1. CHAPTER 7 COGNITION

2. Learning Objectives
How do organization, adaptation, and disequilibrium guide development?

3. Chapter 7: Cognition Cognition: The activity of knowing
Typical of humans throughout lifespan
Changes across the lifespan
Piaget and Vygotsky

4. Piaget Genetic Epistemology Clinical Method
How we come to know reality
How do children come to know the world?
Clinical Method
Question and answer technique
Used to discover how children reason
Intelligence: How well we adapt
Schemes/cognitive structures
Active creators of our own intelligence
epistemology = studies knowledge of reality
Genetic = emergence or development
Schemes are cognitive structures or-ganized patterns of action or thought that people construct to interpret their experiences

5. organization, children systematically combine existing schemes into new and more complex ones.
Adaptation is the process of adjusting to the demands of environment

7. Adaptation Assimilation Accommodation
Using existing schemes to interpret new experiences
E.g., Birds are things that fly
Accommodation
Modifying schemes to fit new experience
E.g., Butterflies are different than birds even though they both fly

12. equilibriation

13. Piaget Adaptation Intelligence = Adaptation Constructivism
Adjusting to the environment
Using assimilation and accommodation
Intelligence = Adaptation
Constructivism
Children construct own reality
Use their experiences (schemes)

14. Piaget Four stages/changes in ability to reason Invariant sequence
Sensorimotor: birth to 2 years
Preoperational: 2 to 7 years
Concrete operations: 7 to 11 years
Formal operations: 12+ years
Invariant sequence
Rates may vary
Requires maturation and experience

15. Learning Objectives
What are the major achievements of the sensorimotor stage ?
How do infants progress toward these achievements?

16. Piaget Sensorimotor Stage Outcome of Stage
Newborn uses reflexes to understand world (sensory & motoric intelligence)
Outcome of Stage
Mental representation
Evidence: Object Permanence
Symbolic Capacity
Evidence: Language
infants solve problems through their actions rather than with their minds

17. During the fi rst month, young infants react refl exively to internal and external stimulation.

18. In the primary circular reactions substage ( 1 4 months), they are more interested in their own bodies than in manipulating toys. Moving their tongues or fi ngers around is entertainment enough at this age.
Piaget named this substage primary circular reactions because he observed infants repeating ( hence, the term circular) actions relating to their own bodies ( i. e., primary to themselves) that had initially happened by chance.

19. infants derive pleasure from repeatedly performing an action, such as sucking or banging a toy. Now the repetitive actions are called secondary circular reactions because they involve something in the infants external environment (

20. coordination of secondary schemes, infants combine ( i. e
coordination of secondary schemes, infants combine ( i. e., coordinate) secondary actions to achieve simple goals such as pushing an obstacle out of the way of reaching a de-sired object.

21. tertiary circular re-actions ( months), infants experiment in varied ways with toys, exploring them thoroughly and learning all about their properties.
Interest in novelty for its own sake

22. The beginning of thought

24. Object Permanence A not B error 4-8 mos-out of sight out of mind
Mastered 18 mos

25. Learning Objectives
What are the characteristics and limitations of preoperational thought?

26. Preoperational Stage Egocentric Thinkers Problem Solving Limited
Classification and seriation problems
Ages 2–7: Preschool
May have imaginary companions
Lack Conservation
Perceptual Salience
Pretend/fantasy play, can use words to refer to things that aren’t present
perceptual salience, or the most obvious features of an object or situation,

27. Irreversible thinking
Static thought
Irreversible thinking
static thought, or thought that is fi xed on end states rather than the changes that transform one state into another, as when the water is sitting in the two glasses not being poured or manipulated.
Decentration the ability to focus on two or more dimensions of a problem at once.

28. Some common tests of the child’s ability to conserve.

30. Learning Objectives
What are the major characteristics and limitations of concrete operational thought?
What are the main features of concrete operational thought?

31. Concrete Operations Age 7-11 Can Conserve Seriation and classification
Decentration
Reversible thinking
Logical thinking (limited to reality)
Seriation and classification
Transitive thinking:
“ If J is taller than M, and M is taller than S, who is taller – J or S?”

32. Learning Objectives
What are the main features of formal operational thought?
In what ways might adult thought be more advanced than adolescent thought?

33. Formal Operations Adolescence/Puberty Logical Thinking About Ideas
Hypothetical and abstract thinking
Hypothetical-deductive reasoning
Decontextual Thinking
Ability to separate prior knowledge/beliefs from new evidence to the contrary
If concrete operations are mental actions on objects ( tangible things and events), formal operations are mental actions on ideas.
concrete operators deal with realities, whereas formal operators can deal with possibili-ties, including those that contradict known reality.

34. Formal Operations 2 Adolescent Egocentrism
Differentiating own thoughts from others’
Imaginary audience
Also, learning to present themselves to a real audience
Personal fable
“No one has ever felt like this before!”
“I drive better when I’m drunk!”

35. Cognition in Adulthood
Formal Operations Require
Normal intelligence
Higher education (scientific thinking)
Lower Performance on Formal Operations
Why? Field of expertise

37. Postformal Thought “A” grows 1 cm per month, “B” grows 2 cm per month
Who is taller?

38. John is known to be a heavy drinker, especially when he goes to parties. Mary, John’s wife, warns him that if he gets drunk one more time she will leave him and take the children. Tonight John is out late at an office party. John comes home drunk.
Does Mary leave John?

39. Postformal Thought (Highest Level)
Relativistic thinking
Relativist
Absolutist
No absolute answer in many situations

40. Progression to postformal thought
Adolescence to adulthood:
Absolutist
Relativist
Commitment to position
Advanced thinkers:
Thrive on paradoxes and challenges
Concrete Operations: objects
Formal Operations: ideas
Postformal: systems of ideas

41. Postformal occurs… In a minority of adults
Mostly in those with advanced education
In those who are open to rethinking issues
In a culture that nourishes new ideas

42. Life circumstances and environmental demands tell us more about cognitive abilities than age.

43. The Demographics of Aging Population Trends in the United States
Figure 1.1 Population demographics for 2000 43

44. The Demographics of Aging Population Trends in the United States
Figure 1.2 Population demographics for 2025 44

45. The Demographics of Aging Population Trends in the United States
Figure 1.3 Population demographics for 2050 45

46. The Demographics of Aging Population Trends in the United States
Figure 1.4 Population demographics for 2100 46

47. Diversity of Older Adults in the U.S.
Figure 1.5 Population trends for minorities 47

48. Population Trends Around the World
Figure 1.6 Global Population trends 48

49. Population Trends Around the World
Figure 1.7 Global Population trends 49

50. Aging
Some skills decline as we age

52. Age-Related Changes in Primary Abilities
Data from Seattle Longitudinal Study of more than 5,000 individuals from 1956 to 1998 in six testing cycles:
People tend to improve on primary abilities until late 30s or early 40s.
Scores stabilize until mid-50s and early 60s.
By late 60s consistent declines are seen.
Nearly everyone shows a decline in one ability, but few show decline on four or five abilities.

55. Poor performace of older groups does not necessarily mean that cognitive abilities are lost as one ages
Cohort effect

56. Piagetian tasks are more like school exercises than real life challenges

57. Matches
Which one is more similar?
Pipe
Cigar

60. Kpelle

63. Expertise
Older adults compensate for poorer performance through their expertise.
Expertise helps the aging adult compensate for losses in other skills.

64. Learning Objectives
What are the limitations and challenges to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development?

65. “Assessing the impact of Piaget on developmental psychology is like assessing the impact of Shakespeare on English literature or Aristotle on philosophy--impossible.

66. Piaget Contributions Stimulated much research
Correct about cognitive development

67. Some things we learned from Piaget
Infant are active in their own development

68. Young humans think different than older humans

69. The sequence of development seems to be correct

70. Challenges Underestimated competencies
Focused on performance not competence
Domain growth rather than stages
Social influences left out

71. Learning Objectives
What is the main theme of Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development?
How does social interaction contribute to cognitive development according to Vygotsky’s theory?
In what ways are Vygotsky and Piaget similar and different in their ideas about cognition?

72. Vygotsky Emphasized the Sociocultural Context
Culture effects how and what we think
Society precedes the individual and provides the conditions that allow individual thinking to emerge

73. Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
Gap. Accomplishment with guidance
Where lessons should be aimed

74. Knowledge is not fixed
No single test can reflect a person’s range of knowledge
Performance on assisted learning tasks predict future achievement

75. Guided Participation Learning
Private Speech Guides Behavior
(3&4 yr olds)