PSYC1003 Study Guide - Final Guide: Lev Vygotsky, Object Permanence, Lotfi A. Zadeh
Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development
• Piaget (1970) proposed that children develop knowledge by inventing or constructing reality
out of their own experience, mixing what they observe with their own ideas about how the
world works.
• Constructivism – children construct knowledge themselves in response to experience.
• Child as scientist – children generate hypotheses, perform experiments and draw conclusions
from observations.
• Children build knowledge structures (schemas - organised, repeatedly exercised pattern of
thought or behaviour) via 3 important processes:
1. Assimilation – incorporation of incoming information into concepts they already understand
(fitting reality into their existing knowledge).
2. Accommodation – alteration of a concept in response to new experience.
3. Equilibration - balancing assimilation and accommodation to adapt to the world – 3 stages:
1) Equilibrium – all knowledge is accommodated in harmony, eg: seeing a dog.
2) Disequilibrium – new knowledge does not fit with current system, eg: seeing a bear.
3) Euiliiu: koledge stutues alteed to aoodate e ifoatio.
• Cetal Popeties of Piagets Theoy:
1. Qualitative change – children at different ages think in different ways.
2. Broad applicability – style of thinking at each development stage is relevant to a broad range
of domains, eg: reasoning, maths.
3. Brief transitions – before solidly entering a new stage, children waiver between cognitive
styles of both stages.
4. Invariant sequence – children pass through the developmental stages in the same order.
5. Universality – the theory applies to all children, regardless of cross-cultural differences.
Stages of Development
Sensorimotor
Period
0-2
• Understanding of the world limited to sensory and perceptual
experience – what they can see and feel.
1. Stage 1 (0-1 month) – simple reflexes and perceptual abilities the
foundation upon which intelligence is built, eg: sucking, grasping.
2. Substage 2 (1-4 months) – primary circular reactions → random
movements that lead to unexpected pleasant outcome, eg:
accidentally touching mouth → sucking.
3. Substage 3 (4-8 months) – secondary circular reactions → object
permanence develops – even when out of sight, objects still exist.
4. Substage 4 (8-12 months) – infants display first intentional
behaviour → respond to obstacles that might obstruct goals.
5. Substage 5 (12-18 months) – tertiary circular reactions: active
experimentation with world.
6. Substage 6 (18-24 months) – ability to create mental
representations independent of perceptual and motor
experience:
o Seioti syoli futio
o Symbolic play, eg: pretending banana is a phone
Preoperational
2-7
• Symbolic thought develops – language and drawing development -
use arbitrary symbols, such as words, to represent concepts.
• Drawing development:
1. Scribbling (2-4) – fortuitous realism
2. Preschematic stage (4-7) – failed realism or intellectual
realism (children draw what they know)
3. Schematic stage (8-9) – visual realism (draw what they see)
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Document Summary
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