Lecture 2 - Cognitive development

Question 1

Jean Piaget?

Answer 1

• looked at learning processes and stages of development
• believed children are active thinkers constantly trying to construct more advanced understandings of the world
• also believed that cognitive development was an ongoing process in which infants develop, apply and adjust their schemas as they build an understanding of the world

Question 2

What are the 2 learning processes?

Answer 2

1. assimilation = application of old schema to a new instance e.g. calling a cat a dog
2. accommodation = development of a new schema e.g. calling a cat a cat

Question 3

What are the 4 piagetian stages?

Answer 3

1. birth- 2 years = sensorimotor stage
2. 2-7 years = pre operational stage
3. 7-11 years = concrete operational stage
4. 11 years up = formal operational stage

Question 4

Sensorimotor stage?

Answer 4

• child has limited no. of skills
• develop into sensory abilities and motor and sensorimotor abilities
• gradually these allow for the development of cognition

Question 5

Sensorimotor and object permanence?

Answer 5

• by the end of this stage they develop object permanence
• this is the idea that objects continue to exist even when they are not visible
• happens around 12-18 months

Question 6

What is the A not B error?

Answer 6

• Piaget noted in his classic observation that an infant who successfully retrieves an object from hiding location A will frequently return to search there even when they have seen the object hidden at a new location B
• he interpreted this ‘A not B error’ as an indication that the infant still did not have a representation of the object as something that exists independently of their own sensorimotor actions

Question 7

What happens by the end of the sensorimotor stage?

Answer 7

• a toddler understands that even invisible objects can move
• this is called symbolic representation = knowledge of an object even when not acting on an object

Question 8

The pre operational stage?

Answer 8

• rapid increase in language
• Piaget put this down to the development of symbolic thought
• make-believe play and imitation arise here
• they are thinking symbolically but not using cognitive operations
• look at 3 different tests

Question 9

The concrete operational stage?

Answer 9

• characterised by the development of organised and rational thinking
• they are able to consider different perspectives (the egocentrism test)
• also pass the conservation test meaning they understand reversibility (the ability to imagine the opposite of a perceived transformation) and invariance (that things stay the same unless something has been added or subtracted)
• they also pass the class inclusion test

Question 10

Formal operation stage?

Answer 10

• children can reason logically about objects that are not currently present
• can also conduct verbal reasoning
• children also realise that some of their mental representations have no physical referents at all

Question 11

What are some criticisms of Piagets work?

Answer 11

• pre operational children fail the class inclusion task but if its rephrased to emphasise the class they pass
• when looking time rather than reaching is used, children in the sensorimotor stage seem to have a concept of object permanence (Kellman & Spelke, 1983)

Question 12

Vygotsky?

Answer 12

• Russian psychologist
• ‘What a child can do in co-operation today he can do alone tomorrow’
• The child uses tools provided by culture: real tools (pens, paper) & symbolic tools (math’s, language)
• And they are taught by others, it doesn’t come from the child

Question 13

Vygotsky and social learning?

Answer 13

• the learner has a zone of proximal development
• this is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers