Cognitive Development: Piaget Believed that intelligence was not random, but was a set of organized cognitive structures that the infant actively constructed This construction occurs through the adaptation to the environment

Adaptation: Two Mechanisms Assimilation: Interpreting or construing environmental events in terms of one’s existing cognitive structures and ways of thinking Accommodation: Changing one’s existing cognitive structures and ways of thinking to apprehend environmental events

Adaptation: Example

Stages of Development Piaget believed that the development of qualitatively different cognitive structures occurred through the processes of assimilation and accommodation. When a qualitative change occurs, the infant/child enters a new stage of development

Stage 1: Sensori-Motor (Birth-Age 2) Intellectual functioning is organized around sensing information and performing actions accordingly. This is entirely unconscious, self- unaware, and non-symbolic cognition. 6 substages of development

Sensori-Motor Substage 1: Reflexes (0-1 month) Reflexes are the behavioural foundation upon which more complex behaviours are based Development occurs as the reflex behaviours are applied to a wider variety of stimuli and events (assimilation) Example: Sucking

Sensori-Motor Substage 1: Reflexes (0-1 month) With continued experience, the reflexive behaviours become modified (accommodation) The infant then enters the second substage

Sensori-Motor Substage 2: Schemes (1-4 months) Sensori-Motor Schemes: An organized pattern of action (or behaviour) with which the infant interacts and comes to know the world. Examples: Sucking and Grasping

Sensori-Motor Substage 2: Schemes (1-4 months) Coordination or integration of previously independent schemes For example, the coordination of sensory information, such as visual and auditory

Sensori-Motor Substage 2: Schemes (1-4 months) Walker & Gibson (1983) 3.5 Months

Sensori-Motor Substage 3: Procedures (4-8 months) According to Piaget, substage 2 schemes are directed inward That is, grasps for the sake of its grasping than on the effect it has on the world In this substage, schemes get directed outward

Sensori-Motor Substage 3: Procedures (4-8 months) The schemes develop into procedures of interesting actions that produce interesting effects in the world For example, banging on a pot with a wooden spoon Consequently, the procedure gets repeated Sounds like operant learning - infants do this at 2 mos.

Sensori-Motor Substage 4: Intentional Behaviour (8-12 mos) In previous substage, infant accidentally produces some outcome then repeats it In this substage, infant wants to produce a particular outcome then figures out the action Uses one scheme as a means to obtain its goal or end of exercising another scheme

Sensori-Motor Substage 5: Experimentation (12-18 mos) Trial-and-error exploration of the world to find new and different ways of acting on it. Before this substage, the infant produces known actions that will produce mostly known outcomes

Sensori-Motor Substage 5: Experimentation (12-18 mos) Here the infant produces new actions and observes the effects Example, pulling the rug to get an out- of-reach object Perhaps, the precursor of tool use

Sensori-Motor Substage 6: Representation (18-24 mos) Before this substage, all actions, objects and outcomes occur externally In this substage, the infant begins to think about and acting on the world internally

Sensori-Motor Substage 6: Representation (18-24 mos) Example: Naming an object that is not currently present but is just thought of. Deferred Imitation Infant witnesses an action but does not reproduce it Reproduces the witnessed action at a later time Pretend or Symbolic Play

Object Permanence Understanding that objects exist independent of our ability to perceive them In substage 4, infants can search for hidden objects Limitations in this ability: A-not-B Task

Object Permanence Understanding that objects exist independent of our ability to perceive them In substage 4, infants can search for hidden objects Limitations in this ability: A-not-B Task

Object Permanence Understanding that objects exist independent of our ability to perceive them In substage 4, infants can search for hidden objects Limitations in this ability: A-not-B Task

Object Permanence Understanding that objects exist independent of our ability to perceive them In substage 4, infants can search for hidden objects Limitations in this ability: A-not-B Task

A-not-B Task Infant seems to understand the “permanence” of the object only in relation to their own action Can handle this task by substage 5, but only if the object is visible when moved Waits until substage 6 until infant can handle this task with invisible displacements

Recent Work on Cognition during Sensori-Motor Stage Object Permanence Baillargeon (1987) Found that not until 4.5 months of age (substage 3) did infants increase attention to the impossible event

Recent Work on Cognition during Sensori-Motor Stage Physical Events Spelke et al. (1992) Not until infants are 4 months of age do they look longer at the inconsistent result

Stage 2: Pre-operational (2-6 yrs) Infants do trial-and-error internally Infants’ actions and thinking are not limited to objects that are here and now Begin to develop the ability (around 5 but 3-4 years) to conserve the qualitative and quantitative identity of objects even when they change perceptually By 6 years, can distinguish between current appearance and reality

Conservation Examples

Stage 2: Pre-operational (2-6 yrs) Limitations Egocentrism: All representation of the world is from one’s own perspective - Centration: Focuses on only one aspect of a problem at a time - Animism: Thinks that inanimate objects have qualities of living things

Stage 3: Concrete Operational (6-12 yrs) Child is more logical and able to complete task not able to in Pre-Operation period. Thinking is still with real or concrete objects and actions, and not yet abstract thinking Conservation of Number is mastered by age 6 Conservation of Length & Weight is mastered by age 8 or 9 Class Inclusion - A subclass cannot be larger than the superordinate class that includes it

Class Inclusion 11 circles: 8 white and 3 yellow Ask child where there are more circles or more which items Pre-Operational:

Class Inclusion 11 circles: 8 white and 3 yellow Ask child where there are more circles or more which items Concrete Operational:

Stage 3: Concrete Operational (6-12 yrs) Relations between classes Seriation - ordering Transitivity - Tell infant, A is bigger than B and B is bigger than C. Then ask what is the relation between A and C

Stage 3: Concrete Operational (6-12 yrs) Infants and Children may be more competent than proposed For example, Number

Stage 4: Formal Operational The ability to think logically about things that are only possible and not necessarily real (or concrete) -- abstract thinking Hypothetical-deductive reasoning Not everyone reaches this stage: Studies have indictated that science and math students better at this