Cognitive development 14 th December 2007

Developmental psychology  study of progressive changes in human traits and abilities that occur throughout the life spam  physical development  cognitive development  social and personality development

Development  Developmental changes:  predictable stages  heredity and environment influences  critical periods  Question: why these developmental changes occur and why some people differ developmentally from others?

Cognitive development  Changes in thinking and reasoning  2 perspectives  Jean Piaget’s theory  Information-processing theory

Jean Piaget ( )  Cognitive development occurs in 4 qualitatively different stages  Sensimotor period (first 2 years)  Preoperational period (2 to 6 years)  Concrete-operational period (6-12 years)  Formal operational period (adolescence, adulthood)

3 cognitive processes  Equilibration  Assimilation  Accomodation

Information-processing theory  Differences between younger and older children lies in qualitative differences in how they process information.  Information processing = mental representation, operation with an information, handling data using memory

Infants  Perceptual abilities  vision (clear in cm)  can detect facial expressions, imitate them  can localize sounds, differentiate among sounds  can differentiate between odors  Learning and memory  relationships between their actions and changes in environment - and remember it

Infants - central cognitive task  basic understanding of objects and cause-effect relationships  sensorimotor intelligence  understanding of permanent existence of objects  may reflect limitations in infant’s memory

Preschool period (3-6)  representational thought  imagination  imitation of others actions  pretending to be someone  ability to use language  limitations  egocentric thought

Middle childhood (6-10)  ability to perform concrete operations  mental transformations (which can be reversed)  the concept of conversation

Discussions, alternatives of information/processing approach  Infants behavior in searching tasks may reflect their memory limitations  Preschool children does not think egocentric in all situations  Solving conservation tests may be influenced by problems with understanding instructions (language and conduct used)

Case’s integrative theory  Developmental stages  Short-term storage space becomes more efficient using chunking = new executive control structures appear = new executive control structures appear

Adolescence  formal operations stage  not all adults can use formal thinking

Piaget’s stages of development - childhood