Exam 2 Flashcards
(161 cards)
Piaget’s theory:
unifies experience and biology to explain cognitive development; his approach is discontinuous/in stages and qualitative
What drives development according to Piaget?
Nature and nurture interact to drive development; the individual needs to develop balance between current needs/understanding and demands of the environment.
According to Piaget, these three ideas drive development:
- Adaptation
- Schemes
- Organization
Adaptation
tendency to respond to demands of environment to meet one’s goals (assimilation and accommodation)
Schemes
actions or mental representations that organize knowledge (“building blocks of cognition”)
Organization
tendency to integrate particular observations into coherent knowledge (generalization….she gave example in class of how knowledge is refined over time, but at first, it’s like a kid who first uses all tools like a hammer because he’s generalizing, has not refined yet)
What are the key processes in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development?
Assimilation
Accommodation
Assimilation
how people translate incoming information into something they can understand; they use existing scheme to understand new information
Accommodation
process by which people adapt current knowledge structures in response to new experiences
What are Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development (and approximate ages)
- Stage 1. Sensorimotor – (birth to 2 years)
- Stage 2. Preoperational – (2-7 years)
- Stage 3. Concrete Operational – (7-11 years)
- Stage 4. Formal Operational – (11 -15 years)
Stage 1. Sensorimotor – (birth to 2 years)
children know the world and construct understanding of it through sensory experiences and with motor actions; there are 6 substages
Six substages of Sensorimotor phase
- Simple reflexes
- First habits and primary circular reactions
- secondary circular reactions
- Coordination of secondary circular reactions
- Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity
- Mental representations
Simple reflexes
ability to coordinate sensation and action through reflexes
E.g. sucking when presented with nipple and also when no stimuli present
First habits and primary circular reactions
1-4 months
attempt to reproduce interesting or pleasurable events that occurred by chance;
Focus is on self/own body – such as baby grabbing foot (not a toy); thumb sucking,
Gain simple motor control
Secondary circular reactions
4-8 months
infant is more object oriented; moves beyond preoccupation with self; but not yet performing goal-directed actions – just fun and exciting ones; (4-8 months)
by end of this stage, they reach object permanence
Object permanence
The understanding that objects continue to exist even when they can not be seen, heard, or touched.
Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions
(8-12 months)
significant changes in coordination and schemes and intentionality; more complex actions; more outward and intentional actions; must connect touch with other senses
A not B error made at this stage
A not B error
Piaget thought infants made this error because their memories weren’t fully developed.
Infants make the mistake of selecting the familiar hiding space of an object rather than its new hiding space, even when they see where it goes.
Tertiary circular reactions
12-18 months
infants intrigued by the many properties of objects so they explore new possibilities with them – they get bored so they manipulate objects and explore potential;
A not B error no longer made in this stage
Mental representations
18-24 months
ability to create mental representations; there is an internalization of schemes; terms, symbols and images refer back to previously experienced objects and events
Deferred imitation
Deferred imitation
repetition of other people’s behaviors substantial time after they’ve occurred – remember video of girl who put the doll under her arm, so she had a free hand to open the door
Stage 2. Preoperational – (2-7 years)
children begin to represent their world internally with words, images and drawings; they understand that pictures stand for real objects; E.g. Understanding that balloon won’t float out of TV, they know perspectives;
there are 2 substages:
-Symbolic function
-Intuitive thought
Symbolic function
2-4 years
gain ability to represent mentally objects that aren’t physically present
-Ego-centrism
-animism
Ego-centrism
The inability to distinguish between one’s own and someone else’s perspective; an important feature of preoperational thought