Infant Cognitive Development

What is Piaget’s sensorimotor stage?

(birth - 2 age)

They’re building schemas (units of information) that are action patterns created through their senses

They’re understanding their world through their senses and actions

Disequilibrium =/ cognitive conflict (when they can’t understand something new it creates a cognitive conflict)

• Equilibrium: an internal search for equilibrium creates motivation for change - babies strive to make sense of their world

Assimilation: Putting new information into their current schemas

Accommodation: Change their schemas and make new ones

Organization: Internal rearranging and linking of schemas

What are the main developments in Piaget’s stage (sensorimotor)?

1) Development through sensory and motor activity

2) Progress from reflex responses to goal-oriented behavior (doing things on purpose)

3) By the end of this stage they can:

• Form mental representations

• Hold complex pictures of past events in their mind (memory)

• Solve problems by mental trial and error (can solve a problem in their head mentally)

What is object permanence?

Knowing an object still exists even though you cannot see it

• Piaget says it develops in about 8-9 months, but is still fragile

  • After 12 months, they no longer show A-not-B error (looking in the wrong spot where they saw it hidden before)

• Baillargeon thinks it emerges as early 2 ½ to 3 ½ months. They know it’s there but don’t have the motor skills to find the object

  • Test: Do they look more at the magical or real events. If they didn’t look, then they don’t have ob, but if they do then they do since they know something isn’t right

What is deferred imitation?