Cognitive development

Question 1

What is a schema

Answer 1

mental operation that guides action or allows us to work through a problem in a principled way
Provided through genetic inheritance - present at birth
Throughout life, new schemas added for new contexts and old schemas modified and adapted

Question 2

Assimilation vs accommodation

Answer 2

Assimilation = applying existing schema to novel tasks 
Accommodation = modifying a new schema to adapt it to a new application

Question 3

Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

Answer 3

Sensorimotor stage - 0-2 years
Pre-operational stage - 2-7 years
Concrete operational - 7-12 years
Formal operational - 12 onwards

Question 4

Sensorimotor stage characteristics

Answer 4

Lack of mental imagery - lack the ability to imagine existence of things even when not directly available
Don’t have object permanence - understanding that things continue to exist even when we can’t sense them directly
Solipsism - failure to distinguish between self and universe

Question 5

Piaget’s tests for object permanence - A and B cloths

Answer 5

• babies play with rattle, the experimenter then places cloth over rattle.
  From 4-8 months the baby does not attempt to retrieve rattle which suggests that they do not understand that the object still exists
• 8 months onwards: The experimenter presents 2 cloths, A and B. Places rattle behind cloth A for baby to retrieve 3/4 times. Experimenter then places the rattle behind cloth B however, baby still looks behind cloth A. This suggests that perception is subordinate to action - baby associated motor movement with rattle under A and understands the world in relation to action - in solipsism state can’t distinguish object independently of self

Question 6

Pre-operational stage characteristics

Answer 6

Mental imagery without any principle thought.
Egocentrism - difficulty taking another persons perspective
Operational intelligence - process of solving a problem by working through logical principles
Failure to decanter - broaden attention to various aspects of problem instead of fixating on just one

Question 7

Piaget’s test to understanding quality of pre-operational stage

Answer 7

Conservation = understanding that changing form or location of an object does not change that objects mass, volume or amount - glass and liquid

Transitive inference = which two towers is taller - use measuring stick, children in this stage cannot work out how to use it.

Class inclusion = are there more black ducks or more ducks overall. Pre-operational child - answers more black ducks - failure to understand that both black and white ducks are included in term ‘ducks’

Question 8

Concrete operational stage characteristics

Answer 8

Process to develop = equilibration - generation of new schemas at higher cognitive level that aim to resolve cognitive conflicts
Children give correct answers to conservation tasks
Able to provide logical justifications for answers
This is confined to real-life problems and they struggle to apply principles to abstract problems

Question 9

Justifications in concrete operational stage include

Answer 9

Compensation - one glass wider
Inversion - pour glass C back into B = A and B same
Identity - no liquid added or taken away therefore same

Question 10

Formal operational stage characteristics

Answer 10

Systematic logical thought and reasoning applied to abstract problems

Question 11

Tasks investigating formal operational stage

Answer 11

Children asked what factor determines speed of pendulum
In order to answer the question correctly the child would need to use Hypothetico-deductive reasoning to determine which of the factors affects speed: weight, length, force, height - need to examine one factor by keeping the others constant.
If child is not in formal stage = approach the question in a disorganised way