PSY 302 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Babbling, Linguistic Universal, Visual Acuity
Document Summary
* cognition: mental processes used to acquire knowledge and solve problems. * cognitive development: changes that occur in these mental skills and abilities over the course of life. * saw children as scientists, labeled as constructivists (construct knowledge for themselves, self discovering) * nature + nature interact to = cognitive development through adaptation (responding to demands of environment to meet goals) and organization (integrating particular observations into coherent knowledge) * there are four stages of cognitive development * concrete operational: 7-12, understand conservation, reason logically, difficulty with abstract concepts and hypothetical ideas and difficulty reasoning systematically (pendelum) * formal operational: 12+, children think abstractly and reason hypothetically, systematic and scientific reasoning. * most influential theory but depicts children"s thinking as more consistent than it is, young children are more cognitively competent, understates contribution of environment and vague about cognitive processes. * other people are eager to help children learn, continuous development due to inclination to teach each other.
