cunostiinta despre conceptii si logica Flashcards
(32 cards)
What is cognition?
Cognition is all processes by which sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered and used.
What are the key points of Piaget’s constructionist theory of cognitive development?
Piaget - developmental psychologist interested in education and growth
- Constructivist
- Concerned with the origins of knowledge (genetic epistemology)
- thinks in stages
- thought that where knowledge and thought comes from could be studies by looking at development
-how do we change from egocentric reflex-driven newborn to objective intentional adults
- development is interaction between heredity and environment
What is assimilation and accomodation?
Piaget argued that internally generated processes were the mechanisms of developmental change.
Assimilation - application of an old schema to a new instance. e.g. see rabbit and say cat. Taking new encounters and treating them in a familiar way.
Accommodation - development of a new schema
What is Piaget’s stage theory?
Piaget thought that development is best characterised by stages rather than gradual change.
What are the 3 stages of Piaget?
- Sensorimotor period (0-24m): egocentric, how world is in relation to me
- Concrete operational period (2-11y): developing logical thought about the environment
- Formal operations: 11y+: develop abstract reasoning
What is the sensorimotor stage?
- 0-2y
- the infant explores the world through direct sensory and motor contact
- object permanence and separation anxiety develop during this stage
What is the preoperational stage?
- 2-6y
- child uses symbols like words to represent objects but does not reason logically
- still egocentric
What is the concrete operational stage?
- 7-11y
- child can think logically about concrete objects and can add and subtract
- understands conservation
What are the sub stages of the sensorimotor stage?
- Reflexes
- Primary circular reactions
- Secondary circular reactions
- Coordinated secondary circular reactions
- Tertiary circular reactions
- Symbolic representations
What is the reflexes stage?
- 0-6w
- observed reflexes are described as being an end in themselves
- getting food after sucking is not an intention of the baby - it is a reflex
- grasping is reflexive, the child does not want to hold anything
What is the primary circular reactions stage?
- 6w-4m
- baby starts to become aware that doing something leads to something - action schemas
- baby starts acting on the world in a non-reflexive manner
What is the secondary circular reactions stage?
- 4-6m
- baby starts linking different action schemas together
- hand-eye coordination
- passing objects from hand-to-hand
What is the coordinated secondary circular reactions stage?
- 8-12m
- babies start to become interested in things
- object permanence (uncovering objects to retrieve it)
What is the tertiary circular stage?
- 12-18m
- babies think of new ways to achieve their goals
- construction of new means to ends
- infants solve the AB task - they search where they last saw an object disappear
What is the symbolic representations stage?
- 18-24m
- start getting symbolic representations
-moving from egocentric actions to objective representations
What did Piaget observe in 6 month olds?
Once an object is out of sight, it does not exist anymore
They have no object permanence
They neglect objects once they are hidden
What did Piaget observe about 8 month old children?
At 8 months, stage 4 infants have some object permanence but still egocentric understanding of objects.
How do we know that at 8 months they are still egocentric in regards to objects?
The A not B error task.
Object hidden at A.
Child searches for it and finds it.
Object is placed in B.
Although the child has continued to watch the object and has seen it disappear in B, he tries to find it in A.
What are some problems for Piaget’s sensorimotor theory?
Piaget’s methods depend on object interaction and manual abilities. Maybe babies understand about objects but cannot act on them.
He studies his own children.
New methods study looking times.
What other studies found about object permanence? (Habituation of looking)
Object permanence at 4 months.
When they were habituated to a partially occluded rod, they had a looking preference for a broken rod over a complete rod
This is evidence for innate understanding that common motion signifies that the object is unified behind the occlude
What have other studies shown about object permanence? Violation of expectation
Baby is given a ball to hold to see that it is sold
then the ball is dropped behind a board.
If the board falls completely and the baby is surprised that means they have some kind of object permanence
What has Baillargeon found about 6 months abilities?
6 months old represent the continuity, solidity and spatial location of objects - this is only possible at stage 5 according to Piaget
They look longer when there is an obstacle on the tracks and the train was able to pass normally through the obstacle
What is the issue with the new research?
If infants know about object permanence, why do they not retrieve them in manual tasks?
Research has shown that on some tasks ,even 2y appear ignorant of some of the principles which Spike claims 2.5m to reason about
e.g. they understand solidity because 2.5m old look longer at impossible events where solidity is violated
HOWEVER
ball drops from top left and 2y look to the bottom left even though they saw the ball fall on bottom right through a tube
What could be an explanation for the lag between looking and acting?
Executive function
Manually retrieving is constrained by the maturation of particular brain areas - frontal lobe maturation and executive function
