A PSY 203 Lecture 11: Cognitive Development
13 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Exam 2: How do we Develop Complex Thought?
Cognitive Development
• Qualitative vs. Quantitative
o Quantitative → Smooth, continuous change
o Qualitative → distinct and dramatic structural
• Global vs. Local Change
o Domain general Development → Affects every domain of knowledge
o Domain Specific development → unique to each domain
• Foundational vs. emergent constraints
o How and when the developmental path is constrained
▪ Foundational constraints → based on genetics, genetically rooted!
(Nature)
▪ Emergent constraints → due to environmental influences (Nurture)
Piaget
• Built in sensorimotor reflexes transformed into schemes
• Qualitative transitions into new way of thinking
o Domain general (ex. Transitive reasoning)
Preoperational Period
• Ages 2 to 7
• Unable to think abstractly
o Unable to think about relations btwn concrete properties (ex. Conservation task,
seriation, classification)
▪ Lack mental operators (ex. Formal mental tools for comparing mental
representations)
• Compensation
• Reversibility
• Identity
Concrete and formal operational periods
• Concrete operational period
o Ages 7 to 12
o Acquired mental operators
o Bound to the here and now
▪ Concrete thinking
Formal operational period
▪ Ages 12+
▪ Hypothetico-deductive reasoning = systematical abstract reasoning about
alternative possibilities
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