Curse of Knowledge

When we discussed false beliefs and the curse of knowledge phenomenon, I thought mainly of differing teaching styles. My finance class is taught by a 70+ older man who lost his outstanding 3 page resume in a study guide that he had prepared for us. I also laugh to myself that someone could be so knowledgeable about a subject but so poor at teaching it. He probably has dreams about finance and is so good at what he does that he no longer has to pay complete attention while he is doing something. The problem is that when he comes into the classroom he doesn’t really turn on. We spend most of our time listening to his life stories and looking at chicken scratch diagrams that he scribbles up on the board. Whenever he asks a question and the whole class doesn’t have the faintest idea what the answer is, he gets this confused look on his face as though we all must have simply forgotten. When no one answers he points to his nonsense diagram where only he sees the answer popping off the board. It wasn’t something that we discussed, but all of this seems to follow in with the hindsight bias. When individuals already know something, they are more likely to argue that they knew it earlier then they did. For an elderly teacher, teaching students a new subject like in my class, the results are pretty disastrous. There are the occasional surprises when you get an older teacher that is really good, but my experience has usually been to learn more from younger teachers. What’s interesting about older teachers, and I guess older people in general, is that they are well aware of how hard it can be too learn new things! Our classroom in Lillis has one of those new projector document cameras, and someone has to go up every class time and turn it on for him. This is interesting because despite his own confusion in a new area, he is incapable of recognizing his students’ ignorance in another. My point is not to rant on old people or my finance teacher, but to point out how to effectively learn, teach, and basically communicate. We all know that the best way to learn something is to teach it, but it may also be that the inverse is true. What if the inverse is true and the best way to teach something is to learn it again. By re-learning you’d have a better chance at identifying the common pitfalls and steering the students around them. This all seems to support a hybrid theory like was mentioned in lecture. We seem to have a more incremental ability when we are younger to learn and teach others, and it seems like this ability gradually gets worse until it appears to resemble the Entity theory.

Intelligence and Theory of Mind

The article relating inhibitory control and theory of mind really caught my memory. It reminded me of back in my childhood, when I too was developing a theory of mind. I think it took me awhile to learn that other people not only have thoughts and feelings of their own, but that they occasionally differ from mine. One thing that I always used to get in trouble for was comparable to the Whisper task mentioned in the study. I always used to get in trouble when my cousin and I were spending the night together, because I had no concept of whispering. She used to get so mad at me because her mom would have to come downstairs late at night and tell me to be quiet, because other people were trying to sleep. But the idea was preposterous to me. This was just one instance of many, which indicate to me that I may have had a harder time developing a theory of mind than other kids. I also specifically remember in first grade telling the teacher that she was doing something wrong (a math problem she was teaching the class, it seems). I was sent to the office, because I could not be persuaded otherwise. I never did find out which of us was right, except that I think she was probably right because she was the teacher.

The strangest thing about all of this is that while I may not have had a well developed theory of mind, I had a highly developed sense of intelligence. When I was in kindergarten, I was tested and placed in Academically Talented classes, with other children that had performed well on these tests. We all formed a little group together, and we were taught separate lessons from the other children of our age group. It was a very strange experience, and one that after having taken this class, I’m not sure that I would subject my children to. All of my life I was given that generic feedback that I was smart. As I got older, I stopped trying hard to do well in school, and instead got feedback along the lines of “she has potential, if only she would apply herself.” Perhaps my life would have been different if my teachers and parents and family members would have known what they were really doing, when they thought they were being helpful to my well-being.

The reason I mention all of that is because it, along with studies that have been done on the topic, points to the fact that there seems to be a negative relationship between intelligence and Theory of Mind. I was very pleased to see that they were able to draw conclusions between inhibitory control and theory of mind, and would like to see how inhibitory control is related to intelligence. It would make sense that highly intelligent children would have a harder time with inhibitory control, for multiple reasons. The first reason is that, at least in my experience, a high intelligence is often accompanied by a brain that works very quickly. It has taken a lot for me to be able to shift things down enough to actually be able to understand most of everything that happens up there, but perhaps that’s the experience for everyone. Another thing that would make it hard for intelligent children to master inhibitory control is that they are often encouraged by the people around them to explore their intelligence. In my household, it was quite acceptable for me to interject in adult conversations, because they were so amazed that I was able to contribute at all. These sorts of behaviors are exactly what inhibitory control would control. As I’ve gotten older, institutional settings like school and work have indicated to me that these behaviors need to be controlled, and only at that time was I able to master the ability to keep my thoughts inside of my head.

This leads to a similar conclusion that the study came to. In intelligent children, who are observing and commenting on most everything in their environments, it must take some time for them to develop a theory of mind because they have to learn to shut up before they can listen to what other people are saying. All the observation in the world isn’t going to help them to see what others are thinking. Only through discussion can things like desires and beliefs be ascertained. I’m just glad that I, along with most kids, finally learn that there is a lot more to be absorbed through our ears than through our tongues.

Advice

Monday’s lecture on Applications of Cognitive Development was a lecture that stood out for me. The lecture was interesting to me because I wanted to explain the concepts taught in class to my brother. Over the holiday weekend I had a chance to visit my brother and interact with my niece. During the weekend while I was socializing with him I made a comment to him about how shy my niece was. He explained to me that she was always quite and asked for my advice. I told him that she needs more social interaction with children her age. My initial suggestion was later confirmed when I saw her playing with her cousin and talking with each other. When I brought this to my brother attention, my parents chimed in and stated that she talks all the time at church. Once again I thought that I was on the right track. As I was leaving for home at the end of the weekend, my brother asked me to call him if I thought of anything else. I didn’t think much more of the topic until I heard the lecture on Monday.

The lecture was on two approaches to children learning. The first approach was the “child as scientist” perspective and second was the “child as apprentice” perspective. The first approach is often referred to as the “theory” theory or the Piaget theory. The concept behind this approach is for the child to do the learning and have the parent aid only when needed. The “child as scientist” approach is based off three ideas. The first one giving your child an opportunity to explore and observe things as they happen. The second idea is to answer questions that your child has explanations that lead back to underlying principles. The third idea is to have your child interact with their peers. The other approach that you can have with your child is the “child as apprentice” perspective. This concept is based off interaction with adults. The first point behind this approach is to give your child an opportunity to interact with their parents. The second point is to set up scaffolding concepts for the child. The third point is to have your child participate in cultural relate activities.

After Monday’ lecture, I went home and called my brother to discuss what I just learned. As I was talking with him, I was explaining to him about the different approaches that were discussed in class. I was explaining to him about the ideas and the points of each approach. I give him my advice that he should use a combination of both approaches. The first thing that I recommend to him was to enroll her in a day care system where she can socially interact with her peers. I than advised him to try and include her in activities that he does. The last thing that I recommend to him was to start reading to her. Reading to her will start to simulate her mind with new concepts and she will start to question him about the reading. The reading will also simulate her imagination.

Autobiographical memory and culture

According to Fivush and Nelson(2003), autographical memory is related to language development. So, Fivush and Nelson(2003) argued that most people have childhood amnesia before age 3, because we have not developed verbal language well enough to describe an event. In addition, Fivush and Nelson(2003) argued that the vividness of the autographical memory depends on how a mother to describe past events. More specific, mothers from Western culture might focus on describing children’s personal emotion and action. On the other hand, mothers from Eastern culture might describe more moral emotion and lessons. Personally, my autographical memory supports Fivush and Nelson(2003) that we need to develop verbal language in order to develop autographical memory. However, I am not certain that culture might directly influence how parents elaborate a past event.

Consistent with Fivush and Nelson(2003), I have very little or nearly no memory before or around age 3. Although I know what I was doing and where I had been before age 3 by seeing photos, I have hardly to recall how I was feeling and what I was doing in detail from photo. Also, when my mom told me that I cried so loud when she placed me in a kindergarten around age 2 and half, but I have no memory about this event. Furthermore, one of my nannies speaks Cantonese and she told me that I knew how to speak Cantonese when I was around age 3. Nevertheless, Cantonese always sounds like another foreign languge to me. In general, my earliest autographical memory is after age 3. It is possible I started to understand more vocabularies in Chinese, which is my mother tone. Consequently, I understand the conversations among my families and I could recall some fragmented past events after I was 3 year old. Nevertheless, my childhood memory is more vivid after age 5. I could recall more vividly that my teacher asked me to sleep during the nap time when I was age 6. Or, I can easily recall that I was crying and sitting on the ground because my mom did not buy the toy for me. By comparing my childhood memory among different stages, I agree that we need to acquire verbal language first in order to encode an event vividly.

Clearly, every mom from different culture has different styles to describe their children’s past events. Nevertheless, I do not agree that mother from Chinese culture described less children’s own activities and emotion in past events. At least, my mom and my aunts describe their children’s own activities and emotions in the past events. Usually, my mom describes that I laughed a lot and I seldom had unpleasant mood when I was a baby. Likewise, my aunts describe that how my cousins behave jealously and angrily when everyone paid more attention to their newborn siblings. Thus, mothers from Chinese culture still pay attention to their children’s own emotion in the past event. Additionally, my mom and my aunts focus on describing their children’s own activities in a past event as well , however, they might not be able to focus on describing their children’s own activities every time when describing a past event. Obviously, parents might not remember past events through time. They probably remembered the past events vividly only if they were impressed. For instance, my parents can recall vividly that my brother got burned by boiling water when he was age 3. On the other hand, my parents could not focus on describing my own activities in other daily past events, because they were distracting by something like their work, TV or talking to others. For instance, parents might not pay much attention to children,if they felt exhausted after they finished work or when they pay more attention to doing the work . So, although the culture might indirectly influence how parents elaborate a past event, how vivid and how much detail parents could recall children’s activities in a past event mainly depends on how much attention parents pay to children at that time.
In short, verbal language development influenced how well we recall a past event in different stages. Futhermore, how parents elaborate a past event would influence how well we recall a past event. However, the cultural and economic ( i.g. bringing work to home was normal for every parent at that time) factor might directly or indirectly influence how well parents recalled the past events of their children.

Can babies learn from Hoover?

When looking at the video of the Qrio robot and children's reactions at an object that seems to interact with its surroundings we learn that children will attend to and interact with objects that contingently react to them. We also know that children follow eye gaze of objects that appear to be consciously avoiding obstacles. I would be curios to view an experiment in which these theories were combined, would babies follow the "eye" gaze of an electronic vacuum cleaner with two dots on top?
Based on the research we have read the answer would be yes. Electronic vacuums are compacts spheres about the diameter of a frisbee which buzz around your house vacuuming on their won, all the while, specially programmed to avoid running into your furniture. If previous data holds true, if we were to place two "eyes" on top of it, babies would follow it's "gaze". This experiment would be along the same lines as the blob experiment and I find that both of these result sets would be difficult to believe. The thought that babies need so few morphological features in order to elicit an action so crucial to learning as eye gaze seems to be absolutely absurd and very difficult to devote any validity to. A more believable explanation may be that babies attention is drawn to movement of any kind and merely the movement of the direction of two dots is enough to elicit a head turning response; these babies are most likely more observant than we give them credit for and are to discriminate between when a blob moves it's eyes and when even a dog moves it's eyes

Social Cognition: Desires and Beliefs

In the article, “From simple desires to ordinary beliefs: The early development of everyday psychology”, authors Henry Wellman and Jacqueline Woolley state that “before young children construe human actions in terms of beliefs and desires they understand action only in terms of simple desires.” “Naïve Psychology” also called simple desire psychology, is how younger children understand human action. They can understand that desires motivate behaviors, but not that beliefs can also have an affect. Young children are able to understand their own drives and desires, such as being thirsty. However, drives and desires are different motivational forces. For example, Wellman and Woolley say that drive (hunger) is based on a physiological need and no particular object, but desire (wants an apple) is about the object wanted. Desires are formed through basic emotions such as love, hate and fear, and can be understood without beliefs involved. One must be able to take into account another person’s knowledge of the world in order to understand beliefs. Young children may not understand the intentions of others because they cannot appreciate the fact that others may have different beliefs as their own. For example, two children could be looking for a toy that they desire to play with, yet one might look in the kitchen because they believe they left it there last. The other child might not understand why the other is going into the kitchen, because they believe it is in the bedroom.

Since behavior is “mentalistic” for adults and children older than preschool, it makes sense that language is required to form these mental representations. Children under the age of two are mostly non verbal and therefore not able to understand the beliefs of others. It is obvious that language is needed to be able to organize thoughts and recognize the fact that others have their own beliefs and desires that may be motivated by different circumstances. To understand and to be able to predict the actions of others, there must be a mutual understanding of feelings, emotions, perception and intention. These concepts give clues about other people’s behavior and why they may act the way they do. First a person must be able to perceive their world to form beliefs, and then they must take into account their emotions to form desires. With the understanding of beliefs and desires, a person can act or see why another person may act the way they do. Along with beliefs, desires can motivate potential actions, and therefore an understanding of beliefs is necessary to fully appreciate the actions of others.

Susan C. Johnson, author of the article “The recognition of mentalistic agents in infancy”, says that the mental states needed in order to understand others behaviors have to be inferred by others and not just directly perceived. In the example above, the child that didn’t understand why the other was looking in the kitchen when the toy is usually found in the bedroom was simply perceiving a behavior. They were not inferring that the other child was looking in the kitchen because they knew it was left there last. Mental states are formed through “unobservable” internal states that are directed at the world. With the ability to form internal states, children are then able to see themselves and others as things with minds that perceive and believe different things. With this understanding, people can communicate with each other and comprehend that other’s beliefs may manipulate their behavior and intentions. Evidence of the use of mental states is shown through the ability to reason about false beliefs. If a person can understand that sometimes beliefs may be false, they can recognize the fact that the person is acting a certain way based on their belief of some false information. This can help people better understand others intentions and how desires are different from beliefs.

Applications

It was briefly discussed in class on Monday, the influence that computers/technology is having on children’s development. Watching television last night, I found myself paying more attention to the leap frog commercials, in which they advertise that children play their video games (educational) before going to bed. I believe I saw about five different commercials each attesting to how these computer and video games can aid in a child’s learning. This prompted to me check out the leap frog web site. They offer toys for children from 6months all the way to high school. Everything that was found in class, I saw true for the toys/video games offered by leap frog. They give the correct answer which doesn’t elicit curiosity in the child and are not a substitute for the parent/adult as teacher. They offer a parent guide for each toy they offer, stressing the importance of the parent as a teacher, and that these toys are merely to aid in the child development by offering a rich environment. This parent guide also offers step by step instructions on the usage of the toy and what aspect of learning it enhances. I think that these toys can be educational and aid in a child’s development, it’s important that parents interact with these toys with their children. Some of the commercials portray these toys as a substitute to teaching that can be done by a parent or adult. When these toys are used in conjunction with a parent’s teachings and guidance they can be beneficial. Looking at this website it made me wonder what kind of theories of intelligence it promotes. What does the computer say when the child does a good job, or solves the problem correctly? Do the programmers or developers take this concept into account when creating these games?

These toys were also offered internationally and in many different languages. I can see how these toys can be more beneficial to children who don’t receive the same parental attention, potentially children in more impoverished situations. I can see this same benefit from children programming as well. I guess something, is better than nothing. These computer games and children’s programming can offer a buffer to children who don’t receive the same cognitive stimulation at home.

I found it interesting how much research went into the development of children programming, particularly Sesame Street. While this programming can be beneficial as well, I think some parents also take this as a substitute, and plop their children in front of the television. I have seen this happen with the child I have mentioned in previous blogs. She spends most of the day being watched by someone who just sits her in front of the television. Whenever I get the opportunity I make sure to interact with her, read to her, and encourage her to use her words. I have learned a great deal in this class that I can apply to my life, when I’m around children or have some of my own.

Recently seasons of Sesame Street from the seventies have been released on DVD with a warning label stating that it was for adults because content may not be suitable for young children. It is interesting how far research regarding children and cognitive development has come, that past episodes of Sesame Street are no longer deemed suitable.