Cognitive Development Flashcards
Intro to his theory + definitions
Piagets theory of cognitive development
- Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development explains how children actively construct their understanding of the world through a series of qualitative stages.
- According to Piaget, children do not only know less than adults, they think very differently, h studied the way children learnt, he focused on the motivation (why do children learn) and how children learn
- A schema is a cognitive framework or concept that helps individuals organize and interpret information, growing in number and complexity as children develop, enabling deeper world understanding
- Assimilation: Integration of new information into existing schemas.
- Accommodation: Modifying existing schemas or creating new ones to fit new information.
- Equilibration: When our existing schemas can explain what we perceive around us
When we meet a new situation that we cannot explain it creates a disequilibrium, this is an unpleasant sensation which we try to escape, this gives the motivation for learning (leads to assimilation and accomodation)
The stages of cognitive development
Some People Can Fly
Piagets theory of cognitive development
Sensorimotor stage (0-2 yrs):
- Infants learn about the world through their senses and actions, develop object permanence; realising that objects continue to exist even when out of sight
- Piaget observed the behaviour of infants who were looking at an attractive object when it was removed from their sight. Until about eight months, children would immediately switch their attention away from the object once it was out of sight, however after eight months they would actively look for the object
Preoperational stage (2-7 years):
- Children begin to use language and think symbolically, yet their thinking is still intuitive and egocentric (only see things from their own point of view, eg is the Three Mountains Study).
- They struggle with understanding other perspectives and exhibit centration, focusing on one aspect of a situation.
- The child has difficulties with class inclusion; he can classify objects but cannot include objects in sub-sets, which involves classifying objects as belonging to two or more categories simultaneously.
Concrete operational stage (7-11 yrs):
- Logical thinking develops, most children gain a better understanding of the concept of conservation; the idea that quantity remains the same despite changes the shape or appearance. They can classify objects and comprehend mathematical concepts
- Children have better reasoning abilities, but can only be applied to physical objects in the childs presence
- Children perform better on egocentrism tasks and class inclusion
Formal operational stage (11+ yrs):
- Children can now solve abstract problems using hypo deductive reasoning; developing hypothesis and testing them
- Develop idealistic thinking; develop the ability to manipulate things in their heads without the need for the objects to be present.
- Theyre able to form arguments and conclusions about problems in their abstract forms
AO3 of Piagets theory of cognitive development
- One weakness is piaget may’ve underestimated the abilities of younger children. In the three mountains task, Hughes (1975) showed that young children could cope with the task if it was more realistic, for example using a naughty boy doll who was hiding from a toy policeman. This means that children can take another’s perspective under more ‘real’ conditions. In other words, Piaget’s method was not actually testing egocentricity. Consequently, Piaget may have underestimated the ability of children at the pre-operational stage and egocentrism as a concept in Piaget’s theory might be flawed.
- One strength of Piagets theory is it has very important applications. Piaget’s stage theory implies that children are not biologically ‘ready’ to be taught certain concepts until they have reached a certain age. E.g. it would be difficult to teach a preoperational child to perform abstract maths calculations. Therefore, for real learning to take place, activities should be at the appropriate level for a child’s age. The Plowden Report (1967) drew extensively on Piaget’s theory, incorporated many of Piaget’s ideas into its final report. This led to major changes in primary school education in the UK.
- A weakness is that Piaget used an unrepresentative sample. He used children from the nursery attached to the university he worked at (Uni of Geneva), and so they belonged to predominantly white, middle-class, well-educated families. This together with the idea that not all children feel the same need to fully understand new situations and achieve equilibrium, suggests that his findings lack ecological validity. This is because children who come from different cultural and social backgrounds, may display less intellectual curiosity than middle or upper-class. Therefore, Piaget’s theory cannot explain cognitive development in all
AO1 of Vygotsky’s ZPD
- It refers to the range of tasks that a learner can perform with guidance and assistance but cannot yet accomplish independently. Challenging tasks promote maximum cognitive growth. The ZPD (zone of promixal development) highlights the potential for learning and development when a learner is supported by a more knowledgeable other (MKO), such as a teacher, peer, or mentor.
- Scaffolding describes the conditions that support the child’s learning, to move from what they already know to new knowledge and abilities. Just as physical scaffolding supports a new building, mental scaffolding supports the child in a new task. Both can be removed at a later stage when the building/child can stand alone.Scaffolding is an instructional strategy that involves providing temporary support to learners as they acquire new skills or knowledge. This support is gradually removed as the learner becomes more capable of performing the task independently.
Vygotsky also believed that the ability to reason/think is the outcome of a fundamentally social process, where cognitive skills develop as the child interacts with other people. Interaction enables children to see adults and older children using problem-solving skills and cognitive tools, and to internalise these mental skills to use themselves.
AO3 of Vygotsky’s ZPD
- Vygotsky’s theory emphasizes the role of social interaction in learning, particularly through concepts like the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and scaffolding. However, one criticism is that it overemphasizes social factors and underestimates the importance of individual cognitive processes. If learning depended solely on social interaction, children would learn at a faster rate in any social context. In reality, children learn at different paces due to individual factors like prior knowledge, motivation, and learning difficulties. Moreover, the importance of social learning may vary across cultures, suggesting that social factors alone don’t account for all aspects of cognitive development. Therefore, learning likely involves a balance of social influences and individual factors.
- There is evidence to show a gap in the level of reasoning a child can achieve on their own and what they can achieve with the help from a more knowledgable other. For example, Roazzi and Bryant gave 4-5 year old children the task of estimating the number of sweets in a box. In one condition the children worked alone and in another they worked with the help of an older child. Most children working alone failed to give a good estimate. In the expert help condition the older children were told to offer prompts, pointing the younger children in the right direction to work out how to arrive at their estimate. Most 4-5 year olds receiving this kind of help successfully mastered the task. Studies like this support the idea of children developing additional reasoning abilities when working with a more knowledgable individual. This suggests the ZPD is a valid developmental concept as it is supported by further evidence.
- His ideas have been highly influential in education in the last decade. The idea that children can learn more and faster with appropriate scaffolding has raised expectations on what they should be able to achieve. Social interaction in learning, through group work and peer tutoring + individual adult assistance from teachers have been used to scaffold children through their zones of proximal development. In some schools form groups that meet once or twice a day are a mixture between all the years, rather than secluded to a particular year group. Showing Vygotsky’s theory has had applications in real life, in particular education.
AO1 of Baillargeon et al (VoE)
- Baillargeon critised Piagets theory, specifically his ideas around object permanence, she developed the violation of expectation method; a technique in which an expectancy of a physical event is created then an unexpected event happens.
The study consisted of 2 stages:
- Stage 1: infants are shown a particular event (for example, a train on a circular track going into a tunnel and emerging) several times. The first stage of the research allows the infants to become familiar with the stimulus and stop responding to it.
- Stage 2: the infants are divided into two groups.
- Half of the sample are shown an expected event that is compatible with what they have seen before (the train goes into a tunnel and emerges)
- The other half are shown an unexpected event (the train fails to emerge from the tunnel or a different object emerges from the tunnel).
Baillergeon et al. compared the amount of time the infants spent looking at both events and found that this was significantly longer in the unexpected, experimental condition. If the infants look significantly longer at the unexpected event, it is assumed that they have formed an expectation about what should happen and that this expectation has been violated, leading to increased interest.
AO3 of Baillargeon et al
One criticism of Baillargeon et al.’s study is that it lacks ecological validity, as it was conducted in a controlled laboratory setting with artificial stimuli, which may not reflect real-life situations. The infants in Baillargeon’s studies were shown with stimuli, such as a screen and a barrier, which may not resemble the types of objects they would encounter in their everyday environments. Because the study relied on a highly controlled environment with stimuli that are far removed from real-world scenarios, the results may not fully reflect how infants would respond to object permanence in more natural settings. While Baillargeon’s study provides valuable insights into early cognitive development, the lack of ecological validity raises questions about how applicable the results are to real-world situations.
One alternative interpretation of Baillargeon et al.’s findings is that infants may be observing a “difference” in the event rather than showing “surprise” or understanding of object permanence, as suggested by Cashon and Cohen (2000). Cashon and Cohen (2000) suggest that the longer looking times observed in infants during Baillargeon’s studies could be due to the novelty or engaging nature of the events, rather than an indication of surprise or cognitive understanding of object permanence. Infants may naturally be more engaged by unusual or unexpected events, as their attention is drawn to new, unfamiliar occurences rather than demonstrating an inherent understanding of object permanence. This challenges Baillargeon’s conclusion that infants recognize the continuity of hidden objects and could instead suggest that their increased looking time is simply due to the novelty of the events.
AO1 of Theory of Mind
Theory of mind is the understanding that other people have minds and may know or believe very different things to ourselves. The Sally-Anne test is a way to test a person’s theory of mind (in this case the understanding that other people can have false beliefs). The Sally-Anne test and similar studies suggest children develop theory of mind at around 3 – 4 years old.
- Children were shown two dolls: Sally and Anne.
- Sally has a basket, Anne has a box.
- Sally hides a marble in her basket, then leaves the room.
- When Sally is away, Anne takes the marble from the basket and puts it in her box.
- Sally returns to the room.
- The child is then asked: Where will Sally look to find the marble?
85% of the normally developed children answered correctly
86% of the children with Down’s syndrome answered correctly
But only 20% of the children with autism answered correctly
The correct answer is that Sally will look in her basket for the marble. This is because Sally won’t have seen Anne move the marble into her box and so will have the false belief that it is still in her basket. It requires theory of mind to put yourself in Anne’s position and understand that she will have a false belief based on the information available to her.
AO3 of Theory of Mind
One strength of the research supporting the theory of mind is that it is carefully controlled. Researchers make sure that children are chosen with matched mental ages to control for cognitive ability and employ standardised processes toadministertasks in studies looking into the development of theory of mind, such as Baron-Cohen et al. (1985). By selecting children with matched mental ages, researchers reduce the likelihood that individual differences in cognitive development might skew the results. Additionally, standardized procedures ensures that all participants are exposed to the same tasks and instructions, which minimizes extraneous variables and allows for more reliable comparisons between participants. The careful control of variables strengthens the internal validity of studies investigating the theory of mind, therefore suggests that the evidence supporting the theory is reliable and accurately reflects the cognitive abilities being studied.
A limitation is that studies have indicated that individual differences might influence how a theory of mind develops. According to studies, children who have more siblings or come from wealthier households typically do better on theory of mind tests. Jenkins and Astington’s (2000) study, for instance, discovered that children from more rich homes, who frequently have greater access to resources, exhibit advanced ToM abilities earlier than children from less affluent families. This implies that environmental factors, such the standard of social interactions and the accessibility of resources, have a big impact on how theory of mind develops. Larger families or more affluent surroundings may expose kids to more complex interactions, which can help them refine their ToM skills. Children from bigger or wealthier households frequently score better on ToM tasks than their peers, which lends support to the idea that nurture—rather than just nature—is a key factor in the development of ToM
Because theory of mind research needs participants to have appropriately developed language abilities, it may not be appropriate for extremely young children. Children under the age of four may find it difficult to understand and respond linguistically to many classictasks of theory of mind (ToM), such as false-belief tests. For example, tasks that assess whether children understand that others can hold false beliefs often require verbal responses and comprehension of complex language. Therefore, even though they may possess the cognitive capabilities required for ToM, these young children may find these activities difficult. Given the strong relationship between theory of mind and language development, it’s probable that some of the failures to pass ToM in young children is due to their underdeveloped language skills rather than a lack of ToM. Therefore, the reliance on language-based tasks to assess theory of mind in young children may lead to inaccurate conclusions about their cognitive abilities, interfering with the results.
AO1 of Mirror Neurons
Mirror neurons are brain cells that are activated when we see another person performing an action. The cell activation is the same as if we had performed the action ourselves and they are thought to allow humans to shore understanding of intention and to feel empathy.
For example, Rizzolatti et al (1996) observed that, in monkeys, the same areas of the brain activated when the monkeys reached for food as when they watched someone else reach for food. This is one of the earliest studies demonstrating the existence of mirror neurons.
The mirror neuron system is argued to have shaped human evolution, as Ramachandran and Oberman (2006) suggests it has allowed us to live in large groups with complex social roles. This is because it allows us to understand intention, emotion and perspective. Dysfunction in the mirror neuron system has also been proposed as an explanation for the deficits in social cognition shown by those diagnosed with ASD. This is supported by studies of participants with ASD using functional imaging that have shown lower activity in brain areas associated with mirror neurons.
AO3 of Mirror Neurons
- One strength of the theory is in addition to Rizzolatti et al (1996) several other studies – including in humans – support the existence of mirror neurons and their role in social cognition. For example, Dapretto et al. (2006) conducted a study using fMRI scans to compare brain activity in autistic children and non-autistic controls when observing facial expressions. The results showed that the autistic children exhibited no activity in the interior frontal gyrus, an area associated with the mirror neuron system, when compared to the controls. The lack of mirror neuron activity in autistic individuals when observing facial expressions suggests that the mirror neuron system is crucial for processing social cues and understanding others’ emotions, a core deficit in autism. Therefore, the findings from Dapretto et al. (2006), along with other supporting studies, provide additional evidence for the mirror neuron theory, particularly in explaining the role of these neurons in social cognition and conditions like autism.
- The theory of mirror neurons, has been largely studied in animals, particularly macaque monkeys, which raises concerns about extrapolating these findings to humans. In Rizzolatti et al.’s 1996 study, the researchers discovered that certain neurons in the macaque monkeys’ brains fired both when the monkeys performed an action, such as grasping an object, and when they observed the same action being performed by another. However, this study was limited to animal models, specifically macaques, and did not directly investigate human brain activity in response to similar stimuli. The human brain has more developed regions involved in complex social cognition, and humans engage in a wider range of behaviors that may not be mirrored in macaques. Therefore, while Rizzolatti et al.’s (1996) research on macaques has benefitted greatly in the development of the mirror neuron theory, the differences between species highlights the inability of extrapolating animal-based findings to human cognition.
- Social cognition is too complex to be explained solely by mirror neurons. While mirror neurons are implicated in some aspects of social cognition, such as imitation and empathy, research suggests that they do not account for the full range of social cognitive processes. For example, complicated cognitive processes that go beyond simpleimitation of actionsare required to comprehend emotions, analyse intricate social situations, and form moral judgements. The whole intricacy of human social interactions, which also depend on memory, experience, and cultural influences, cannot be fully explained by mirror neurones alone. Therefore, while mirror neurons contribute to certain aspects of social cognition, they cannot fully explain the complexity of social behavior, and a more comprehensive approach is needed to understand how humans interact socially.
