songs and acronyms because doing this helps the information store better in long Term Memory which helps when you need it for exams, etc. Using these tools makes the information you are learning personally meaningful and by relating it to prior knowledge, it will lead to overall stronger Long Term Memory. Make a song for your next exam and I promise you will thank me later!