Chapter 6 Flashcards
Piaget
What limitations of behaviorism was Piaget responding to?
He said that kids are active agents on their environment and thinking.
A responce to behaviorinsm that children just imitate other’s behaviors or that their behavior is so strictly limited to just reacting to reinforcemnt/punishment
Jean Piaget
Developed the first theory of cognitive development (circa 1920s): – Infant cognition – Language development – Conceptual development – Math and Science – Moral development
As a child, he was extremely brilliant
When he had his own children, he got interested and involved in child development study
Piaget’s Most Profound Contribution
Children are “little scientists”
Intelligence not random, but set of organized cognitive structure infant constructs.
Schemas that are built off of experience.
Learn on their own from experimenting with objects in their environment
Intrinsic motivation
Piaget’s Principles on Change
Distinct changes: Children in different stages think in
qualitatively different ways
Applies to all areas: Children’s level of thinking applies to everything they encounter
Fast changes: Changes happen relatively quickly— sometimes overnight!
No skipping! All children progress through each stage linearly
Discontinuous stages!
Stability in Piaget’s Theory
From birth through out the life span these 3 learning processes operate together:
Adaptation: build schemes through direct interaction
– Assimilation: incoming information is incorporated into existing mental schema
– Accommodation: create new schemes or adjust old ones
Equilibration – Balance between assimilation and accommodation
Boo and “Kitty” (Sully) from Monsters Inc.
Why do you think Boo calls Sully “Kitty?”
she doesn’t have a schema for a monster, so she has a breif moment of disequilibirum as she assimilates Sully as a “kitty”
Equilibrium and Disequilibrium
Use assimilation during equilibrium
Disequilibrium prompts
accommodation
Using Assimilation and Accommodation:
Organization
Internal rearranging and linking schemes
Creates a strongly interconnected cognitive system
Piaget’s Stages
– Sensorimotor stage
(birth to 2 years)
– Pre-operational stage
(2 to 7 years)
– Concrete Operational stage
(7 to 12 years)
– Formal Operational stage
(12 years and older)
Sensorimotor Stage
Birth to 2 years
Intellectual functioning is organized around sensing information and performing actions accordingly
Building schemas through sensory and motor exploration
6 substages of development
6 Substages of the Sensorimotor Stage
- Reflexes
- Primary Circular Reactions
- Secondary Circular Reactions
- Refined Secondary Circular Reactions
- Tertiary Circular Reactions
- Representations and Symbols
Sensorimoter Substage 1:
Reflexes (0–1 month)
Reflexes are the initial, innate building blocks of human cognitive growth
Development occurs as the reflexes are applied to more and more objects and events in the environment
Constitute the infant’s first schemes (i.e., grasping)
No attempt to locate objects that have disappeared
Peek-A-Boo: when you cover face, you disappeared
Sensorimotor Substage 2:
Schemes (2–4 months)
Individual schemes become progressively more skilled and attuned to the environment
Coordination or integration of previously independent schemes
For example, the coordination of sensory information, such as visual and auditory
Primary circular reactions – stumbles upon new discovery and repeats (i.e., thumb-sucking, crying for food)
No attempt to locate objects
Sensorimotor Substage 3:
Procedures (5–8 months)
In Substage 3 actions are directed outward on the environment
The schemes develop into procedures of actions that produce interesting effects in the world
– Initially accidental
– Repeated over time for desired result
Consequently, the procedure gets repeated
Secondary circular reactions: repeating something again out of interest
Like throwing a spoon on the floor, liking the sound, and then doing in over and over again to hear the noise and to see the parent’s response and
Sensorimotor Substage 4:
Intentional Behavior (9 - 12 mos)
In previous substage, infant accidentally produces some outcome then repeats it
In this substage, infant engages in intentional, goal-directed behavior
Ability to use one scheme (i.e., pushing aside obstacles) as a means to another scheme —the end of a goal (i.e., playing with a toy)
“The first actually intelligent behavior patterns.” – Piaget
Secondary circular reactions become well-coordinated
Sensorimotor Substage 4:
Intentional Behavior (9 - 12 mos)
Infants begin to master object permanence (an object continues to exist even when it is out of sight)
Babies make the A-not-B search error
Reach several times for object in first hiding place (A), then see it moved to a second (B), infant still searches for object in the first hiding place
Sensorimotor Substage 5: Experimentation (13–18 months)

Active, trial-and-error exploration of the world, either in response to some specific problem that needs to be solved or simply to see what happens if something new is tried
“The discovery of new means through active experimentation.” – Piaget
Before this substage, the infant produces known actions that will produce mostly known outcomes
Here infant produces NEW actions and observes effects
Tertiary circular reactions: exploring objects by acting on them in novel ways
Sensorimotor Substage 6:
Representation (19–24 months)
Emergence of representational ability or the ability to use one thing (i.e., a mental image, a word) to stand for something else
In the substage infants start to think and act on the world internally
– Naming an object that is not currently present but just thought of
– Deferred imitation: witnessing an action but reproducing it later
– Pretend play
Violation-of-Expectation Method
Assesses infants’ knowledge, based on their attention to events consistent versus inconsistent with reality
Controversial
– Some critics believe it indicates only nonconscious
awareness of physical events
– Others maintain it reveals only perceptual preference for novelty
Baillargeon
Do infants understand that unseen objects continue to exist and have certain properties?
Found that 3.5 month old infants understand that unseen objects continue to exist.
