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)

•Why has it lasted?Observations and descriptions of thinking at different ages

BreadthThought-provoking observations to support the theory

Nature/Nurture and Continuity/Discontinuity

•Piaget believed:Children are constructivistsChildren are intrinsically motivated to learn

Piaget’s Theory

•Nature/NurtureOrganizationAdaptation

•ContinuityAssimilationAccommodationEquilibration

•DiscontinuityQualitative changesBroad applicationBrief transitionsInvariant sequences

Piaget and Developmental Themes

Stages

Sensorimotor

Birth–2 years

Understands world through senses andactions

Preoperational

2–7 years

Understandsworld throughlanguage andmentalimages

Concrete operational

7–12 years

Understandsworld through logicalthinking andcategories

Formal operational

12 years onward

Understandsworld throughhypotheticalthinking and scientificreasoning

•Substage 1 (birth–1 month)Modify reflexesCentered on own body

•Substage 2 (1–4 months)Organize reflexesIntegrate actions

•Substage 3 (4–8 months)Repetition of actions resulting in pleasurable or

interesting resultsObject Permanence

Sensorimotor Stage (Birth–2 years)

•Substage 4 (8–12 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, Psychological Science, vol. 3, (1994) p 134.) 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” byR. Baillargeon, 1987, Developmental Psychology, 23, p 656. Copyright ©1987 by APA)

•Development in:Symbolic Representation

•Weaknesses in:Egocentrism

The 3 Mountain TaskTaking other people’s perspectives

CentrationAnimismArtificialismRealism

Preoperational Stage ( 2–7 years)

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.

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

Assessing Conservation

•ConservationPhase I

Child sees 2 objects, agrees objects are identical in number or quantity (dimension of interest)

Phase IIOne object is transformed, but the dimension of

interest is not alteredPhase III

The child is asked whether the dimension of interest is still equal

Concrete Operational Stage (7–12 years)

•According to Piaget, this stage is not universal

•Characteristics:Hypothetical Thinking

Truth, justice, moralitySystematic Reasoning of all possible outcomes

Scientific Method

Formal Operational Stage (12 and onward)

•PositivesA good overview of children’s thinking at different pointsAppealing perspectiveBroad spectrum of development and agesFascinating observations

•NegativesStage model depicts children’s thinking as being more

consistent than it isInfants and young children are more cognitively

competent than Piaget recognizedPiaget’s theory understates the contribution of the social

world to cognitive developmentPiaget’s theory is vague about the cognitive processes

that give rise to children’s thinking and about the mechanisms that produce cognitive growth

What Piaget Left

Information Processing Theories•Features:

Processes involved in children’s thinkingProcess occurs over timeMetaphor of a computational systemContinuous cognitive changeCognitive growth is not abrupt, but step-by-stepChildren are problem solvers

Determine goal obstacles strategy goal Planning

Develops over timeThere are signs of planning as early as 12 monthsWhy don’t children plan?

Want ends before the means, overoptimistic, high failure rateAnalogical 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

3. Content Knowledge•Scripts

2. Strategies•Rehearsal•Selective Attention•Utilization Deficiency

Other Information-Processing Theories

Connectionist Theories/Neural Network Approach•The simultaneous activity of neurons, interconnected processing units

•Sequential and parallel processing

Overlapping-Waves Theories•Focus on the variability of children’s thinking

Dynamic-System Theories•How varied aspects of a child function as a single, integrated whole

•For example, perception, attention, language, memory, emotions, motor activity

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.

•Features:Study areas important throughout human evolutionChildren’s reasoning is more advanced than Piaget believed

Children are active learnersChildren are born with many specialized—not only general—learning abilities

Domain SpecificChildren make informal theories (biology, psychology, physics)

Core-Knowledge Theories

•Features:Cognitive development occurs through interactions between child and other

Occurs within a broad cultural contextChildren are teachers and learnersChildren are products of their culturesChange occurs through:

Guided ParticipationIntersubjectivity (Joint Attention, Social Referencing) Social ScaffoldingZone of Proximal Development

Sociocultural Theories