Chapter 4 Flashcards
Piaget’s Constructivist Approach
- noticed that children of the same age made same mistakes
- studied how children think
- initial studies were his naturalistic observations of his own kids
- children construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore their words
- universal stages
- discontinuous development
- humans are active constructor of their own knowledge
how children build schemas
by the process of assimilation and accommodation
cognitive structures
organized patterns of action of thought that people construct to interpret their experiences
organization
existing schemes are systematically combined into new and complex schemes
adaptation
process of adjusting to the demands of the environment that occurs through assimilation and accommodation
organized and rearranged through
assimilation and accommodation
assimilation
- using current schemes to interpret external world
- we have a schema for dogs and fit our experience with a new animal (cat) into other existing schema for dogs
accommodation
- adjusting old schemes and creating new ones to better fit environment
- we have a schema for dogs, but the animal we see is small and meows so we must change our scheme in order to accommodate the new animal
cognitive conflict
- occurs when new events seriously challenge old schemes or love our existing schemes to be inadequate
- stimulates cognitive growth
- motivated to reduce cognitive growth through equilibration
equilibration
process of achieving mental stability so that our internal thoughts are consistent with the evidence in the external world
equilibrium and disequilibrium
- use assimilation during equilibrium
- disequilibrium prompts accommodation
organization
- internal rearranging and linking schemes
sensorimotor stage
- birth to 2 years
- world understood through senses and action
- dominant cognitive structures are the behavioral schemes that develop through coordination of sensory information and motor responses.
preoperational stage
- age 2-7
- reliance on perceptions and lack of logical thought means that children have difficulty with conservation
object permanence
understanding that objects continue to exist when out of sight
- 8-12 months
conservation
the idea that certain properties of an object or substance do not change when its appearance is altered in a superficial way
egocentrism
a tendency to view the world solely from one’s own perspective and to have difficulty reorganizing other points of view.
classification
- using criteria to sort objects on the basis of characteristics such as shape, color, function.
Criticism of Piaget’s theory
- underestimates cognitive competence in infants and overestimates competence in adolescents.
- undervalues influence of sociocultural environment
learning takes several forms
- habituation
- classical conditioning
- operant conditioning
classical conditioning
neutral stimulus elicits a response originally produced by another stimulus
operant conditioning
reward and punishment determine the likelihood that behavior will reoccur.
imitating
infants are able to imitate adult facial expressions; young children imitate behavior of others.
information processing
- human thinking based on mental hardware and mental software
mental hardware
mental and neural structures that are built in and that allow the mind to operate
mental software
mental programs that are the basis for performing particular tasks.
attention
processes that determine whether information is processed further by an individual
orienting response
an unfamiliar stimulus produces a change in heart rate and brain waves..
habituation
the diminished response to a stimulus once it becomes familiar.
important features of memory in young babies
- events from past are remembered
- over time, events no longer recalled
- cues prompt memories that seem to have been forgotten
involved in memory storage
- hippocampus
- amygdala
involved in memory retrieval
- frontal cortex
autobiographical memory
people’s memory of the experience/events of their own lives.
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective
- culture and society are pivotal in his theory
- knowledge depends on social experience
- cognitive development varies from society to society depending upon the mental tools such as language that the culture values and makes available
- children acquire mental tools through interaction with parents and other more experienced members of society and by adopting their language and knowledge.
- of all theories, only one that almost exclusively focuses on social and cultural interactions
zone of proximal development
the gap between what a learner can accomplish independently and what she can accomplish with the guidance and encouragement of a more skilled partner.
guided participation
children’s active participation in culturally relevant activities with the aid and support of parents and other knowledgable guides.
private speech
speech to oneself that guides one’s thoughts and behavior. children do quite a bit.
