Models (revisited) Themes to keep in mind throughout material Nature vs. Nurture Nativist vs. Empiricist (Constructivist) Models of Development No development (little adults) Maturation Readiness Stages Waves Critical periods

Piaget The “father” of cognitive development

“Everything you’ve been taught in an intro to psychology course about Piaget is wrong” - Howard Gardner

Studied biology – became interested in human intelligence Went to work with Alfred Binet on designing an intelligence test for children Had a really difficult really difficult time using simplified adult measures  ! Children are thinking in a way that is qualitatively different from adults. Children of different ages have different conceptions of the world that change the way they approach problems !

Jean Piaget’s theory remains the standard against which all other theories are judged Often labeled constructivist because it depicts children as constructing knowledge for themselves Children are seen as Active Learning many important lessons on their own Intrinsically motivated to learn

3 processes to move between stages Assimilation: Transform incoming information to fit existing way of thinking Accommodation: Adapt thinking to new experiences Equilibration: Integrate pieces of knowledge into unified whole

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

Recent experimental support for sensorimotor period  Sticky mittens! Sped up object knowledge & understanding of causality (& social awareness?)

Preoperational Egocentrism – cannot understand another person’s point of view

Symbolic representations? THE CREDIBLE SHRINKING ROOM! (DeLoache et al., 1997) 2.5 years children are unable to use a model of a room to find a toy hidden in the room UNLESS they are told that the model is the actual room shrunken by a shrink ray

Concrete Operational Thinking becomes systematic, quantitative, and logical. Logical thought for concrete information that is perceived Work poorly when applied to abstract, hypothetical info: Succeed: If stick A is longer than stick B and stick B is longer than stick C, then is stick A is longer than stick C? Fail: Susan is taller than Sally and Sally is taller than Mary. Who is the tallest?

Formal Operations Apply logical and systematic thought to abstract problems Deductive reasoning – specific conclusions based on general hypotheses Inductive reasoning – make generalizations based on specific observation Hypothetical thinking – truth, justice, morality

Weaknesses Infants and young children are more cognitively competent than Piaget recognized Piaget’s theory is vague about the cognitive processes and mechanisms of cognitive growth Piaget’s theory understates the contribution of the social world to cognitive development Stage model depicts children’s thinking as being more consistent than it is

“Why does everyone speak of stages?... One tries to construct stages because this is an indispensable instrument for the analysis of formative processes....I must vigorously insist on the fact that stages do not constitute an aim in their own right. I would compare them to zoological or botanical classification in biology, which is an instrument that must preceded analysis” (The Essential Piaget, p. 817)

Earlier Object Permanence 4.5 month old infants Two conditions B is ‘possible’ C is ‘impossible’ Results – Looked longer at C Conclusions Infants know box exists, even when hidden 4.5 month olds understand object permanence

Why later for A-not-B? Errors decrease with fewer trials where toy is hidden in A  Failure could be from a lack of inhibitory control (impulse to reach to the same location) Errors decrease with shorter time between between hiding and when child is allowed to reach for toy  Failures could be from poor iconic memory

Information Processing Theory Human brain as computer Representation of information Processes: applied on representations Limitations: memory Development = change in processing abilities

Memory capacity Working memory span increases with age - Iconic memory capacity also increases with age (1 st grade = 2.5 digits, 4 th grade = 3 digits, adults = 3.5 digits) Increase in rehearsal speed – leads to increase in working memory capacity

Increase processing speed The speed of basic processes increases greatly over the course of childhood Biological maturation and experience contribute to increased processing speed Two biological processes that contribute to faster processing are myelination and increased connectivity among brain regions

Problem Solving (Wave Theory) Children are active problem solvers According to overlapping-waves theory, children use a variety of approaches to solve problems At any given time, children possess several different strategies for solving a given problem With age and experience, the strategies that produce more successful performance become more prevalent

Wave Theory

Core Knowledge Domain specificity: Children’s innate understanding allows them to distinguish between animate beings and inanimate objects. Children’s informal theories: understanding organized into informal theories of domains like other people, plants and animals, and objects. Psychology Biology Physics Language Information-processing viewCore-knowledge view

Occluded Rod 4-month-old infants familiarized with A, then presented with either B or C Results – Looked longer at C than B Conclusions Broken rod more novel than unbroken rod Rod in display A was originally perceived as unbroken