PSYC 2290 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Operation Catherine, Deductive Reasoning, Cognitive Flexibility
26 Jun 2018
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PSYC 2250 Child Development
Chapter 6 Theories of Cognitive Development
6.1 Setting the stage: Piaget’s Theory (children’s theories and cognitive stages)
Basic Principles of Piaget’s Theory
Adaption
Adaption occurs then schemes are changed to better fit information from the environment
Assimilation: process of taking in an events or experience and making it part of a scheme
Accommodation: changing a schemes due to new information
Equilibrium: process of bring assimilation and accommodation into balance and developing a new
way to conceptualize the world
Children are naturally curious. They want to make sense out of their experiences and construct
their understanding of the world theory
Assimilation: when new experiences are readily incorporated into a child’s existing theories.
Accommodation: when a child’s theories are modified based on experience
Those processes begins in young babies
Balance state:
- Children find they can readily assimilate most experiences into their existing theories, but
occasionally they need to accommodate their theories to adjust to new experiences.
Process of equilibration:
- Children find they spend much more time accommodating then assimilating
Schemas
- The action of knowing including physical actions, mental actions, and a complex system of
ideas related to concepts and actions
- Schemes increase and become more complex with age
- Figurative schemes: mental representations of the basic properties of objects in the world
- Operative schemes: mental representations of the logical connections among objects in the
world and to reason about them
- To cognitive structures; not static
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- Continue changing and developing
- A system of mutual implications and interconnected meanings
The revolutionary changes in though occur three times over the life span
- Periodically reach a point when their current theories seem to be wrong much of the time,
so they abandon these theories in favor of more advanced ways of thinking about their
physical and social worlds.
- 1st time: between sensorimotor stage and preoperational stage
- 2nd time: between preoperational stage and concrete operational stage
- 3rd time: between concrete operational stage and formal operational stage
Stages of Cognitive Development
The Sensorimotor stage
From birth to age2
Reflexive sub-stage
Primary circular reaction sub-stage (focus on body)
Secondary circular reaction sub-stage (focus on outside environment)
Intentional behavior sub-stage
Tertiary circular reactions sub-stage
Beginning of representational thought sub-stage
A period which the infant progresses from simple reflex actions to symbolic processing
Progress through the stages depends on brain maturation, social transmission and experience
Social transmission: information from others which provide new models
Experience: acting upon the world and observing the results
Challenges to Piaget’s View of the sensorimotor stage
Habituation and dishabituation are present at birth
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PSYC 2250 Child Development
Memory
Imitation
Understanding of goals and intentions
1. Adapting to and exploring the environment
- Month 4-8 : shows greater interest in the world, paying far more attention to objects
E.g. shake a rattle to enjoy the new noise
- Month 8: deliberate and intentional behavior started goal-directed behavior
- Month12: active experiment significant extension of intentional behavior seeing what
happen
E.g. shake different objects trying to discover which produce sounds and which do
not
2. Understanding objects
- For most infants in first year, objects exist when in sight and no longer existing when out of
sight
-Object permanence: understanding objects exist independently
- By month 8-12:
Infants started search for an object that an experimenter has covered with a cloth;
they love playing this game; still object permanence is incomplete.
“A-not-B error”: infants do not distinguish the object from the actions they use to
locate it
3. Using symbols
- Month 18: infants begun to talk and gesture to use symbols
- Month 18-24: Once infants can use symbols, they can begin to anticipate the consequences
of actions mentally instead of having to perform them
The preoperational stage
Age 2 to 7
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Document Summary
6. 1 setting the stage: piaget"s theory (children"s theories and cognitive stages) Adaption occurs then schemes are changed to better fit information from the environment. Assimilation: process of taking in an events or experience and making it part of a scheme. Accommodation: changing a schemes due to new information. Equilibrium: process of bring assimilation and accommodation into balance and developing a new way to conceptualize the world. They want to make sense out of their experiences and construct their understanding of the world theory. Assimilation: when new experiences are readily incorporated into a child"s existing theories. Accommodation: when a child"s theories are modified based on experience. Children find they can readily assimilate most experiences into their existing theories, but occasionally they need to accommodate their theories to adjust to new experiences. Children find they spend much more time accommodating then assimilating. The action of knowing including physical actions, mental actions, and a complex system of ideas related to concepts and actions.
