Chapter 5

1. Chapter 5 Cognitive Development – Piaget

2. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Schemes • organized ways of making sense of experience • Assimilation • using current schemes to interpret the external world • Accommodation • adjusting schemes or creating new ones when current ways of thinking do not fit the environment

3. Motivation for Learning • Cognitive equilibrium – a steady, comfortable condition (more assimilation) • Cognitive disequilibrium – a state of discomfort which creates a shift toward accommodation

4. Stages of Cognitive Development • Sensorimotor Birth – 2 years • Pre-Operational 2-7 years • Concrete Operational 7-11 years • Formal Operational 11 years onward

5. Sensorimotor Stage • Reflexes • Circular reactions – stumbling onto a new experience caused by the baby’s motor activity • “circular” because the infant tries to repeat the event again and again

6. Sensorimotor Stage – Repeating Chance Behavior • Newborn reflexes are the building blocks of sensorimotor intelligence • By repeating chance behaviors (primary circular reactions), reflexes come under voluntary control and become simple motor habits

7. Sensorimotor Stage • Primary Circular Reactions (Substages 1-2) • Centers around the infant’s own bodily sensations • Secondary Circular Reactions (Substages 3-4) • Manipulation of objects and people • Tertiary Circular Reactions (Substages 5-6) • Producing novel effects, experimental

8. Sensorimotor Substages • 1) simple reflexes • 2) 1st habits & primary circular reactions • 3) secondary circular reactions • 4) coordination of secondary circular reactions • 5) tertiary circular reactions & curiosity • 6) internalization of schemes

9. The Sensorimotor Stage Primary Circular Reactions 1 (birth to 1 mo.) reflexes 2 ( 1-4 mos.) simple motor habits Secondary Circular Reactions 3 (4-8 mos.) repeating, imitation 4 (8-12 mos.) intention Tertiary Circular Reactions 5 (12-18 mos.) exploration 6 (18-24 mos.) mental depictions

10. Sensorimotor Stage – Intentional Behavior • Substage 4 (8-12 months) • Deliberately coordinating schemes to reach a goal or solve a problem • Object permanence – infants retrieve hidden toys • Anticipate and try to change events

11. Sensorimotor Stage – Gaining Object Permanence • Overall, search strategies improve during the first year. • Awareness of toy’s disappearance (violation-of-expectations research methods) • Looks for toy by 8 months (Piaget) • A-not-B search error • Invisible displacement (finds toy moved while out of sight)

12. Sensorimotor Stage – More Recent Research • Violation-of-expectation method – infants look longer at an impossible than at a possible event • May reflect only infant’s perceptual preferences or limited awareness • Led to conclusions that infants understand, explore earlier than Piaget believed, possibly from birth • Renee Baillargeon – possible events • Carrot and screen study • Train through the box study

13. End of Sensorimotor Stage – Mental Representations • Internal depictions of information that the mind can manipulate • Images • Concepts (categories, groups) • Sudden solutions rather than trial and error • Invisible displacement – finding a toy moved while out of sight • Deferred imitation

14. Mental Representations (Memory)More Recent Research • Piaget says 18 months; others say 8-month olds recall object locations. • Deferred imitation, present at 6 weeks (adult facial expression). • 24-hour memory for activity board objects among 6-9-month olds.

15. Sensorimotor Stage - Evaluation • Piaget’s perspective – Skills acquired through learning, motor behavior • Vs. • Core knowledge perspective – babies are born with innate knowledge systems or prewired understandings • Physical numerical • Linguistic psychological

16. Piaget Pre –Operational Stage

17. The PreOperational Child • Is age 2-7 • Has achieved object permanence • Initiates & explores • Uses mental representations & symbols (language) • Is not logical

18. During the Preoperational Stage – ages 2-7 • The child will: • Gain ability to reconstruct in thought what is experienced in behavior • Gain in ability to use symbols – words, drawings, images • Form stable concepts • By the end of the stage show an emerging capacity to reason

19. Preoperational Symbolic Function Substage • Egocentric • – cannot take another’s point of view • Three-mountains task • Animistic • – believe inanimate objects have lifelike qualities such as wishes, feelings, intentions • Magical beliefs • Show in drawings

20. Preoperational Intuitive Thought Substage • Intuitive thought is a combination of primitive reason and fast acquisition of knowledge. • Cannot answer the question “what if?” • Asks the question “why?” frequently. • Begin to grasp functionality – that actions and outcomes are related in fixed ways. • Begin to grasp identity-the reality that some things do not change (underlies conservation)

21. Piaget’s Preoperational Stage • Cannot conserve • Unable to understand that certain physical characteristics stay the same even though outward appearance changes (identity) • Because of centration • Unable to classify hierarchically • Also lack reversibility

22. Conservation and Logic, cont.

23. Criticisms of Piaget’s Pre-Operational Stage • They are not egocentric, the 3 mountains task is the problem • Animism is overestimated because Piaget asked about objects like the moon with which children have little experience • They see magic as out of the ordinary, but they do attribute lifelike qualities to dolls and stuffed toys

24. Summary Criticism of the First Two Stages • Logic develops more gradually than Piaget believed that it did • The primary problem of Piaget’s observations was complexity of the task(s)

25. Piaget Concrete Operational Stage

26. Concrete Operational Stage • Piaget said that thought is more logical, flexible and organized at ages 7-11. • Terms for operations they can perform • Conservation • Reversibility • Classification • Seriation (but not transitive inference)

27. Concrete Operational Thought • Children are logical only when dealing with concrete information that they can perceive directly. • Example is a transitivity task compared to a seriation task. • Horizonal decalage – development within a stage (working out the logicof each problem separately)

28. Piaget Formal Operational Stage

29. Piaget –Formal Operational Stage • Starts at age 11 - 15 • Develop the capacity for abstract, scientific thinking

30. Two Major Features • Hypothetico-deductive reasoning • Deduce hypotheses from theory • Start with possibility and end with reality • Piaget’s pendulum problem • Propositional thought • Algebra and geometry

31. Consequences of Abstract Thought • Argumentativeness • Idealism • Planning and indecision • Self-consciousness • Imaginary audience • Personal fable

32. Adolescent Egocentrism • Imaginary audience • Personal fable • uniqueness • destiny • invincibility

33. Do all adults reach formal operations? • No, 40-60% of college students fail the formal operations problems. • People are most likely to reach it in subjects where they have had experience. • It may be a culturally transmitted way of thinking.

34. Piaget & Education • Constructivist approach – set up classroom for exploration and discovery • Let learning occur naturally, facilitate • Consider the child’s knowledge & level of thinking – sensitive to readiness, accept individual differences • Use ongoing assessment

35. Piaget and Education • Too time-consuming to implement, requires individual portfolios • Educators have always ignored developmental maturation; the system makes it difficult to deal with individual differences

36. Summary: Evaluating Piaget • Still major cognitive theorist • Criticisms • Cognitive abilities emerge earlier than he thought • Development more gradual, not as stagelike as he thought • He ignored culture & education as factors