Cognition and Development Flashcards
What did Piaget develop?
the four stages of cognitive development
What is the key element of Piaget’s theory?
the motivation to learn
What is disequilibrium?
the unpleasant sensation that occurs when new information does not fit into an existing schema
what is equilibration?
what we achieve when we adapt to the new situation / adding new information to an existing schema
what is a schema?
a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information
what dies Piaget say about schemas regarding children?
children are born with a small number of schema, enough to allow them to interact with the world and other people
‘me schema’
what is assimilation?
when we understand a new experience and equilibriate by adding new information to our existing schema
what is accommodation?
takes place in response to dramatically new experiences
child had to adjust by either radically changing current schema or forming new ones
what is the first stage?
Sensorumotor stage (approx. 0-2 years)
what happens in the Sensorimotor stage?
babies focus on physical sensations and on developing some basic physical co-ordination
object permanence (8 months)
what is object permanence?
the awareness that things continue to exist even when not percieved
how did Piaget develop object permanence?
observed babies looking at objects and watched as the objects were removed from sight
noted that before 8 months, babies imeediately switched their attention away from the object once it was out of sight
at around 8 months they continue to look for it
what is the second stage?
Pre-operational stage (approx. 2-7 years)
what happens in the pre-operational stage?
toddler is mobile and can use language but still lacks adult reasoning ability = means they display some characteristic errors in reasoning
conservation
egocentrism
class inclusion
what is conservation?
mathematical understanding that if something changes shape it is still the same quantity
how did Piaget develop conservation?
- Piaget placed 2 rows of 8 identical counters side by side, children said they were the same, when the counters where pushed together pre-operational children struggled to conserve and usually sadi there were fewer counters in that row
- liquid conservation procedure = found that when 2 identical containers were placed side by side with the same contents and height, most children spotted that they contained liquid, however if the liquid was poured into a taller vessel younger children typically believed there was more liquid in the taller vessel
what is egocentrism?
to see the world only from the one’s own point of view
how did Piaget develop egocentrism?
Piaget and Barbel Inhelder (1956)
3 mountains task
children were dhown 3 model mountains each with different features (a cross, a house or snow), a doll was placed at the side of the model so that it faced away from a different angle from the child, the child was asked to choose what the doll would ‘see’ from a range of pictures, pre-operational children tended to find this difficult and often chose the picture the matched scene from their own POV
what is class inclusion?
the idea that objects fall into categories
how did Piaget develop class inclusion?
Piaget and Inhelder (1964) found that children under the age of 7 struggle with the more advanced skill of class inclusion, the idea that classifications have subsets, so when they showed 7-8 years old children pictures of 5 dogs and 2 cats and asked ‘are there more dogs or animals’ children tended to respond to respond that there were more dogs
interpreted this as meaning that younger children cannot simultaneously see a dog as a member of the dog class and the animal class
what is the third stage?
stage of concrete operations (approx. 7-11 years)
what is the stage of concrete operations?
although children now have much better reasoning abilities (operations) these are strictly concrete i.e. can only be applied to physical objects in the child’s presence
children struggle to reason about abstract ideas and to imagine objects or situations they cannot see
what is the fourth stage?
stage of formal operations (11+)
what is the stage of formal operations?
when children become capable of formal reasoning
means that children become able to focus on the form of an argument and not be distracted by its content
how can formal reasoning be tested?
- pendulum task / syllogisms
-e.g., Smith et al: ‘all yellow cats have 2 heads. I have a yellow cat called Charlie. How many heads does Charlie have?’ The correct answer is 2 - Piaget found that younger children became distractedd by the content and answered that cats do not actually have 2 heads
- Piaget believed that once children can reason formally, they are capable of scientific reasoning and become able to appreciate abstract ideas
what’s the difference between Piaget’s theory of cognitve development and Vygotsky’s ?
Vygotsky saw cognitive development as a social process of learning from more experienced others
Knowledge us intermental and then intramental
saw language as a much more important part of cognitive development than Piaget
why are there cultural differences in cognitive development?
because if reasoning abilities are acquired from the more experienced individuals with whom a child had contact, it follows that the child will acquire the reasoning abilities of those particular people
what did Vygotsky develop?
the zone of proximal development (ZPD)
what is the Zone of Proximal Development?
a gap between a child’s current level of development and what they can potentially understand after interaction with more expert others
what does expert assitance allow a child to do?
cross the ZPD and understand as much of a subject or situation that they are capable
what did he believe about higher mental functions?
that they could only be acquired through interation with more advanced others
what is scaffolding?
all kinds of help adults and more advanced peers give a child to help them cross the ZPD
who researched scaffolding and what is it sometimes called?
Jerome Bruner
the Vygotsky-Bruner model
what did David Wood, Jerome Bruner and Gail Ross (1976) note about scaffolding?
the particular strategies that experts use
in general the level of help given in scaffolding declines from level 5(most) to level 1(least)
an adult is more likely to use a high level of help strategies when first heping, then to gradually withdraw the level of help as the child grasps the task
what are the levels of scaffolding?
5= demonstration
4= preparation for child
3= indication of materials
2= specific verbal instructions
1= general prompts
whats the research support for ZPD?
Antonio Roazzi and Peter Bryant (1998)
- gave children aged 4-5 years the task of estimating the number of sweets in a box
- one condition the children worked alone and in another they worked with the help of an older child
- in expert help condition the older children were observed to offer prompts, pointing the younger children in the right direction
- most 4-5 years recieveing this kind of help successfully masterred the task
what does this support show?
that children can develop additional reasoning abilities when working with a more expert individual
suggests that the ZPD is a valid concept
what is the research support for scaffolding?
- Roazzi and Bryant
- David Conner and David Cross (2003)
- used a longitudinal procedure to follow up 45 children, observing them engaged in problem-solving tasks with the help of their mothers at 16, 26, 44 and 54 months
- distinctive changes in help were observed over time - the mothers used less and less direct intervention and more hints and prompts as children gained experience
- mothers also increasingly offered help when it was needed rather than constantly
what does this support mean?
adult assitance with childrens learning is well described by scaffolding
what is the support in practical application in education?
- have been highly influential
- raised expectations of what children should be able to achieve
social interaction in learning (through group work, peer tutoring and individual adult assistance) has been used to scaffold children through their ZPD - Hilde Van Keer and Jean Pierre Verhaeghe (2005)
- found that 7 yr olds tutored by 10 yr olds (as well as whole-class teaching) progressed further in reading than controls who just had standrad whole-class teaching
- Alborz et al. (2009) reviewed the usefulness of teaching assistants - concluded that teaching assistants are very effective at improving the rate of learning in children
what is the counterpoint of this?
- may not be universal
- Charlotte Liu and Robert Matthews (2005)
- pointed out that in China, classes of up to 50 children learn very effectively in lecture-style classrooms with very few individual interactions with peers or tutors
- should not be possible according to Vygotsky
- means Vygotsky may have overestimated the importance of scaffolding in learning
what did Baillargeon suggest?
that young babies had a better understanding of the physical world than Piaget sugegsted
what is one of Baillargeon’s technique’s?
Violation of expectation VOE
what is the VOE used for?
used to test object permanence
what is the VOE research?
- Baillargeon and Marcia Graber (1987)
- showed 24 babies aged 5-6 months a tall and a short rabbit passing behind a screen with a window as it fits our expectations of object permanence
- two conditions = one expected event, one unexpected event
- a baby with object permanence should show surprise when shown the unexpected event
what did Baillargeon and Marcia Graber find?
-babies looked for 33.07s on average at the unexpected event compared to 25.11s at the expected event
-interpretered this as the babies being surprised at the unexpected condition
-demonstrates a good understanding of object permanenece
what is Baillargeon’s theory of infant physical reasoning?
an infants understanding of the physical world and the ability to learn more details easily
what do we intially have and what does it become?
a primitive awareness of the physcial properties of the world and this becomes more sophisticated as we learn from experience
