4 The Cognitive Changes of Adolescence. 4 The Cognitive Changes of Adolescence Chapter Overview...

4The Cognitive Changes

of Adolescence

4 The Cognitive Changes of Adolescence

• Chapter Overview

• Development of the Brain in Adolescence

• How Adolescents Think

• Explaining Cognitive Development

• Implications for the Classroom

• Implications for Everyday Life

4 Chapter Overview

• The brain continues to develop through three related processes.

• The psychometric approach views cognitive development as a continuous growth in the abilities that underlie general intelligence.

• An information processing approach focuses on age-related changes in adolescents’ use of strategies for holding onto and retrieving information, and in their ability to monitor their thinking.

4 Development of the Brain in Adolescence

Three processes in the remodeling of the adolescent brain:

• Cell proliferation – the overproduction of both neurons and their interconnections that results in increased cortical gray matter.

• Synaptic pruning – the selective elimination of the least-used cells and their connections.

Figure 4.1 Changes in gray matter density in different regions of the brain


• Myelination of neural pathways that connect different areas within the brain continues and increases efficiency.

Myelinated pathways have a whitish appearance – regions with these tracts are called white matter.

Myelin is a sheath and functions like insulation resulting in faster and more efficient communication.

Figure 4.3 Myelin sheath coating axon


Prefrontal cortex – region of the cortex located behind the forehead, involved in abstract thought.

• One of the last brain regions to undergo remodeling.

• Responsible for “executive functions” such as decision-making, evaluating, and planning.

Figure 4.4 Areas of the prefrontal cortex involved in the use of rules of increasing complexity


Sub-regions of the prefrontal cortex develop with age.

Thinking becomes more flexible and behaviors are modulated according to circumstance.

Univalent versus bivalent or conditional rules.


Multitasking requires switching from one activity to another.

Activities are not done as well as when done alone.

Example: Using a cell phone while driving.


The limbic system:

• Processes social and emotional information and evaluates rewards.

• Matures before the prefrontal cortex and can override executive control.

• Is involved in risky decisions made by adolescents, more likely when peers are present.

Figure 4.5 Not all parts of the brain mature at the same rate

4 How Adolescents Think

Adolescent thinking may be abstract, hypothetical, or logical.

Abstract thinking allows classification outside of physical characteristics.

Example: Animals may be classified by their appearance or by where they live, or by a combination.

Box 4.1 In More Depth: Science Project

1. Terrestrial vertebrates (TV)2. Aquatic vertebrates (AV)3. Terrestrial invertebrates (TI)4. Aquatic invertebrates (AI)5. Only vertebrates (TV and AV)6. Only invertebrates (TI and AI)7. Only terrestrial animals (TV and TI)8. Only aquatic animals (AV and AI)9. TV and AI10. AV and TI11. TV, AV, and TI12. TV, AV, and AI13. TV, TI, and AI14. AV, TI, and AI15. TV, AV, TI, and AI16. No animals at all


Hypothetical thinking, in terms of what might be, allows adolescents to solve problems.

As the prefrontal cortex develops, adolescents can limit impulsive behavior and monitor their activity.

Metacognition is the awareness of one’s thinking, cognitive abilities, and style.


Logical thinking allows adolescents to see logical relations among ideas.

They can use logical consistency to evaluate their thoughts.

Example: An experimenter uses a poker chip to ask if a statement is true or untrue; an adolescent can answer, whether the chip is seen or unseen.


Emerging adults and adolescents differ in their thinking.

Adolescents may be logical, but adults may be more practical and consider which logical options are available.

Example: An employee arrives late again after being told he would be fired.


Emerging adults also have more tolerance for ambiguity.

They know that facts may actually be interpretations by a group, and that each perspective can be a legitimate point of view.

More likely to work toward a solution than to try to find the “right” answer.

4 Explaining Cognitive Development

A constructive perspective assumes:

• Individuals must interpret all experience.

• Events remain ambiguous until responded to.

Example: Noam Chomsky’s statement “Flying planes can be dangerous” is ambiguous, yet will be responded to according to individual experience.


Jean Piaget suggests a constructive perspective that varies with developmental age:

• Says that we construct what we know of the world.

• We organize that understanding in different ways with age, resulting in a different stage of thought and equilibrium with the environment.


Equilibrium with the environment is maintained:

• Assimilation – new events and experiences are processed to fit existing cognitive structures.

• Accommodation – cognitive structures are altered to fit new events or experiences.


To maintain equilibrium, for each assimilation, accommodation must occur.

Piaget called this equilibration – the process responsible for growth of thought.


Robert Kegan says intellectual growth takes place through a differentiation of self from other.

The process defines new aspects of one’s surroundings as well as of one’s self.

Giving meaning to an event in the world also changes one’s sense of self in relation to the event.


Piaget’s test of conservation demonstrates whether children know that things remain the same even when they appear different.

Moving between perspectives, older children use the processes of negation and reciprocity to give their world stability.

Figure 4.8 Piaget’s conservation of volume task


A contextual perspective:

• Lev Vygotsky and Barbara Rogoff believe cognitive development is shaped by culture.

• Knowledge is acquired in a social context and others’ discoveries are passed along as “social tools.”


Vygotsky considers the adolescent as part of a group with distinct cultural tools.

Thinking develops as a person internalizes those tools, and as such is a social process.

An adolescent must be close enough to obtain cultural tools in the zone of proximal development.


Rogoff regards the use of cultural tools as an apprenticeship in thinking.

Apprenticeship suggests an activity that is shared with others and guides practical action.

Strategies for learning involve observation and participation in what is valuable to a particular culture.


A psychometric approach:

• Focuses on individual differences in abilities contributing to intelligence: One can profit from experience. Can adapt to surroundings. Often involves abstract reasoning.


• Intelligence tests reflect how one performs relative to others the same age.

However, people with different experiences will fare differently depending on which questions are included.

Figure 4.9 Percentage of individuals and intelligence classification at different points from the mean IQ of 100


The WISC-IV is an intelligence scale for children and adolescents up to 16 years.

The WAIS-III is an intelligence scale for adolescents and adults.


Intelligence tests are arbitrary because they draw on one’s capabilities and also on knowledge gained from living in a culture.

Adolescents from a minority who have exposure to the dominant culture will do better than those with no exposure.

The nature of the question can affect performance measures.

Figure 4.10 Example o f a type of item in the picture arrangement subtest of the WAIS-R, a previous version of the WAIS-II


Gender differences exist in patterns of performance, but not in overall intelligence.

Females score higher on measures of verbal fluency, written comprehension, and logical relations.

Males do better on information and arithmetic subtests, and tests of spatial ability.


The Raven Progressive Matrices Test was developed as a culture-fair test, to minimize cultural bias.

On the tests of spatial ability, adolescents performed similarly until age 16, when males perform better.

If the difference is controlled for statistically it goes away; if not, it introduces a gender bias to the test.


Gender differences also appear in the SAT, the most widely used college entrance exam.

Males generally score higher on the math portion, but in a comparison of grades in college mathematics classes for males and females with the same SAT scores, females had better grades.

Because of its importance in determining college entrance, the SAT should be structured so that it reflects mathematical ability.


Sternberg’s Componential Intelligence:

Defines intelligence as achieving life’s goals, as well as success in school.

Individual differences are due to the intellectual functioning of three components:

• Metacomponents determine when more information is needed and if a particular strategy will work, as well as monitor progress.


• Performance components carry out procedures selected by metacomponents.

• Knowledge-acquisition components acquire new information as needed, sifting through information and integrating relevant pieces into what is known.

Sternberg applied this analysis to analogies, which reveal that all ages use the same components but spend different amounts of time on each.


Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences:

Gardner proposes multiple intelligences.

He also defines intelligence as one’s ability to solve problems as they arise, but expands the range of problems that may be used to study intelligence.

Talents may also be considered as domains of intelligence.


Practical intelligence is distinguished from the academic intelligence measured by tests.

Intelligence tests are designed by others, and problems are well-defined with one right answer.

Practical intelligence involves discovering the problem and finding different approaches and solutions.


Information Processing Approach:

This approach focuses on the processes by which information is encoded, retrieved, and utilized.

Many developmental processes show changes with age.


• Automaticity is the ability to perform practiced cognitive functions without conscious attention.

• Speed of processing is the rate at which one or more cognitive operations can be performed.

• Working memory holds information briefly, under one minute, while further processing occurs.


• Encoding is the transfer of information from one form of memory to another.

• Strategies are activities to organize cognition to improve performance.

Adolescents are more likely to use strategies as they are more aware of their thinking – metacognition.

4 Implications for the Classroom

Reasoning improves during adolescence:

• Inductive reasoning moves from the particular to the general.

This thought process allows extrapolation from a single fact to a general rule.

• Deductive reasoning goes from the general to the particular, checking a hypothesis by observation.


Adolescents are able to use a systematic approach that works well in science.

They can analyze a situation, identify relevant variables, and discover the problem.

Next they can form a strategy that will test combinations of variables – adolescents think in terms of possibilities.


Adolescents also use strategies to improve their study skills.

They can recognize and direct their attention to what they don’t know.

Uses of language such as metaphor, irony, sarcasm, and satire are understood, as adolescents are able to think in terms of hypothetical situations.

4 Implications for Everyday Life

The ability to think abstractly about their own thoughts and the thoughts of others underlies egocentrism.

Adolescents may fail to distinguish their own concerns from those of others.

They may feel that others think about them as much as they themselves do – an imaginary audience.


The imaginary audience may make them feel special.

The personal fable is the feeling that they are unique, and their experiences are not like those of others.

Social cognition develops as adolescents become better at assuming another’s perspective, and coordinating it with their own.


Doubt and skepticism also arise as adolescents realize that a truth may be only one interpretation of reality, and that others are possible.

They become skeptical of knowing anything with certainty.

Arguing is related to the ability to consider the multiple possibilities in a situation, and adolescents are good at it.

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