chapter 6 cognition

cognition

the activity of knowing and the processes through which knowledge is acquired and problems are solved

schemes

• Similar to having a set of rules or procedures that can be repeated and generalized across various situations

• During their second year, children develop symbolic schemes.

• Older children manipulate symbols in their head.

organization

Children systematically combine existing schemes into new and more complex ones.

adaptation

Process of adjusting to the demands of environment

Assimilation

Process by which we interpret new experiences in terms of existing schemes or cognitive structures. A cognitive process of making new information fit in with the already understanding.

accommodation

Process of modifying existing schemes to better fit new experiences. This is used when the existing schema does not fit in to previous schema.

sensorimotor stage

• birth to roughly 2 years

• We develop through experiences and movements using 5 senses.

• At about 4 months old, infants become aware of things beyond their own body. Then learn to perform actions intentionally (working memory is developing at fast speed creating object permanence/object exist beyond sight).

• Egocentric

pre operational stage

• 2 to 7 years

• Thinking categorized through symbolic functioning/intuitive thoughts/fantasies.

• Play pretend

• Around age 4, curious/primitive reasoning (Piaget called it intuitive reasoning).

• Still egocentric thinking

concrete operational stage

• 7-11 years

• The discovery of logic/concrete cognitive operations.

• Sorting objects in a specific order. (inductive reasoning, someone eating chocolate and generalize the taste).

• Conservation concepts created. (if poring orange juice to a smaller object the amount stays the same). Now understand that IF/THEN.

• Brain can rearraign thoughts through classification and building, creating operational mental structures (actions can be reversed).

• Get to know self better/thoughts and feeling are unique (TOM).

formal operational stage

• roughly 11 years and beyond

• Teenagers are formally operational/think more rationally about abstract concepts/hypothetical events

• Deeper understanding of good and bad and morality

• Understand why people behave in the way they do

• Deductive reasoning/comparing two statements and make a generation

• Ability to make assumptions

• Meta thinking/understanding

• Sense of identity (see imaginary audience watching them).

• Piaget believed in lifelong learning, but final stage formal operations.

Zone of proximal development

The gap between what a learner can accomplish independently and what he or she can accomplish with the guidance and encouragement of a more-skilled partner

Skills within the zone

Skills at which instruction should be aimed

Skills outside the zone

Either well mastered or still too difficult

to Piaget

Child’s level of cognitive development determines what he/she can learn.

to vygotsky

Learning in collaboration with more knowledgeable companions drives cognitive development.

Vygotsky believed that mental activity is mediated by tools:

• Adults use tools to pass culturally valued modes of thinking and problem solving to their children.

  • Spoken language

  • Writing

  • Using numbers

Vygotsky argued that

• Language shapes thought.

• Thought changes fundamentally once we begin to think in words.

• Preschool children use private speech.

  • Speech to oneself that guides one’s thought and behavior

  • Critical step in the development of mature thought

Neoconstructivism theory.

New knowledge is constructed through changes in the neural structures of the brain in response to experiences

Fischer

• Study of development should happen in natural context.

• Skill levels change and develop

Fischer proposes a series of four tiers

• Reflexive

• Sensorimotor action

• Representations

• Abstractions

Uses concept of zone of proximal development

To explain how cognition advances from one level to another

Uses term developmental range

To better capture their findings that people’s abilities vary within context

Newborns lack an understanding of object permanence

• The fundamental understanding that objects are permanent when they are no longer visible

• Develops gradually over the sensorimotor period

• Tendency of 8- to 12-month-olds to search for an object in the place where they last found it (A) rather than in its new hiding place (B)

Reflex activity (birth–1 month)

Active exercise and refinement of inborn reflexes

Primary circular reactions (1–4 months)

Repetition of interesting acts centered on the child’s own body. These typically begin as random acts but are then repeated for pleasure.

Secondary circular reactions (4–8 months)

Repetition of interesting acts on objects. Thus, circular actions extend beyond oneself (primary) to objects in the environment (secondary to self).

Coordination of secondary schemes (8–12 months)

Combination of actions to solve simple problems or achieve goals; first evidence of intentionality

Tertiary circular reactions (12–18 months)

Experimentation to find new ways to solve problems or produce interesting outcomes

Beginning of thought (18–24 months)

First evidence of insight; able to solve problems mentally and use symbols to stand for objects and actions; visualize how a stick could be used.

Symbolic capacity

• Ability to use images, words, or gestures to represent or stand for objects and experiences

• Most important cognitive achievement of infancy

Primary circular reactions

Infants repeating actions relating to their own bodies (moving their hands repeatedly) that had initially happened by chance

Secondary circular reactions

• Infants derive pleasure from repeatedly performing an action, such as sucking or banging a toy.

• Occurs at 4–8 months

Coordination of secondary schemes

• Infants combine secondary actions to achieve simple goals.

• Occurs at 8–12 months

• Example: crawl to pick up a toy across the room or push aside toys blocking the specific one they want

Final substage—beginning of thought

• Evidence of symbolic capacity, where one object can be used to represent another

• Example: child will sing to a barnie doll and pretend to put it to sleep

• Occurs about 18 months

Symbolic capacity

• Greatest cognitive strength of the preschooler

• Child can now use words to refer to things.

• Can refer to past and future

• Pretend or fantasy play

• Imaginary companions

• Associated with advanced cognitive and social development and higher levels of creativity

conservation

The idea that certain properties of an object or substance do not change when its appearance is altered in some superficial way

centration

The tendency to center attention on a single aspect of the problem

decentration

The ability to focus on two or more dimensions of a problem at once

Reversibility

The process of mentally undoing or reversing an action (to original position)

Transformational thought

The ability to conceptualize transformations, or processes of change from one state to another

static thought

Thought that is fixed on end states rather than changes that transform one state into another (static reasoning/child believe that word is unchanging)

egocentrism

Tendency to view the world solely from their own perspective and to have difficulty recognizing other points of view

class inclusion

• The logical understanding that the parts are included in the whole

• Children can classify objects into groups and subgroups

formal operational thought

• May prepare the individual to gain a sense of identity

• Think in more complex ways about moral issues.

• Understand other people better.

• Questioning can lead to confusion.

• Rebellion against ideas

Adolescent egocentrism

Difficulty differentiating one’s own thoughts and feelings from those of other people

Imaginary audience

Confusing your own thoughts with those of a hypothesized audience for your behavior

personal fable

Tendency to think that you and your thoughts and feelings are unique

Postformal thought

More complex than formal-operational stage

Relativistic thinking

Knowledge depends on its context and the subjective perspective of the knower.

Dialectical thinking

Detecting paradoxes and inconsistencies among ideas and trying to reconcile them