6. Cognition in Infant & Toddlers Flashcards
(87 cards)
Jean Piaget
Developmental psychologist who researched the origins of knowledge by doing research with children.
- different than contemporaries because viewed intelligence as from the interaction of maturity and experience of the environment, not just the latter
- children are curious; scientists
- experience helps develop knowledge, then with maturation, leads to cognitive development
schemas
psychological structures that organize experience through mental categories and conceptual models of knowledge
- they change with experience and with assimilation + accommodation
assimilation
cognitively incorporating new experiences into exiting schemas
accommodation
cognitive modification of schemas as a result of experience
equilibrium
when assimilation and accommodation are in balance.
disequilibrium
when much more time is spent accommodating than assimilating
- in response, babies reorganize schemas to incorporate new information or experience
revolutionary schema changes
when critical flaws in schemas are encountered, and major schematic changes are required. 3 times: - 2 years - 7 years - 11 years
Piaget’s 4 stage of cognitive development
- sensorimotor
- preoperational
- concrete operational
- formal operational
- - these always happen in sequence
sensorimotor stage
birth to 2 y.
- knowledge of the world is based on senses and motor skills; perceptual and motor skills change rapidly
preoperational thought
2-6 y.
- child learns to use symbols, such as words or numbers, to represent aspects of the world
concrete operational thought
7-11 y.
- child understands and applies logical operations to experiences
formal operational thought
adolescence and beyond
- thinks abstractly
6 substages of the sensorimotor stage
- exercising reflexes
- learning to adapt
- making interesting events
- using means to achieve ends
- experimenting
- mental representation
- exercising reflexes substage
birth-1 mo.
reflexes become more coordinated behavioural schemas - ex. sucking harder
- learning to adapt substage
1-4 mo.
primary circular reaction: creating a pleasing event with the body (self-initiating) - first learned adaptations to the world
- ex. sucking thumb
- making interesting events substage
4-8 mo.
objects become incorporated into circular events.
secondary circular reaction: learning about the sensations and actions associated with objects
- ex. shaking a toy
- Using means to achieve ends
8-12 mo.
- the start of deliberate, intentional behaviour
- ex. moving an obstacle to reach a toy
- Experimenting
12-18 mo.
tertiary circular reaction: repeating old schemas with new objects (e.g. shaking or dropping) to see what happens
- an important extension of stage 4.
- mental representation
18-24 mo.
- the start of make-believe play
- deferred imitation: acting out events or behaviours seen at an earlier time
- the start of an internal, mental representation of the world (beginning of pre-operational thought)
object permanence
understanding that objects continue to exist independently of one’s own actions
- Piaget thought this was a fundamental task of infancy, but others have disagreed
learning the face
happens before learning how the rest of the body’s parts fit together (after age 1)
naive physics
infants develop some reasonably accurate theories of basic object properties early on
- ex. start to learn gravity later in the first year
information processing approach to cognition
- compares humans to computer processing
- mental hardware = mental & neural structures that are built in: sensory memory, working memory, and long-term memory
- mental software = the basis for performing particular mental tasks - ex. reading
sensory memory
raw, unanalyzed information that is only held for a few seconds
