Chapter 6: CogDev: PIAGETIAN, CORE Knowledge, and Vygotskian Perspectives

Question 1

refers to the inner processes and products of the mind that lead to “knowing.”

Answer 1

Cognition

Question 2

Cognition

Answer 2

the activity of knowing and the processes through which knowledge is acquired

Question 3

changes that occur in mental activities such as attending, perceiving, learning, thinking, and remembering.

Answer 3

Cognitive Development

Question 4

the experimental study of the development of knowledge, developed by Piaget.

Answer 4

genetic epistemology

Question 5

one who gains knowledge by acting or otherwise operating on objects and events to discover their properties.

Answer 5

constructivist

Question 6

Piaget’s stages of Cognitive development

Answer 6

Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, Formal Operational

Question 7

in Piaget’s theory, a basic life function that enables an organism to adapt to its environment.

Answer 7

Intelligence

Question 8

3 important characteristics of Piaget’s stages of Cognitive Development

Answer 8

o Provide a general theory of development
o The stages are invariant; they always occur in a fixed order, and no stage can be skipped.
o The stages are universal; they are assumed to characterize children everywhere.

Question 9

Piaget’s term for the state of affairs in which there is a balanced, or harmonious, relationship between one’s thought processes and the environment.

Answer 9

cognitive equilibrium

Question 10

If children are to know something, they must ____ that knowledge themselves.

Answer 10

construct

Question 11

an organized pattern of thought
or action that one constructs to
interpret some aspect of one’s
experience (also called cognitive
structure).

Answer 11

scheme

Question 12

scheme

Answer 12

organized ways of making sense of experience

Question 13

internal depictions of information that the mind can manipulate

Answer 13

mental representations

Question 14

2 most powerful mental representations

Answer 14

images and concepts

Question 15

categories in which similar objects or events are grouped together.

Answer 15

concepts

Question 16

Piaget believed that all schemes, all forms of understanding, are created through the workings of two inborn intellectual processes

Answer 16

adaptation and organization

Question 17

an inborn tendency to adjust to
the demands of the environment.

Answer 17

adaptation

Question 18

involves building schemes through direct interaction with the environment

Answer 18

adaptation

Question 19

the process by which children combine existing schemes into new and more complex intellectual schemes.

Answer 19

organization

Question 20

Once children form new schemes, they rearrange them, linking them with other schemes to create a strongly interconnected cognitive system.

Answer 20

organization

Question 21

according to Piaget, adaptation occurs through two complementary activities

Answer 21

assimilation and accommodation

Question 22

the process of interpreting new experiences by incorporating them into existing schemes.

Answer 22

assimilation

Question 23

the use of our current schemes to interpret the external world.

Answer 23

assimilation

Question 24

we create new schemes or adjust old ones after noticing that our current way of thinking does not capture the environment completely

Answer 24

accommodation

Question 25

the process of modifying existing schemes in order to incorporate or adapt to new experiences.

Answer 25

accommodation

Question 26

Harmony between one’s schemes and one’s experience.

Answer 26

equilibrium

Question 27

Seeing an airplane in the sky prompts child to call the flying object a birdie.

Answer 27

assimiliation

Question 28

Happens when new information does not match their current schemes.

Answer 28

Cognitive discomfort or state of disequilibrium

Question 29

back-and-forth movement between equilibrium and disequilibrium

Answer 29

Equilibration

Question 30

a series of developments that occur in one particular order because each development in the sequence is a prerequisite for those appearing later.

Answer 30

invariant developmental sequence

Question 31

Sensorimotor stage (2 years)

Answer 31

infants coordinate their sensory inputs and motor capabilities, forming behavioral schemes that permit them to “act on” and to get to “know” their environment.

Question 32

the first substage of Piaget’s sensorimotor stage; infants’ actions are confined to exercising innate reflexes, assimilating new objects into these reflexive schemes, and accommodating their reflexes to these novel objects.

Answer 32

reflexive activity (birth to 1 month)

Question 33

the second substage of Piaget’s sensorimotor stage; a pleasurable response, centered on the infant’s own body, that is discovered by chance and performed over and over.

Answer 33

Primary circular reactions (1 to 4 months) - largely motivated by basic needs.

Question 34

the third substage of Piaget’s sensorimotor stage; a pleasurable response, centered on an external object, that is discovered by chance and performed over and over.

Answer 34

secondary circular reactions (4 - 8 months) - they have begun to differentiate themselves from objects they can control in the surrounding environment. - caused by their own actions

Question 35

the fourth substage of Piaget’s sensorimotor stage; infants begin to coordinate two or more actions to achieve simple objectives.

Answer 35

intentional or goal-directed, behavior (8 - 12 months)

Question 36

This is the first sign of goal-directed behavior.

Answer 36

coordination of secondary circular reactions

Question 37

object permanence

Answer 37

the understanding that objects continue to exist when they are out of sight

Question 38

substage where toddlers repeat behaviors with variation

Answer 38

5th substage: tertiary circular reaction

Question 39

Sensorimotor stage where They arrive at solutions to problems suddenly rather than through trial-and-error behavior.

Answer 39

Mental Representation (Substage 6: 18-24 month-olds)

Question 40

deferred imitation

Answer 40

the ability to remember and copy the behavior of models who are not present. - first appears at 18-24 months of age

Question 41

the tendency of 8- to 12-month olds to search for a hidden object where they previously found it even after they have seen it moved to a new location.

Answer 41

A-not-B error

Question 42

neo-nativism

Answer 42

the belief that infants are born with substantial innate knowledge about the physical world, which requires less time and experience to be demonstrated than Piaget proposed

Question 43

violation-of-expectation method

Answer 43

Heightened attention to the unexpected event suggests that the infant is “surprised” by a deviation from physical reality

Question 44

inferred imitation

Answer 44

Toddlers even imitate rationally, by inferring others’ intentions! They are more likely to imitate purposeful than accidental behaviors

Question 45

applying a solution strategy from one problem to other relevant problems.

Answer 45

analogical problem solving

Question 46

Theory of theories

Answer 46

Theories of cognitive development that combine neo-nativism and constructivism, proposing that cognitive development progresses by children generating, testing, and changing theories about the physical and social world.

Question 47

According to Piaget, imitation is the purest example of

Answer 47

accommodation

Question 48

The idea that much cognitive knowledge, such as object concept, is innate, requiring little in the way of specific experiences to be expressed, and that there are biological constraints, in that the mind/brain is designed to process certain types of information in certain ways.

Answer 48

neo-nativism

Question 49

displaced reference

Answer 49

realization that words can be used to cue mental images of things not physically present

Question 50

____ is our most flexible means of mental representation

Answer 50

language

Question 51

preoperational period

Answer 51

Piaget’s second stage of cognitive development, lasting from about age 2 to age 7, when children are thinking at a symbolic level but are not yet using cognitive operations.

Question 52

The preoperational period is marked by the appearance of the __________

Answer 52

symbolic function

Question 53

symbolic function

Answer 53

the ability to use symbols (such as images and words) to represent objects and experiences.

Question 54

a second major hallmark of the early preoperational period is the blossoming of _____

Answer 54

pretend (or symbolic) play.

Question 55

dual-representation

Answer 55

the ability to represent an object simultaneously as an object itself and as a representation of something else.

Question 56

mental representations of actions that obey logical rules.

Answer 56

operations

Question 57

egocentrism

Answer 57

failure to distinguish others’ symbolic viewpoints from one’s own.

Question 58

animistic thinking

Answer 58

the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities, such as thoughts, wishes, feelings, and intentions.

Question 59

magical thinking

Answer 59

young children egocentrically assign human purposes to physical events

Question 60

Conservation

Answer 60

refers to the idea that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same, even when their outward appearance changes.

Question 61

the ability to go through a series of steps in a problem and then mentally reverse direction, returning to the starting point —is part of every logical operation.

Answer 61

Reversibility

Question 62

in Piaget’s theory, the ability of concrete operational children to consider multiple aspects of a stimulus or situation

Answer 62

decentration - contrast to centration

Question 63

hierarchical classification

Answer 63

the organization of objects into classes and subclasses on the basis of similarities and differences.

Question 64

Theory theories

Answer 64

infants possess some ideas of how the world is structured (theories) and modify these theories as a function of experience until their understanding of the world more resembles that of adults.

Question 65

used to refer to children’s developing concepts of mental activity—an understanding of how the human mind works and a knowledge that humans are cognitive beings whose mental states are not always shared with or accessible to others.

Answer 65

Theory of Mind

Question 66

concrete operational period

Answer 66

Piaget’s third stage of cognitive development, lasting from about age 7 to age 11, when children are acquiring cognitive operations and thinking more logically about real objects and experiences.

Question 67

an internal mental activity that enables children to modify and reorganize their images and symbols to reach a logical conclusion.

Answer 67

cognitive operation

Question 68

the ability to mentally arrange items along a quantifiable dimension such as height or weight.

Answer 68

mental seriation

Question 69

the ability to recognize relations among elements in a serial order (for example, if A = B and B = C, then A = C).

Answer 69

transivity

Question 70

cognitive maps

Answer 70

mental representations of familiar large-scale spaces, such as their neighborhood or school.

Question 71

transitive inference

Answer 71

Ability to seriate mentally

Question 72

The benchmark of formal operations is what Piaget referred to as _______

Answer 72

hypotheticodeductive reasoning

Question 73

hypotheticodeductive reasoning

Answer 73

in Piaget’s theory, a formal operational ability to think hypothetically.

Question 74

imaginary audience

Answer 74

a result of adolescent egocentrism; adolescents believe that everyone around them is as interested in their thoughts and behaviors as they are themselves

Question 75

zone of proximal development

Answer 75

a range of tasks too difficult for the child to do alone but possible with the help of adults and more skilled peers.

Question 76

intersubjectivity

Answer 76

the process whereby two participants who begin a task with different understandings arrive at a shared understanding

Question 77

scaffolding

Answer 77

adjusting the support offered during a teaching session to fit the child’s current level of performance.

Question 78

guided participation

Answer 78

a broader concept than scaffolding. It refers to shared endeavors between more expert and less expert participants, without specifying the precise features of communication.

Question 79

sociocultural theory

Answer 79

Vygotsky’s perspective on cognitive development, in which children acquire their culture’s values, beliefs, and problem-solving strategies through collaborative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society.