5- Cognitive development Flashcards
Who was Piaget?
- Swiss biologist working in Geneva
- Had 4 key concepts
- Observed children in nurseries
What are the 4 key concepts?
- Schemas
- Assimilation
- Accommodation
- Equilibrium
What is a schema?
- Chunks/packages of information
- Has flexible grouping
What is assimilation?
- Inputting new info into an existing schema
What is accomodation?
- Changing a schema to fit new info
- Happens as a result of disequilibrium
What is equilibrium?
- Sense of order and balance
- Driving force for equilibrium
What are the 4 stages of development?
1) Sensorimotor (0-2)
2) Pre-operational (2-7)
3) Concrete operational (7-11)
4) Formal operational (12+)
What is the sensorimotor stage?
- Simple reflex actions
o Reaching
o Grasping
o Sucking - Moving beyond reflex
o Co-ordination of vision and touching via a feedback loop ‘circular reaction’
o Circular reaction is trying to understand the effect of actions on the world e.g. hitting a block makes a sound - Developing a sense of object permanence
What is the preoperational stage?
- Development of representational skills
- Signs and symbols (dual representation)
o They begin to understand that symbols can represent things in the real world - Counting and basic maths
- Symbolic play and symbolic representation through drawing and making models
- Conservation experiments
o Understanding that the amount or quantity of something stays the same even when there are changes in shape or arrangement e.g. a liquid in 2 different sized beakers, coins spread out of play dough - Centration- Not being able to see beyond what’s in front of you. Inability to think abstractly
- Egocentrism- can’t take the viewpoint of others
- Animistic thinking- ascribe mental states and human characteristics to inanimate objects
- 3 mountains test- can’t see things from other POVs
What is the concrete operational stage?
- A concrete operation is the ability to abstract a quality from concrete objects e.g. number, weight, colour, volume etc
- Problems dealing with objects are solvable
- Conservation tasks can be done
- Reversibility- sums and equations can work backwards
- Transitivity- A<B AND B<C SO A<C
- Move away from egocentrism
- Distinguish between appearance and reality
- Understanding false belief (they can lie as a result of this)
- Improvements in cognitive systems
o Memory capacity
o Speed at which memories can be used
o Improvements in executive function - Operations are concrete and not abstract
- Work poorly with abstract ideas
- Slow process of development
What is the formal operational stage?
- Better systematic problem solving
o Better use of strategies and more organisation to problem solving - Logic
o Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
Deriving logical outcomes after considering hypothetical ideas
Naïve idealism- way of thinking that is optimistic but not realistic - Adolescence
o Egocentrism- thinking your thoughts are unique
What are some criticisms of Piaget?
- Sensorimotor and pre-operational children were underestimated by Piaget
o Blanket test
o Kids better at non-artificial tasks - Too much emphasis on analytical cognition rather than creative, practical or social intelligence
- What about stages beyond formal operational?
o Development doesn’t stop after 12 - Ignored social influence on development
Who was Vygotsky?
Russian psychologist
- Work was banned in Russia despite it having Marxist overtones
What are Vygotsky’s key ideas?
1) Higher and lower mental functions
2) The relationships of culture and society to individual development
3) Relationship between thought and language
4) The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
What are higher and lower mental functions?
- Higher mental functions
Developed through social interaction
Require language
Voluntary
Culturally mediated - Lower mental functions
Genetically inherited
Respond directly to environment
Automatic
