Lecture on Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

These flashcards cover key terms and concepts from the lecture on Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development, focusing on cognitive processes, the stages of development, and fundamental principles of learning.

Cognition

The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.

Assimilation

A process in Piaget's theory where new information is incorporated into existing cognitive schemas.

Accommodation

A process in Piaget's theory whereby existing cognitive schemas are altered or expanded to include new information.

Object permanence

The understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, as developed during the sensorimotor stage.

Egocentrism

A cognitive bias prevalent in the preoperational stage where a child is unable to differentiate their perspective from that of others.

Conservation task

A task designed to test a child's ability to understand that quantity does not change even when its shape does.

Piaget's stages of cognitive development

Four stages proposed by Piaget: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.

Tertiary circular reactions

Repetitive actions by infants that involve actively experimenting with the effects of their actions on objects.

Invariant stages

The concept in Piaget's theory that states the order of the stages of cognitive development does not change.

Domain generality

The idea that cognitive development principles apply universally across different cognitive domains.

A not B error

A phenomenon where infants look for an object in a location where it was previously found rather than where they saw it be moved.

Primary circular reactions

Simple repetitive actions centered on the infant's own body during the sensorimotor stage.

Secondary circular reactions

Actions focused on achieving a desired outcome with objects outside the body during the sensorimotor stage.

Mental representation

The ability to form internal images of external objects or events, significant in the transition to the preoperational stage.

Interactive learning

The process whereby knowledge is constructed through interaction with the environment and others.

Reversibility

The understanding that certain operations or actions can be reversed to return to the initial state.

Intuitive reasoning

A type of reasoning that relies on immediate perception rather than logical processes, typical in preoperational children.

Constructivism

The theory that knowledge is constructed rather than acquired, emphasizing the role of active learning.

Symbolic thought

The ability to use symbols or mental representations to think about objects or concepts absent from immediate experience.