Cognitve Developmemt Flashcards
(15 cards)
Piaget
Most influential developmentalist of 20th century
Framed questions and provided many methods we use in developmental psychology
Piaget’s theory: what makes humans intellect?
Basic assumptions
Child actively constructs knowledge 9child as scientist) — constructivist approach
- child learn on own
- child is motivated to learn
Piaget’s theory: what makes humans intellect?
Basic processes
Child underpants world with schemes
- cognitive structure that forms basis of organisms in actions and mental representations so that we can understand + act upon environment
Schems change constantly: 3 proceses that propel development
- Assimilation
- talking in informal compatible with what’s already knows - Accommodation
- changing existing knowledge based on new knowledge - Equilibrium
-balancing assimilation and acomocauyoon to create stable understanding
Piaget’s theory: what makes humans intellect?
Stages of cognitive development
Characteristics of stage theories:
- discontinuous
- invariant sequence
- hierarchical
- domain-general
Piaget’s theory: what makes humans intellect?
Piagets 4 stages:
Stage 1- sensorimotor (0-2 years)
intelligence expressed throigh sensory + motor abilities
- modification of reflexes (0-1 month)
- primary circular reactions: organise separate reflexes into larger behaviours (1-4 months)
- secondary circular reaction: environment included in reactions (4-10 months)
- Intentional, coordinated behaviour (10-12 months)
- Tertiary circular reactions: actively explore how objects can be used 912-18 months)
- Mental representations and combinations (18-24 months)
Methods used with infants: habituation + violation of expectation
Baillargeon (1987)
- present infants with realistic V unrealistic event
- longer looking to unrealistic event indicates if at not expecting it
- by 3.5 months, infants look ;inter at impossible event
Piaget’s theory: what makes humans intellect?
Piagets 4 stages:
- Preoperational 2-7 years
Major advance: symbolic reports action
Major weakness:
1.egocentric
- difficulty seeing world from others’ POV
- problems with Piaget’s 3 mountain task
- Centration
- nrrowly focused thought
- problems it’s class inclusion: ability to coordinate + reason about parts and wholes simultaneously
Children form category hierarchies (2-3 years) - categories organised in set-subset relations
Major advance : symbolic representation (2-4 years)
- using one object to stand for another (pretend play)
Conservation: child’s inability to conserve characterised by 3 main limitations
1. Sent ration
2. Reversibility
3. Focusing on end state
Piaget believed young children tend to focus exclusively on perceptual features of objects;
- but children pass Appearace reality task
- 4- and five-year olds responded: object looks like rock but really is a sponge
- majority of 3 year olds fail to differentiate between the objects appearance and reality
Piaget’s theory: what makes humans intellect?
Piagets 4 stages:
- Concrete operational 7-11 years
Egocentric declines
Major advances;
- logical reasoning
- ability to attend to multiple dimensions
- solve conservation problems; class inclusion problems
- major weaknesses: limited to concrete situations- not abstract or hypothetical
Children preform are on tasks can be influenced:
- context of task
- culture: some children from Nigeria d not understand conservation tasks until 11 years
- schooling
Piaget’s theory: what makes humans intellect?
Piagets 4 stages:
- Formal operational: 11 years up
- able to think abstractly and hypothetically
- able to resin systematically about all possible outcomes
- stage not attained universally (unlike other 3 )
Evaluating Piagets theory:
Theories remain influential today
Strengths:
- excellent overview of children’s thinking at various points in development
- his question continues to drive much of develoment research
Weaknesses:
- depicts children’s thinking as being more consistent that it is
- doesn’t account for variability in kids preformance
- underestimates cognitive competence of infants + young kids
- undervalues influence of sociocultural environment on cognitive development
Alternative theories to Piaget’s: information-processing (Case’s Neo-Piagetian theory)
Case’s Neo-Piagetian theory
- cognitive change occurs as series of 4 stages
- changes due to increases in central processing speed + working memory
Increase in working memeory capacity based on:
- brain development: neurological changes within brain result in increased working memory capacity
- automatisation: repeated practicing will lead to more automatic processing of these operations
- formation of central conceptual structures
Conversation tasks:
- kids learn in liquid conversation tasks about dimensions through practice
- similar progression occurs for conversion of weight, length etc
- after all scenes have become automatic, they’re integrated into central conceptual structure
- enables kids to effectively process info about range of conversation tasks
Alternative theories to Piagets: information processing (Siegler’s overlapping waves theory)
Child has number of strategies that can be used to solve problems
Over time less efficient strategies are replaced by more effective ones
- addition problems: only 20% of kids used one strategy consistently for all problems
Alternative theories to Piagets: sociocultural (Lev Vygotsky)
Development is an apprenticeship
Children = social learners. They advance most when they collaborate with others who are more skilled
3 important concepts:
1. Zone of proximal development- difference between what children can do with assistance v alone
- Social scaffolding- more competent ppl provide temporary framework that supports children’s thinking at higher level than children would manage alone
- Private speech- children use self-directed speech to guide there thinking + planning
Guided participation: kids ability to learn from interaction with others
Alternative theories to Piagets: sociocultural (Michael Tomasello- shared intentionality theory)
Gradually increasing social bonds between kids + caregivers through essential motive force of shared intentionaluty beginning from emotion shearing from birth
In problem-solving activities ppl may have shared goal and shared action plan for pursuing goal
Alternative theories to Piagets: Thoery of core knowledge (Elizabeth Spelke)
Children have innate knowledge in domains of special evolutionary importance and domain-specific learning mechanisms for rapidly + effortlessly acquiring additional information in these domains
5 systems of core knowledge: for supporting inferences about entities behaviour + reasoning
-1. Objects and their motions
-2. Agents and their goal-directed actions
-3. Number and the operations or arithmetic
-4. Space represents place in spatial layout
-5. Social parters reprint social agents + interactions with others
Controversial: many researchers argue it cannot provide adequate account of child development
BUT: it does provide account for infants abilities to precise + reason about bject properties, numbers and geometry
Alternative theories to Piagets: dynamic systems
Development does not progress in stable stages
Development in dynamic:
- thoughts + actions = constantly changing in repsonce to child’s environment
Child development = complex system
