What is Piaget’s stage theory of cognitive development?
- “construct” knowledge on basis of experiences w/ world
- proceed thru stages of development
- basic learning mechanisms that help acquire info
- characterise what children can & cannot do during specific periods in terms of cognitive reasoning
- once reach new stage, don’t “go back”
What are learning mechanisms?
- assimilation: translate info into form they can understand
- accommodation: revise current knowledge structures in response to new experiences
- equilibration: balance assimilation & accommodation to create stable understanding
What is the 1st stage in Piaget’s stage theory?
Sensorimotor: birth to 2 yrs
- live in the here-and-now: ability to think & reason constrained by what they have access to thru senses
- have basic motor systems (reflexes), sensory/perceptual systems, learning mechanisms
- sensorimotor failures of object permanence
- out of sight outof mind: cover object & don’t act like they think object is still there
What is the 2nd stage in Piaget’s stage theory?
Preoperational: 2-7 yrs
- begin to represent experiences in language, imagery & symbolic thought
- cannot perform reversible mental activities (“operations”)
- focus on single, perceptually-salient aspect of event (centration)
- preoperational failures of conservation, transitivity, egocentricity & appearance vs. reality
What are preoperational failures of conservation?
- 2 identical containers w/ same amount of water
- pour one into 3rd taller container, height of water looks taller
- say 3rd has more water
What are preoperational failures of transitivity?
- can’t perform transitive inferences:
if A is greater than B & B is greater than C, can’t deduce that A is also greater than C - important for logical reasoning
What are preoperational failures of egocentricity?
- struggle w/ taking another’s perspective
- failure of theory of mind
What are preoperational failures of apperance vs. reality?
- appearance drives responses
- even when told what it is, still respond as if guided by what it looks like
- surface level changes affect how children reason abt individual
What is the 3rd stage in Piaget’s stage theory?
concrete operational: 7-12 yrs
- reason logically abt concrete objects & events
- difficulty thinking in purely abstract terms in combining info systematically
- concrete operational failures systematic testing: don’t systematically test hypotheses
What is the 4th stage in Piaget’s stage theory?
formal operational: 12 yrs & beyond
- not all typically developing children reach stage
- think abt abstractions & hypotheticals
- perform systematic “experiments” to draw conclusions abt world
What are the problems with Piaget’s theory? (1)
competence/perform distinction abt how researchers interpret child’s failure on given task:
- task may be too difficult/confusing
What are the problems with Piaget’s theory? (2)
problems w/ constructivism: poverty of experience
- evidence of children showing knowledge before having relevant experiences for Piaget to credit them w/ understanding
What are the problems with Piaget’s theory? (3)
problems w/ stages: inconsistency of timeline
- succeed on tasks Piaget says they shouldn’t given stage of dvpm
- preoperational stage children pass some tests when use motivating stimuli
preoperational failures of egocentricity:
- behave in non-egocentric ways depending on complexity of question asked
- show better success when measures don’t require verbal responsesadult errors of egocentricity
What are the pros of Piaget’s theory?
- good overview of children’s thinking at different points
- appealing due to its breadth
- fascinating observations
What are the cons of Piaget’s theory?
- stage model depicts children’s thinking as being more consistent than it is
- children more cognitively competent than Piaget recognised
- understates contribution of social world
- vague abt cognitive processes/mechanisms that produce cognitive growth
What are information processing theories?
focus on structure of cognitive system & mental activities used to deploy attention and memory to solve problems
- undergo continuous cognitive change
- w/ development, cognitive flexibility helps them pursue goals
What are assumptions in information processing theories?
- child as limited-capacity processing system: thru learning & maturation of brain structures
- expand amount of info processed at one time
- process info faster
- acquire new strategies & knowledge
- child as problem solver: active problem solvers
- problem solving: attain goal by using strategy to overcome obstacle
What are memory system components?
differ w/ regard to how much info stored, length of time retained, neural mechanisms thru which operate & course of dvpm
- sensory
- working
- long-term
What is sensory memory?
sights, sounds & other sensations just entering cognitive system & briefly held in raw form until identified
- hold moderate amount of info for fraction of a second
- capacity relatively constant over dvpm
What is working memory?
info from environment & relevant knowledge brought together, attended to & actively processed
- limited in capacity & duration
- capacity & speed of operation increases over childhood & into adolescence
What is long-term memory?
info retained on enduring basis
- retain unlimited amount of info indefinitely
- contents increase greatly over dvpm
What are mental strategies in information processing theories?
- emerge between ages 5-8
- emerge as children begin formal schooling & have learned to practice them in school
- rehearsal: repeating info over & over to aid memory
- selective attention: intentionally focusing on info most relevant to current goal
What are basic processes in information processing theories?
simplest & most frequently used mental activities:
- associating events w/ one another
- recognising objects as familiar
- recalling facts & procedures
- generalising from one instance to another
- encoding: representing in memory info specific features of objects & events
How does processing change across development?
- speed of executing basic processes increases over childhood
- biological maturation & experience contribute to increased processing speed: myelination & increased connectivity among brain regions
- domain-general ability: increases on variety of different tasks similarly across dvpm
