Cognition What is Cognition? Why Use Developmental Theories to Understand Cognition? Issues with Stage Theories and what they suggest

© 1999 John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Jean Piaget Piaget was trained as a biologist and as a philosopher Piaget’s view of the intellectual development of the child reflected an interaction between biology and experience Principles of knowledge: Seek the organization by which the child understands the world Identify the functional significance of knowledge (that is, knowledge allows a child to adapt to the world) © 1999 John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Piaget’s Theory Why has it lasted? Piaget believed: Observations and descriptions of thinking at different ages Breadth Thought-provoking observations to support the theory Nature/Nurture and Continuity/Discontinuity Piaget believed: Children are constructivists Children are intrinsically motivated to learn

Piaget and Developmental Themes Nature/Nurture Organization Adaptation Continuity Assimilation Accommodation Equilibration Discontinuity Qualitative changes Broad application Brief transitions Invariant sequences

Stages Sensorimotor Birth–2 years Understands world through senses and actions Preoperational 2–7 years Understands world through language and mental images Concrete operational 7–12 years Understands world through logical thinking and categories Formal operational 12 years onward Understands world through hypothetical thinking and scientific reasoning

Sensorimotor Stage (Birth–2 years) Substage 1 (birth–1 month) Modify reflexes Centered on own body Substage 2 (1–4 months) Organize reflexes Integrate actions Substage 3 (4–8 months) Repetition of actions resulting in pleasurable or interesting results Object Permanence

Substage 4 (8–12 months) Substage 5 (12–18 months) Begin searching for hidden objects Fragile mental representations A-Not-B Error Substage 5 (12–18 months) Active exploration of potential use of objects Substage 6 (18–24 months) Enduring mental representations Deferred Imitation

Infant Knowledge of Gravity By age 6.5 months, infants spend longer time looking at the impossible event than the possible event (Figure reprinted with permission from “How Do Infants Learn About the Physical World” from Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol. 3, (1994) p 134.)

Object Permanence Assessment Object permanence refers to the knowledge that objects exist when out of sight. Baillargeon used the habituation procedure to assess object permanence. Infants habituated to A, but showed long looking times at C (Figure adapted with permission from “Object Permanence in 3½- and 4 ½-Mo nth-Old Infants” by R. Baillargeon, 1987, Developmental Psychology, 23, p 656. Copyright ©1987 by APA)

Preoperational Stage ( 2–7 years) Development in: Symbolic Representation Weaknesses in: Egocentrism The 3 Mountain Task Taking other people’s perspectives Centration Animism Artificialism Realism

Assessing Egocentrism: The Three Mountain Problem (Figure adapted with permission from The Child’s Conception of Space (p 211) by J. Paiget and B. Inhelder, 1956, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Copyright © 1956 by Routledge and Kegan Paul)

Piaget’s three-mountains task When asked to choose the picture that shows what the doll sitting in the seat across the table would see, most children below age 6 choose the picture showing how the scene looks to them, illustrating their difficulty in separating their own perspective from that of others.

Egocentrism An example of young children’s egocentric conversations.

A 4-year-old’s drawing of a summer day Note the use of simple artistic conventions, such as the V-shaped leaves on the flowers (Dennis, 1992, p. 234).

Balance scale study by Case (1992) When asked to predict which side of a balance scale, like the one shown above, would go down if the arm were allowed to move, 5- and 6-year-olds almost always center their attention on the amount of weight and ignore the distances of the weights from the fulcrum. Thus, they would predict that the left side would go down, although the right side actually would.

Piaget’s train problem If two trains start and stop at the same time, but one stops farther up the track, children below age 8 usually say that the train that stopped farther up the track traveled for more time.

Assessing Conservation © 1999 John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Vasta, 3e Fig. 8.7

Concrete Operational Stage (7–12 years) Conservation Phase I Child sees 2 objects, agrees objects are identical in number or quantity (dimension of interest) Phase II One object is transformed, but the dimension of interest is not altered Phase III The child is asked whether the dimension of interest is still equal

Formal Operational Stage (12 and onward) According to Piaget, this stage is not universal Characteristics: Hypothetical Thinking Truth, justice, morality Systematic Reasoning of all possible outcomes Scientific Method

What Piaget Left Positives Negatives A good overview of children’s thinking at different points Appealing perspective Broad spectrum of development and ages Fascinating observations Negatives Stage model depicts children’s thinking as being more consistent than it is Infants and young children are more cognitively competent than Piaget recognized Piaget’s theory understates the contribution of the social world to cognitive development Piaget’s theory is vague about the cognitive processes that give rise to children’s thinking and about the mechanisms that produce cognitive growth

Information Processing Theories Features: Processes involved in children’s thinking Process occurs over time Metaphor of a computational system Continuous cognitive change Cognitive growth is not abrupt, but step-by-step Children are problem solvers Determine goal obstacles strategy goal Planning Develops over time There are signs of planning as early as 12 months Why don’t children plan? Want ends before the means, overoptimistic, high failure rate Analogical Reasoning The younger the child the more similar/parallel the problem needs to be to make a connection

Developmental Issues 1. Basic Processes Encoding Speed of Processing 4. Cognitive Processes Work Together 2. Strategies Rehearsal Selective Attention Utilization Deficiency 3. Content Knowledge Scripts

Other Information-Processing Theories Connectionist Theories/Neural Network Approach The simultaneous activity of neurons, interconnected processing units Sequential and parallel processing Dynamic-System Theories How varied aspects of a child function as a single, integrated whole For example, perception, attention, language, memory, emotions, motor activity Overlapping-Waves Theories Focus on the variability of children’s thinking

The overlapping-waves model The overlapping waves model proposes that at any one age, children use multiple strategies; that with age and experience, they rely increasingly on more strategies (the ones with the higher numbers); and that development involves changes in use of existing strategies as well as discovery of new approaches.

Core-Knowledge Theories Features: Study areas important throughout human evolution Children’s reasoning is more advanced than Piaget believed Children are active learners Children are born with many specialized—not only general—learning abilities Domain Specific Children make informal theories (biology, psychology, physics)

Sociocultural Theories Features: Cognitive development occurs through interactions between child and other Occurs within a broad cultural context Children are teachers and learners Children are products of their cultures Change occurs through: Guided Participation Intersubjectivity (Joint Attention, Social Referencing) Social Scaffolding Zone of Proximal Development