Today’s session You are learning about...You are learning to... Piaget’s stage theory of cognitive development The sensorimotor stage Object permanence Distinguish between gradualist and stage theories Describe and criticise ways of investigating infant cognition Invent mnemonics to help you remember facts in exams

Piaget’s stage theory Piaget said that children’s cognitive development unfolds in stages. – Where have we encountered stage theories before? – What does a stage theory imply about development?

Gradualist vs. Stage theories Psychological attribute Time How might the line representing a stage theory be different? Abrupt change Relative stability Gradual change over time

Stage Theories Development is discontinuous Each stage is qualitatively distinct The sequence is universal and invariant These statements are true of all stage theories of development. What might they mean as applied to cognitive development?

Piaget’s stage theory Children’s ability to understand, think about and solve problems in the world develops in a stop-start manner. At each stage of development, the child’s thinking is qualitatively different from the other stages. All children go through the same stages in the same order (but not all at the same rate)

Piaget’s Stage Theory of Cognitive Development StageCharacteristicsTypical Age Sensorimotor stageSubstages 1-3Ability to deal with situations is limited to: i) Having sensations and producing actions; ii) The ‘here and now’ 0-8 months Substages 4-6Intentional actions emerge; trial and error behaviour; object concept – object permanence develops; simple pretend play; language acquisition 8-24 months Preoperational stagePreconceptual period Symbolic thought develops; egocentrism; animism; centration 2-4 years Intuitive periodJudgements based on appearance not logical thought; less egocentric; unable to conserve 4-7 years Concrete operational stageConservation; seriation; transitivity; class inclusion 7-11 years Formal operational stageAbstract concepts; hypothetical thinking; flexibility in thinking 12+ years

Homework pt. 1 Invent a mnemonic to help you remember the names and order of Piaget’s stages.

Sensorimotor stage In the first stage, the child ‘thinks’ by sensing (‘sensori-’) and by performing actions on (‘- motor’) the world around it. It does not think by manipulating mental representations, like an adult does.

General Symbolic Function During the sensorimotor stage a range of cognitive abilities develop. These include: – Object permanence – Self-recognition – Deferred imitation – Representational play They relate to the emergence of the general symbolic function, which is the capacity to represent the world mentally This one is named in the spec so you need to know lots about it.

Object permanence Infants do not realise that objects exist independently of them ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist when the child cannot see them

How could we investigate whether a child has object permanence?

Piaget (1963) – search tasks

Object permanence Typical ageSearch behaviour Before 8mDoes not search for hidden object at all. 8-12mSearches for hidden object in initial hiding place even if the object is moved to a second hiding place while the child watches (the ‘A not B error’) 12-18mSearches in most recent hiding place.

Homework pt. 2 Is Piaget’s search task a valid test of whether a child has developed object permanence? – Does a child’s failure to search mean that it has no idea that the object still exists? – Might this task be measuring something else instead? Two students will be presenting their views to the class at the start of next lesson, so be prepared.

Review Pair up. Decide who will be infant and who will be investigator. – Investigator must test infant’s object permanence using the two hiding place method. – Infant must decide which stage of development she is at and respond accordingly. – Investigator must identify child’s likely age and explain why.