Cognitive Development Chapter 13

Outline Major Approaches to Cognitive Development Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development Development of Information-Processing Skills Metacognitive Skills and Memory Development Neurophysiological Changes in Development Increasing Neuronal Complexity Maturation of Central Nervous System Structures Cognitive Development in Adulthood Patterns of Growth and Decline Wisdom and Aging

1. Major Approaches to Cognitive Development The investigation of how mental skills build and change with increasing physiological maturity (maturation) and experience (learning) 1. Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development The most comprehensive theory of cognitive development We can learn as much about children’s intellectual development from examining their incorrect answers to test items as from examining their correct answers

1. Major Approaches to Cognitive Development 1. Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Development occurs in stages that evolve via equilibration, in which children seek a balance (equilibrium) between what they encounter in their environments and cognitive processes and structures they have

1. Major Approaches to Cognitive Development 1. Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Equilibration involves three stages: Equilibrium Occurs when child’s existing mode of thought and existing schemas are adequate for confronting and adapting to the challenges of environment Assimilation Incorporating new information into the child’s existing schemas Accommodation Changing the existing schemas to fit the relevant new information about the environment

1. Major Approaches to Cognitive Development 1. Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years) Involves increases in the number and the complexity of sensory (input) and motor (output) abilities during infancy 0-9 months – infant cognition seems to focus only on what the infants immediately can perceive through their senses

1. Major Approaches to Cognitive Development 1. Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years) 9 months and older have a sense of object permanence Knowledge that objects continue to exist even when imperceptible to the infants Children begin to show signs of representational thought Child starts to be able to think about people and objects that are not necessarily perceptible at that moment

1. Major Approaches to Cognitive Development 1. Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Preoperational Stage (2 to 6-7 years) The child begins actively to develop the internal mental representations that started at the end of the sensorimotor stage Children exhibit centration A tendency to focus on only one especially noticeable aspect of a complicated object or situation

1. Major Approaches to Cognitive Development 1. Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Concrete-Operational Stage (7-8 to 11-12) Children become able to manipulate mentally the internal representations that they formed during the preoperational period Conservation of quantity The child is able mentally to conserve (keep in mind) a given quantity despite observing changes in the appearance of the object or substance

1. Major Approaches to Cognitive Development 1. Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Formal-Operational Stage (older than 11-12 years) Children develop mental operations on abstractions and symbols that may not have physical, concrete forms Children are finally fully able to take on perspectives other than their own, even when they are not working with concrete objects

1. Major Approaches to Cognitive Development 1. Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development Rediscovered in 1970s and 1980s Vygotsky emphasized the role of the environment in children’s intellectual development Internalization The absorption of knowledge from context The environment determines what the child internalizes

1. Major Approaches to Cognitive Development 1. Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development Zone of proximal development (ZPD) The zone of potential development The range of potential between a child’s observable level of realized ability (performance) and the child’s underlying latent capacity (competence), which is not directly obvious

1. Major Approaches to Cognitive Development 1. Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development Dynamic assessment environment The interaction between child and examiner does not end when the child responds In static testing, when a child gives a wrong answer, the examiner moves on to the next problem In dynamic assessment, when the child gives a wrong answer, the examiner gives the child a graded sequence of guided hints to facilitate problem solving

Cognitive Development in Adulthood Fluid intelligence The cognitive-processing skills that enable us to manipulate abstract symbols, as in mathematics Crystallized intelligence Our stored knowledge, which is largely declarative, such as vocabulary, but also may be procedural, such as the expertise of a master chess player Although crystallized intelligence is higher, on average, for older adults than for younger adults, fluid intelligence is higher, on average, for young (20s, 30s, 40s) adults than for older ones