AP Psych: Cognitive Development

Cognitive Development

Piaget and Vygotsky, explains the way infants think, explore, and solve problems through childhood

Schemas

how the mind organizes information, formed from experiences

Assimilation

involved incorporating new experiences into our current schema

Accomodation

the process of adjusting a schema and modifying it

Piaget Sensorimotor Stage: 0-2

• Develop Object Permanence

  • Understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be perceived

  • Children younger than 8 months of age do not grasp object permanence

• A not B Error

  • Child looking for object in the last place it saw it

Preoperational Stage: 2-6/7

• Represent things with words and images, but too young for mental operations

• Centration

  • focusing on one part of problem/one dimensional thought

• Pretend Play

  • imaginative scenarios and create narratives

• Egocentrism

  • A difficulty in perceiving another’s point of view

  • believe you see the world as they do

• Theory of Mind

  • Develop understanding of others emotions and mental states

Concrete Stage: 7-12

• Basic logistics about physical objects and events

• Logic

• Conservation

  • Quantity remains the same despite changes in shape

Formal Stage: 12+

Logical and abstract propositions and hypotheticals (predictions)