Cognitive Development

What is cognition?

Cognition is a set of mental abilities and processes related to:

• knowledge acquisition

• problem-solving

• memory

• attention

• learning

Piaget’s View — how did he view children?

active scientists = they learn through exploration and interaction

Piaget’s View — key processes

• assimilation = interpreting new experiences using existing schema

• accommodation = changing schemas to fit new information

• equilibration = balancing assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding

ex. a child calling all four-legged animals “dog” (assimilation), then learning that a cat is not a dog and adjusting the schema (accommodation)

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

1. Sensorimotor (0-2 yrs) = infants learn through sensory and motor interactions

2. Preoperational (2-6 yrs) = language develops; thinking is egocentric and not logical

3. Concrete Operational (7-11yrs) = logical thinking about concrete situations

4. Formal Operational (12+ yrs) = abstract and hypothetical reasoning

The Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years) — milestones

• object permanence

• goal-directed behavior

• deferred imitation = imitating an action after a delay

What is Object Permanence?

• the awareness that objects continue to exist even when they are not visible

• before 8 months = none

• 8-12 months = incomplete (A-not-B error)

• 12+ months = fully developed

What is the A-not-B error?

infants look for an object where they last saw it (A) not where they saw it moved (B)

Preoperational Stage (2-6 yrs) — key features

• appearance of symbolic thought (ex. pretend play, drawing)

  • lacking conservation (understanding that quantity remains the same despite changes in appearance)

What is egocentrism?

the inability to understand another’s perspective

What is Piaget’s Three - Mountains Task?

• child is shown a model of three unique mountains

• a doll is placed on the opposite side of the model

• in pre operational stage, children pick the photo showing their own view not the doll’s → demonstrates egocentrism

• in concrete operational stage, children correctly choose the doll’s perspective

What is centration?

focusing on one aspect of a situation and ignoring others

What is the conservation task?

child thinks a taller glass has more liquid even if the volume is the same

Criticisms of Piaget

1. underestimated infant’s abilities

2. overestimated consistency = children may show different skills at different times

3. vague concepts: terms like “schemas” are hard to test

4. undervalued social and cultural influences

What is the core knowledge perspective?

• suggests infants are born with:

  • knowledge of objects

  • number

  • language

  • basic understanding of agents and goals

what is habituation?

getting used to stimuli = early measure of attention

What happens to their attention?

It becomes more selective and sustained

What happens to their memory?

it develops from implicit to explicit forms