Cognitive development

What are the principles of Piaget’s stage theory of cognitive development

• schemes

  • knowledge structure used to interpret the world

  • modified through experience

• adaptation

  • assimilation: adapt incoming information to fit knowledge

  • accommodation: adapt knowledge to fit incoming information

• equilibration

  • assimilation-accommodation balance

• organisation

  • process of linking schemes

Evaluate Piaget’s stage theory of cognitive development

• flawed methods: misleading questions, inappropriate tasks

• underestimated role of perception, overemphasised role of action

• concentrated on universal developmental norms

• ignored social factors: views children’s learning as solitary

The information processing approach (IPA) is similar to Piaget’s theory, aims to…

aims to:

• identify children’s cognitive limitations & abilities at different ages

• determine what aspect of cognition develops and how

What are the differences between IPA and Piaget’s theory

IPA:

• focuses on children’s information processing limitations

• allows more detailed analysis of changes in cognitive ability

• focuses in detail on few tasks, Piaget looked at a broad range

• stems from model of adult cognition

IPA theorists aim to understand…

cognitive development on terms of changes in information processing system

• e.g. Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968), Model of information processing

• IPA highlights possibility for development of structures and of processes

How does attention develop in children according to Vurpillot (1968)

• showed 3 to 9 year olds two slightly different pictures

• asked to say whether same or different

• recorded eye movements

• 6 years and older: attended to all important features

• younger children showed attentional limitations

• attention develops

How do memory encoding strategies improve with age, Flavell et al., (1966)

• 5, 7 & 10 year olds shown 7 pictures

• experimenter pointed to 3 pictures

• task: 15 seconds delay, point to the same 3 pictures in the same order

• all 10 year olds rehearsed, > 50% of 7 year olds, 10% of 5 years old

• assessed whether children rehearse (via lipreading)

• all children who rehearsed were more accurate

How do memory retrieval strategies improve with age, Kreutzer et al., (1975)

read story to 5 & 10 years old: boy who wants to remember which Christmas he received a puppy

• all 10 year olds suggested one or more possible strategy

• only half of 5 years old suggested a strategy

Describe Bryant & Trabasso (1971) study on re-examining Piaget’s findings

hypothesised: transitive inference errors are due to memory limits

• note that task requires ability to remember rod lengths as well as make inference

• trained children to remember that A>B & B>C

• asked which is longer, A or C?

• children answer correctly

What did Bryant & Trabasso (1971) study on re-examining Piaget’s findings find

Piaget’s errors due to forgetting relevant information, not lack of reasoning

What did Case (1985) propose as attempting to explain development by uniting Piagetian & IP theories

• cognitive growth between stages occur through changes to working memory

• working memory capacity is an important determiner of cognitive growth

• working memory becomes more efficient, can handle more information

How does working memory become more efficient? Case (1985)

suggested 3 ways:

• brain maturation

• automatisation

• formation of ‘central conceptual structures’

What happens in maturation

• myelinisation

• new neural connections formed between each stage

• increase in working memory size

  • older children have a larger digit span

What happens in automatisation

• results from practice, repeated use of scheme

• schemes demand less attention, freeing up working memory space

What happens in the Formation of ‘central conceptual structures’

• once schemes are sufficiently automatic, they are organised into more efficient structures

• allow for more advanced ways of thinking in many situations

• forms basis for progression through developmental stages

Evidence for Case’s theory - Noelting (1980) Juice problem

“when poured into a jug, which will taste more strongly of juice?”

• examined strategies children used

• found distinct stages of development

strategies used by ages from 3 through to 10 involve progressively more working memory capacity

• e.g.

  • 3 - 4 years: only look for juice in A or B (1 item in working memory)

  • 5 - 6 years: compare number of juice glasses in A with B (2 items in working memory)

Evaluate Case’s theory

Case’s theory can explain how Piagetian achievements (e.g. conservation) occur at different ages:

• stages are revealed by tasks that make progressively greater demands on WM resources

has been useful in teaching children specific tasks (e.g. arithmetic)

Criticise Case’s theory

some theorists argue that the discrete stages approach is a narrow view of development

Describe Siegler & Robinson (1982) study

exhumed 4 & 5 year olds on arithmetic problems

• repeated experiment 6 times

In Siegler & Robinson (1982) study, what 4 strategies did the children use

1. put up fingers then count them out loud

2. put up fingers then count them mentally

3. count out loud without putting up fingers

4. retrieve answer from memory

What did Siegler & Robinson (1982) study find

• found that most children use between 2-4 strategies

• alternate between more and less complex strategies

the theory argues multiple strategies compete until most successful one is selected

• transition is subtle