Cognitive and motor development Flashcards
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development (4 stages)
- sensorimotor
- pre operational
- concrete operational
- formal operational
When and What is the sensorimotor stage?
0-2 years
children have no concept of object permanence
When and What is the pre operational stage?
2-7 years
egocentric
don’t understand theory of mind
When and What is the concrete operational stage?
7-12 years
understand that there viewpoint is one of many (theory of mind develops)
When and What is the formal operational stage?
12+
can use deductive reasoning
know abstract ideas
What is object permanence?
8-9 months
understand that objects don’t have temporal and spatial contiguity
(doesn’t travel through space and time)
allows us to perceive causal or intentionality
Piaget’s findings of object permanence
children will not search for an object when hidden, act like object doesn’t exist
Baillargeon et al (1985)
found that 5 month old infants looked for longer at impossible events
Why do infants look for longer during impossible events?
infants are drawn to new stimuli (novelty preference)
lose interest in familiar input due to becoming habituated
When does object permanence develop (Spelke)
we are born with an understanding of object permanence as innate knowledge
When does object permanence develop (Baillargeon)
combination of innate knowledge then expand on it throughout development
Onishi & Baillargeon (2005) study on theory of mind
nonverbal false belief task
1- familiarisation phase (actor plays with toy, hides it in box)
2- belief induction (infants witness a change, actor hold true or false belief where they either know location of toy or not)
3- test phase (actor searches for toy in either correct or incorrect box)
Onishi & Baillargeon (2005) study findings
recorded looking times
infants looked longer when there was a mismatch between actors actions and beliefs
e.g knew right location but looked in wrong box
What is abstract thinking?
ability to understand complex concepts that are symbolic or hypothetical e.g hope, justice
When does abstract thinking develop (Susac et al)
mathematical reasoning improves between 13 and 17 years old
Why is abstract thinking important?
used for long term planning
problem solving
science and theory building
social interactions
What is cognitive bias?
the tendency to focus on concrete info which can bias our decisions
2 types:
anchoring bias
survivorship bias
What is anchoring bias?
people’s tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information they receive on a topic
What is survivorship bias?
drawing conclusions from incomplete data available
focusing on successful and ignoring unsuccessful
What is symbolic play?
non-literal use of objects for fun
use an object as a symbol for something else
McCune: symbolic play
found children start to show basic forms of symbolic play around 12 months
Motor milestone chart
first couple of months: prone (face down), lifts head
middle months: sits without support, crawling
last few months: stands an walks alone
Oudgenoeg-Paz et a (2012): motor development and vocab
found children who achieve unsupported sitting and independent walking show a higher level and larger rate of growth of productive vocab
Why do early sitters and walkers have a larger vocab?
- they get different learning opportunities
- see the world differently
