Cognition and development

How does Piaget view children’s thinking compared to adults?

• children think in an entirely different way to adults

What are schemas according to Piaget?

• cognitive frameworks that help us to organise and interpret information developed through experience

How did Piaget view schema?

• as the basic unit/ building block of intelligent behaviour

• he also believed that children were born with a small number of schema:

  • enough to help them interact with the world

Define the me-schema?

• the schema children have which stores knowledge about themselves

define disequilibration?

• where our existing schema does not allow us to make sense of something new

define equilibration?

• the balance of assimilation and accommodation

define assimilation?

• fitting new information into an existing schema without changing the schema

define accommodation?

• changing an existing schema or creating a new one to incorporate new information

what individual differences are not accounted for in Piaget’s theory?

• genetic predispositions and environmental factors that affect the rate and pattern of development

how did piaget treat social interactions in cognitivedevelopment?

• he placed little emphasis on them and mainly focused on the individuals cognitive process

what does research show about the role of social interractions?

• social interactions e.g  collaborative problem solving and peer interaction play a major role in shaping a child’s cognition

state piaget’s stages of intellectual development?

• sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)

• pre operational stage (2-7 years)

• concrete operations (7-11 years)

• formal operations (11+)

explain the sensorimotor stage?

• when infants explore and understand their world primarily through sensory experiences and motor activities

what is a key milestone within the sensorimotor stage?

object permanence

Define object permanence?

• the realisation that objects still exist even when not visible

At what age does object permanence occur?

• at 8 months

  • piaget assumed that before 8 months a child would no longer search for an object which had passed out of their visual field but after 8 months they would

define goal directed behaviour?

• co-ordinating actions to achieve a desired result

define symbolic thought?

• mental representations of objects, leading to pretend play and language

what cognitive abilities do children begin to develop in the pre operational stage?

• class inclusion

• egocentrism

• conservation

Define conservation?

• the ability to understand that a certain property of an object is the same even if its appearance changes

what do children in the pre- operational stage struggle to distinguish between?

reality and appearance

Define egocentrism?

viewing the world from only one’s point of view

• 3 mountains task- child was asked to see what person could see from other side

  • pre operational children struggled

Define class inclusion?

• the ability to classify objects into 2 or more categories simultaneously

  • children in the preoperational stage struggled when classifying objects due to their inability to understand class inclusion

Explain concrete operations?

• piaget found that from the age of 7 children could conserve and preform better on tasks including egocentrism

  • however they struggle to reason about abstract ideas/ imagine objects or situations which cannot be seen

Define formal operations?

• from the age of 11 years old children are capable of formal reasoning

what did Vygotsky believe about cognitive development?

• he believed it was largely the result of a child’s interactions with others

What are cultural tools according to Vygotsky?

• tools for communicating and dealing with the world which shape peoples thinking

How did Vygotsky think children learn best?

• through learning via interaction with others, not isolation

what is the Zone of proximal Development(ZPD)?

• the gap between what a child can do alone and what they can do with assistance from a more knowledgeable other

what is meant by appropriate assistance in Vygotsky’s theory?

• support that helps a child progress just beyond their current ability

State the 3 important components of effective learning in the ZPD?

• social interactions

• the presence of a more knowledgeable other

• opportunities for the learner to observe and practice skills

what is scaffolding in Vygotsky’s theory?

• temporary support form a more knowledgeable other that is gradually withdrawn as the child become competent

Who introduced the term scaffolding?

• Wood, Bruner and Ross

Did Vygotsky use the term scaffolding himself?

• no he never used the term but the concept is based on his ideas

what was Balillargeins main research question?

• whether infants younger than 8 months have object permanence

How did Baillargeon’s work differ from Piaget’s view?

• Piaget believed that babies under 8 months lack object permanence however Baillargeon argued they have it but fail due to motor skill and attention limits

What experimental method did Baillargeon use?

• The Violation of Expectation (VOE) technique

What is the violation of expectation?

• a method where infants see an expected event and an unexpected event; there were longer looking times at the unexpected event suggest surprise and understanding

Describe the procedure of Baillargeon’s rabbit experiment?

• 24 babies aged 6-8 months saw a tall and short rabbit pass behind a screen with a window

• in the expected event, the short rabbit wasn’t visible in the window

• in the unexpected event, the tall rabbit also wasn’t visible when it should have been

What were the results of Baillargeon’s rabbit study?

• babies looked longer at the unexpected event (33.07)

• than at the expected event (25.11)

what do baillargeon’ s findings suggest about infant understanding?

• babies as young as 6 months understand object permanence as they were surprised when the tall rabbit didn’t appear

What did Robert Selman study?

• how children develop perspective taking

  • the ability to understand someone else’s thoughts and feelings

How did Selman’s view differ from Piagets?

• Selman saw perspective taking as a separate domain specific skill and not just part of general cognitive development

What was the method Selman used for his perspective taking research?

• he gave children social scenarios e.g Holly and the kitten, requiring them to consider the perspectives of others

State Selmans’s stages of perspective taking?

• stage 0: Egocentric

  • a child can distinguish from themselves and others

• Stage 1: social informational

• children realise people can have different views because they have different information

• Stage 2: self reflective

• children can step into another persons shoes and view the world from their view point

• stage 3: mutual

• Children can consider multiple perspectives at once

• stage 4: societal

• Children can understand that others perspectives are influenced by broader social and cultural factors

What is the theory of mind?

• the ability to understand that others have their own thoughts and feelings that may differ from your own

State the procedure and findings of the sallly Anne study by Baron cohen ent al?

• tested ToM in autistic and non autistic children

• Children watched story of two dolls

• Sally placed marble in her basket and Anne moves it when Sally isn’t looking

• Question: where will Sally look for her marble

• Findings: only 20 % of autistic children answered correctly

  • suggests link between ToM and autism

Define mirror neurons?

• brain cells that fire both when an individual preforms an action and they observe someone else preforming the same action

Who were mirror neurons discovered by and how?

• Rizzolatti et al

• Discovered them by accident when studying electrical activity in monkeys motor cortex

• When researcher reached for food the monkeys motor cortex activated in the same way as when the monkey itself reached for food

• Showed that the same brain cells fired during both observation and action leading to the term mirror neurons

What did Gallese and Goodman suggest about mirror neurons?

• mirror neurons help us understand intentions behind actions

• Allows us to empathise and predict behaviour

What idea did Ramachandran propose about mirror neurons?

• they were crucial in shaping human evolution

• Without mirror neurons humans may not have evolved the social skills needed for cooperation and communication

What is a strength to Piagets theory relating to research support (A03)?

• Howe et

  • Found that children aged 9-12 developed their own individual understanding of object movement after groups discussions

  • Evidence which supports Piagets idea that children form individual mental representations through discovery learning

How has Piagets theory influenced education?

• Piagets ideas led to the development of discovery learning:

  • Passive learning has been replaced with active engagement and exploration in classrooms

What is a limitation of Piagets influenced on education ?

• later research(Vygotsky inspired theories ) suggests discovery learning is more effective with a teacher input

• Meaning piaget underestimated the role of others in learning

How did McGarrigle and Donaldson challenge Piagets conservation research?

• when conservation tasks were presented in a more natural way e.g. a teddy messing up the counters, younger children were able to conserve

• Shows that children may show conservation earlier than Piaget thought

State a limitation of Piagets conservation research?

• tasks were artificial

What is a limitation of Piaget’s class inclusion research?

• later research (Siegel and Svengal) found younger children could understand class inclusion when tasks were simplified

• Suggests Piaget underestimated their abilities

• Piagets tasks were too complex and artificial

What is a limitation of Piagets egocentrism research?

• Hughes’s found that when children are given a more realistic task ( policeman and doll study) 90% of 4 year olds could take another’s perspective

• 3 mountains task was unrealistic and too abstract for young children

Evaluate vygotskys theory?

• clear evidence which shows there is a gap between what a child can do on their own and what they can achieve with an expert

• - Roazzi and Bryant: gave children aged 4-5 the task of estimating the number of counters in a box

• Most children working alone failed to give a good estimated

• research support for scaffolding

  • adult assistance for children’s learning is well explained by scaffolding

• Real world application: children can learn faster with appropriate scaffolding

Evaluate Ballargeons theory as an explanation for cognition and development?

• The VOE method is more valid than Piagets

  • Measures how long the baby looks at a visual scene rather than relying on loss of interest

  • Control for confounding variables provides a more valid measure of cognitive development

• Babies may respond to unexpected events without understanding the concept

• May look,longer at event because it is interesting rather than understanding of object permanence

• Ueniversal understanding; Hespos and van Marle showed all humans have basic understanding of physical properties like gravity

• Infants born with universal physical reasoning system

Evaluate Selmans theory ?

• longitudinal study support shows that perspective taking ability improves as time increases

  • further strengthens validity

• Gasser and Keller found that bullies and non bullies showed similar perspective taking g abilities therefore perspective taking alone cannot explain behaviour

• Selmans theory only focuses on cognitive factors and neglects social factors

• Wu and Keysar found that Chinese children developed perspective taking earlier than American children

• Selmans theory may not faully account for biological or universal factors

Evaluate the theory of mind?

• real world applications in understanding autism

Can better understand why those with autism struggle with communication and empathy

• False belief tasks

  Sally Anne study , children may failure to understand story rather than lack understanding of others beliefs

• difficult to clearly separate ToM from perspective taking, reduces validity of ToM

Not all children without autism have ToM deficits

• other factors also play a role in autism Meaning ToM is only a partial explanation

Evaluate neurology as an explanation of cognition and development?

• research support- Haker et al found similar brain activity in people who watched others yawn and yawning themselves

  • therefore mirror neuron system provides biological explanation for empathy and social understanding

• mirror neurons are hard to study directly in humans, inserting electrodes in brain is unethical

  instead fMRIs are used which measure activity in large areas rather that small neurons therefore evidence for mirror neurons is indiredt