Stages involve Discontinuous (qualitative) change Invariant sequence –Stages are never skipped

Sensorimotor Stage (birth-2 years) Newborns have reflexes (motor behavior) and basic perceptual abilities –Refine these innate responses (accommodation) during the first month of life

Gradually become capable of repeating satisfying behaviors that initially occurred by chance

First learn to repeat actions involving their own body –Ex: thumb sucking Then learn to repeat actions involving objects –Ex: shaking rattle

Object Permanence: Understanding that objects continue to exist when they cannot be perceived directly –Infants have some understanding of object permanence at around 8 months

–A-not-B error: Tendency to reach where objects have been found before, rather than where they were last hidden –Infants make this error until about 12 months of age

From 12 months on, infants increasingly engage in active exploration of objects and their functions

At end of sensorimotor stage, mental representations develop –Deferred Imitation: Imitation of a behavior after a period of delay Implies mental representation (memory)

Egocentrism: Tendency to focus on one’s own viewpoint and ignore others’ perspectives –Ex: 3 Mountains Task

Centration: Tendency to focus on one feature of an object or event to the neglect of other important features

Conservation: Understanding that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same even when their outward appearance changes

Preoperational children fail conservation tasks because of –Centration –A tendency to focus on static states rather than transformations

Concrete Operations (7-11) Understand conservation tasks –Can focus on multiple features of an object or event –Can consider transformations, not just static states

Limitations of Concrete Operations –Children’s logical thinking is limited to concrete information that can be perceived directly –Can’t reason about abstract or hypothetical ideas

Formal Operations (11 on) Ability to think abstractly or hypothetically –“What if... ?”

Can consider all possible outcomes of a situation (scientific reasoning) –Ex: pendulum problem

Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory: Underestimated role of social environment in cognitive development –Ex: Certain experiences (like formal schooling) may promote conservation and other abilities

Doesn’t explain HOW cognitive development occurs –Better description than explanation of children’s cognitive development

The stage model describes children’s thinking as being more consistent than it really is –Ex: Children can solve some conservation problems sooner than others

Infants and young children are more cognitively advanced than Piaget claimed –Ex: deferred imitation (and thus mental representation) is present earlier than Piaget thought

Violation of Expectancy Method –Habituate infants to a “possible physical event” –Present a “possible” and “impossible” event Measure infants’ looking time to each event –If infants look longer at “impossible” event, assumed they have an understanding of the concept (e.g., object permanence)

But violation-of-expectancy method is controversial: –Does longer looking time to an “impossible” event indicate full understanding of a concept (such as object permanence)? OR –Does it simply indicate preference for novelty?

Core Knowledge Theories –Some types of knowledge are innate or are learned very quickly Ex: objects follow continuous paths through space; two objects cannot occupy the same space –Infants/young children develop “naïve” theories in certain domains (areas) based on this knowledge Ex: theory of physics (knowledge of objects)

–Domains in which infants have “core knowledge” are adaptive for survival from an evolutionary perspective

Preoperational children appear to be less egocentric than Piaget claimed

Preoperational children appear to have some understanding of conservation

Information Processing Theories Cognitive development is continuous rather than discontinuous

Computer metaphor: –Computer’s ability to process information is limited by its Hardware (e.g., memory capacity, speed/efficiency of operations) Software (e.g., strategies, information available) –Individuals’ thinking is limited by Memory capacity Speed/efficiency of thought processes Availability of relevant strategies and knowledge

Development of Memory Short-term (working) memory: “Workspace” in which information is actively processed –Can hold and operate on between 1 and 10 items (words, numbers, etc.) for up to a minute

Long-term memory: Information retained on an enduring basis –Can hold an unlimited amount of information for unlimited periods of time

Both types of memory increase with age

Basic Processes –Simple, most frequently used mental activities Exs: recognizing familiar objects; generalizing from one event to another; encoding

–Encoding: Process of representing in memory information that draws attention or is considered important

With development, basic processes like encoding become more efficient

With development, speed of basic processes also increases

With development, children’s use of strategies to remember information and solve problems increases

–Several memory strategies emerge between 5 and 8 years Rehearsal: Repeating information over and over Selective attention: Intentionally focusing on information relevant to the current goal

When children first learn new strategies, their use of them is quite limited –Why? –Mental “cost” of using new strategies is high relative to well-learned (old) strategies Using new strategies may actually reduce memory performance initially

Utilization deficiency: Initial uses of strategies do not improve memory as much as later uses Increasing benefits of using new strategies (or reducing costs) increases children’s use of memory strategies –Paying children for successful memory performance (increases benefit) –Presenting material to which the strategy can be easily applied (decreases cost)

With development, children’s knowledge about everything increases –Greater knowledge increases children’s ability to remember new information because they can relate it to information they already know When children know more about a topic than adults, their memory for new information about the topic is often better than that of adults

–Scripts: A type of knowledge about how some type of everyday event usually goes Ex: eating at a restaurant; grocery shopping

–Autobiographical memory: Explicit memories of events that took place at specific times and places in the individual’s past Infants do not seem to form autobiographical memories until approximately 18 months

Why? –Younger infants appear to lack a sense of self Understanding that they are a discrete entity who acts on and is acted on by others –Self-recognition (rouge test) is associated with autobiographical memory –Children who “pass” the rouge test are more likely to remember past events several months later

Infantile Amnesia: –Inability of most adults to remember anything of their lives before the age of three years (and not much before age 5)