Chapter 5 - coming to understand the physical world Flashcards
explicit cognition
knowledge or thought processes that are part of conscious awareness and that can often be described in words
implicit cognition
knowledge that exists outside of awareness and that may be difficult to describe in words
scheme
a complex of mental structures, processes, and actions that are used to interact with the environment
adaptation
in Piaget’s sense, a process by which the child better fits her schemes with new experiences in the environment
assimilation
the process by which the child incorporates new information from the environment into his preexisting mental structures or schemes in a way that usually distorts the new information to fit with the preexisting structures
accommodation
the process by which the child adapt her cognitive and behavioral structures or schemes to more accurately fit with a pattern in the environment
equilibration
the process through which a child’s mental structures come into a better fit with various aspects of the environment through assimilation and accomodation
sensorimotor period
according to Piaget, a period of development from birth to 2 years of age, when infants largely understand the world in terms of the way they perceive and act on it and understand objects primarily as embedded parts of perceptual and motor activities
object concept
a concept of the behavior of a bounded physical object, which is generally studies under certain conditions of change, such as when it disappears from view
object permanence
the property that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight
primary circular reaction
the discovery by chance of new way of acting on one’s own body
secondary circular reactions
a scheme that is applied directly to external objects and modified accordingly
A-not-B-error
the tendency of infants to search for an object where it has previously been found and not where it was most recently observed to be hidden
tertiary circular reaction
a scheme used intentionally by infants to actively explore the world. With such reactions, infants start to recognize objects as entities in their own right, independent of specific schemes
invisible displacement
the movement of an object to a new hiding spot when it is covered by another object and therefore not directly visible
