Chp. 6

Question 1

Cognition

Answer 1

The activity of knowing and the processes through which knowledge is acquired (e.g., attending, perceiving, remembering, and thinking).

Question 2

Clinical Method

Answer 2

An unstandardized interviewing procedure used by Piaget in which a child’s response to each successive question (or problem) determines what the investigator will ask next.

Question 3

Scheme (a)/ Schemata

Answer 3

A cognitive structure or organized pattern of action or thought used to deal with experiences.

Question 4

Organization

Answer 4

In Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory, a person’s inborn tendency to combine and integrate available schemes into more coherent and complex systems or bodies of knowledge; as a memory strategy, a technique that involves grouping or classifying stimuli into meaningful clusters.

Question 5

Adaptation

Answer 5

In Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory, a person’s inborn tendency to adjust to the demands of the environment, consisting of the complementary processes of assimilation and accommodation.

Question 6

Assimilation

Answer 6

Piaget’s term for the process by which children interpret new experiences in terms of their existing schemata. Contrast with accommodation.

Question 7

Accommodation

Answer 7

In Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory, the process of modifying existing schemes to incorporate or adapt to new experiences. Contrast with assimilation. In vision, a change in the shape of the eye’s lens to bring objects at differing distances into focus.