[PSYC-1105EL] - Midterm Exam Guide - Comprehensive Notes for the exam (26 pages long!)
6 Feb 2017
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10. 2 infancy and childhood: cognitive and emotional development. Cognitive development: the study of changes in memory, thought, and reasoning processes that occur throughout the lifespan. Piaget focused on cognitive development from infancy through early adolescence. Piaget states that knowledge accumulates and is modified by two processes, assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is a conservative process, whereby people fit new information into the belief systems they already possess. For example, young children may think that all girls have long hair and, as they encounter more examples of this pattern, they will assimilate it into their current understanding. Accommodation a creative process whereby people modify their belief structures based on experience. For example if the young children come across a short-haired girl or a long- haired boy. Piaget"s observations revealed that cognitive development passes through four distinct stages from birth through early adolescence: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and the formal operational stage.
