Learning about the physical world

Question 1

Who is the father of the field of cognitive development?

Answer 1

Jean Piaget

Question 2

What did Piaget propose?

Answer 2

• Children’s thinking is qualitatively different from adults’ thinking (not only quantitative - amount of knowledge)
• Cognition grows and develops through a series of stages

Question 3

According to Piaget, what are the four Stages of Cognitive Development

Answer 3

1- Sensorimotor (birth to 2yo)
2- Preoperational (2 to 7yo)
3- Concrete operational (7 to 12yo)
4- Formal operational (12+)

Question 4

When does object permanence develop?

Answer 4

around 8 months old

Question 5

How do we know if object permanence has been developed when hide object in front of a baby

Answer 5

If doesn’t look for object or gets upset = no object permanence
If looks for object = developed object permanence

Question 6

What is A-not-B-error

Answer 6

tendency to reach for a hidden object where it was last found rather than in the new location where it was last hidden

Question 7

What does A-not-B-error show and when does it normally disappear?

Answer 7

Shows that initial object permanence is fragile
-Disappear around 12 months

Question 8

Symbolic thought

Answer 8

The ability to think about objects or
events that are not within the immediate environment

Question 9

What are examples of egocentrisms (preoperational)

Answer 9

-difficulties taking another person’s spatial perspective
-egocentric speech

Question 10

What would be a sign a progress in egocentrism (preoperational phase)

Answer 10

increase in children’s verbal arguments: Means that a child is at least paying attention to another perspective

Question 11

What concept is referred to in Piaget’s conservation task

Answer 11

Centration: tendency to focus on a single, perceptually striking feature of an object or event to the exclusion of other relevant
features

Question 12

Reversibility, Seriation and Cognitive maps are examples from which stage

Answer 12

Concrete Operational Stage

Question 13

How can we describe the Formal Operational Stage

Answer 13

Ability to think abstractly and to reason hypothetically

Question 14

What happens by the end of the sensorimotor stage?

Answer 14

achieve object permanence

Question 15

Name some weaknesses of Piaget’s Theory

Answer 15

• Piaget didn’t use scientific method to develop theory
• Theory depicts children’s thinking as more consistent than it is
• Children are more cognitively competent than Piaget recognized* Theory is vague about the mechanisms of cognitive growth
• Theory underestimates the contribution of the social world to
  cognitive development

Question 16

Nativist view of cognitive development

Answer 16

Children have innate, specialized cognitive mechanisms that provide
them with basic knowledge in domains of evolutionary importance

Question 17

What is the Violation-of-Expectation Paradigm

Answer 17

Ex. Infants as young as 3.5 months old looked longer at the impossible event (drawbridge going through a box) than the possible event
-Indicates that infants as young as 3.5 months:
* have object permanence
* understand that solid objects can’t go through another solid object
Ex.2. infants look longer at object suspended in midair - innate understanding of gravity

Question 18

innate approximate number sense

Answer 18

Cognitive system that allows infants to intuitively estimate numbers and
magnitudes

Question 19

At what ratio can infants of 6 months old and 9 months old see the difference in the number of dots

Answer 19

6 month olds : 2:1 can detect the difference between 20 dots and 10 dots
9 months old: discriminate displays in a 3:2 ratio (e.g. 12 vs. 8 dots)

Question 20

9-month-olds divide objects into 3 broad categories:

Answer 20

people, animals and inanimate objects

Question 21

When do children start learning category hierarchies

Answer 21

By 2-3 years of age, form category hierarchies

Question 22

Around what age do children start differentiating people, animals, and
inanimate objects

Answer 22

By 9 months of age

Question 23

True or false: Nativists suggest that infants are a lot less cognitively capable than Piaget thought

Answer 23

False. The opposite.

Question 24

What are the major criticisms of the nativist view

Answer 24

Perceptual features of stimuli
* Infants may look longer at certain stimuli because they are more visually
interesting (i.e., more complex or novel), and not because they have innate
expectations about the stimuli

Learning from the environment
* 3 month olds have learned a lot about the world in about 810 hours of awake
time

Question 25

To recap: what are the three main theories/views to describe congnitive development

Answer 25

1- Piaget’s theory
Cognitive development occurs in qualitatively, distinct stages
2- Nativist view
Emphasizes innate knowledge and specialized learning mechanisms in
domain of evolutionary importance
3 - Learning view
- Children learn a great deal from the environment through trial and error
and statistical learning
- Quality of home environment affects cognitive development

Question 26

What does the Dawbridge study show?

Answer 26

Infants as young as 3.5 months old looked longer at the impossible event than the possible event.

Understanding of solid object innate

Question 27

What are the 2 factors reflected in HOME study and which one is most important

Answer 27

Parenting quality and stimulation of environment, parenting quality is most important