Lecture 4: Learning about the Physical World Flashcards
questions of cognitive development researchers
- How do children’s knowledge and thinking change as they grow?
- What factors influence their thinking?
Jean Piaget
- Father of the field of cognitive development
- In 1920, he worked at the Binet Institute on intelligence tests
- Piaget was intrigued by children’s wrong answers on adult intelligence tests
Piaget’s proposals
- Children’s thinking is qualitatively different from adults’ thinking
- Cognition grows and develops through a series of stages
Properties of Piaget’s stage theory
- Outlines 4 stages of children’s cognitive development
- Children at different stages think in qualitatively different ways
- Thinking at each stage influences thinking across diverse topics
- Brief transitional period at the end of each stage
- The stages are universal (not culturally dependent) and the order is always the same
4 stages of children’s cognitive development with ages
- sensorimotor stage (birth-2)
- preoperational stage (2-7)
- concrete operational stage (7-12)
- formal operational stage (12+)
properties of the sensorimotor stage
- Infants live in the here-and-now
- They gain knowledge about the world through movements and sensations
subdivisions of the sensorimotor stage
- 1-4 months
- 4-8 months
- 8-12 months
- 12-18 months
- 18-24 months
1-4 month-olds (Piaget)
- interact with the world via reflexes and repeat pleasurable actions
- Indicates interest in their bodies
4-8 month-olds (Piaget)
- repeat actions towards objects to produce a desired outcome
- Indicates interest in the world, beyond their own body
- Allows for the formation of connections between their own actions and consequences in the world
8-12 month-olds (Piaget)
- combine several actions to achieve a goal
- Indicates that actions are clearly intentional
- The emergence of object permanence
12-18 month-olds (Piaget)
- trial-and-error experiments to see how outcomes change
- Allows for greater understanding of cause-effect relations
18-24 month-olds (Piaget)
- mental representation
- Fully developed object permanence
- Indicated by deferred imitation
- Allows for symbolic thoughts
object permanence
Knowing that objects continue to exist even though they can no longer be seen or heard
when does object permanence develop
around 8 months
how is object permanence tested
by seeing how a baby reacts to an object being hidden
- If the baby doesn’t look for the object or get upset, they don’t have object permanence
- If they look for the object, they have object permanence
A-not-B-error
the tendency to reach for a hidden object where it was last found rather than in the new location where it was last hidden
what does the A-not-B-error demonstrate
that inital object permanence is fragile
when does the A-not-B-error disappear
around 12 months
main characteristics of the preoperational stage
- symbolic thought
- egocentrism
- centration
symbolic thought
the ability to think about objects or events that are not within the immediate environment
benefits of symbolic thought
- enables language acquisition
- enables symbolic representation (ability to engage in pretend play adn drawing)
egocentrism
perceiving the world solely from one’s own point of view
examples of egocentrism
difficulties taking another person’s spatial perspective & egocentric speech
egocentric speech
taking turns speaking, but providing one’s own monologue
signs of progress in reducing egocentrism
increase in children’s verbal arguments. This means that the child is at least paying attention to another perspective
centration
the tendency to focus on a single, perceptually striking feature of an object or event to the exclusion of other relevant features
children in the preoperational stage struggle with ___
the conservation concept
the conservation concept
changing the appearance of an object does not change the object’s other key properties
Piaget’s conservation tasks
Involves changing the appearance of an object and determining if the child will believe that other properties have been changed
main characteristics of the concreate operational stage
- can reason logically about concrete objects and events such as reversibility, seriation, and cognitive maps
reversibility
the capacity to think through a series of steps and then mentally reverse direction, returning to the starting point
seriation
the ability to order items along a quantitative dimension such as length or width
cognitive maps
the mental representation of familiar large-scale spaces, such as their neighbourhood and school
children in the concrete operational stage struggle with ___
thinking in purely abstact/hypothetical terms or general systematic scienetific experiments to test their beliefs
the conservation concept in children in the concrete operational stage
they understand the conservation concept
main characteristics of the formal operational stage
- the ability to think abstractly and reason hypotehtically
- they can imagine realities that are different from the current one
does everyone reach the formal operational stage?
no, not all adolescents or adults reach it
what does Piaget’s pendulum problem test?
deductive reasoning
Piaget’s pendulum problem
Requires that people determine the influence of weight and string length on the time it takes for the pendulum to swing back and forth
what makes an experiment unbiased
varying only one variable at a time
children under 12 in the pendulum problem
they perform unsystmetic experiments and draw incorrect conclusions
what stage are people who succeed in the pendulum problem in?
formal operation stage
Piaget on how children learn
- Children actively shape their knowledge of the world
- Children learn on their own
- Children are intrinsically motivated to learn
strengths of Piaget’s theory
- Intuitively plausible depiction of children’s nature as active learners and how learning progresses
- Provides a good overview of children’s thinking at different ages
- Exceptional breadth (spans the lifespan & examines many cognitive operations and concepts)
applications of Piaget’s theory to education
- Children’s distinctive ways of thinking at different ages need to be considered in deciding how to teach them
- Children learn best by interacting with the environment (hands-on learning and experiments)
weakenesses of Piaget’s theory
- Piaget didn’t use the scientific method to develop his theory
- His theory depicts children’s thinking as more consistent than it is
- Children are more cognitively competent than Piaget recognized
- The theory is vague about the mechanisms of cognitive growth
- The theory underestimates the contribution of the social world to cognitive development
Nativist view
- Children have innate, specialized cognitive mechanisms that provide them with basic knowledge in domains of evolutionary importance
- These cognitive mechanisms also allow children to rapidly acquire additional knowledge in these important domains
domains of evolutionary importance (Nativist view)
- Solid objects
- Understanding of physical laws
- Numbers
- Categorization
- Understanding the minds of people
- Language
evidence for earlier object permanence
- When shown an object and then the light in the room is turned off, most infants younger than 8 months old will reach for where they last saw the object
- Piaget’s object permanence task may be too difficult. Infants younger than 8 months may fail Piaget’s object permanence task because they haven’t developed the motor capacity to manually search
- Can use looking behaviour as a better measure of object permanence (violation of the expectation paradigm)
violation of the expectation paradigm
Adaptation of habituation paradigm used to study infant cognition
violation of the expectation paradigm method
- Infants are habituated to an event
- Test: presented with a possible and impossible event that are variations on the habituation event
- Longer-looking at the impossible event indicates that the infant possesses the physical knowledge being studied (both innate and through experience)
possible event
consistent with knowledge or expectation being examined in the study
impossible event
violates knowledge or expectation being studied
impossible events are viewed as ___
more novel/unexpected, resulting in longer looking time
results of the drawbridge study
infants as young as 3.5 months looked longer at the impossible event drawbridge going through a box than the possible event
the drawbridge study indicates that infants as young as 3.5 months…
- Have object permanence
- Understand that solid objects can’t go through another solid object
implications of the drawbridge study
since 3.5-month-olds haven’t learned language yet, and couldn’t have been taught, this suggests that understanding solid objects is innate
understanding gravity study aim
determine if infants understand gravity
understanding gravity study method
violation of expection paradigm with 3-month-olds
possible event in the understanding gravity study
a hand places a box on a platform
impossible event in the understanding gravity study
a hand places a box in middair and it remains suspended
results of the understanding gravity study
3-month-olds looked longer at the box suspended in midair
understanding gravity follow-up study
- compared looking times at a box suspended in midair (same impossible event) vs. a box that falls when placed in midair
- found that infants looked longer at the box suspended in midair
gravity study takeaways
- Shows that infants expect the box to fall if there is no support
- Since infants haven’t learned language yet, this suggests an innate, rudimentary understanding of gravity
infants’ understanding of numbers study aim
Do infants have a basic concept of numbers?
infants’ understanding of numbers study method
habituation paradigm with 6-month-olds
infants’ understanding of numbers habituation paradigm
- shown a series of displays containing 16 dots
- dots of different sizes and arrangements on each display
infants’ understanding of numbers test phase
- Same number: 16 dots
- New number: 8 dots
infants’ understanding of numbers results
infants looked longer at the new number display
infants’ undestanding of numbers follow-up studies
show that 6-month-olds show the same behaviour for other dots in a 2:1 ratio
9-month-olds’ understanding of numbers study
discriminate displays in a 3:2 ratio
infants’ understanding of numbers study takeaway
since infants haven’t learned to count yet, this suggests they have an innate approximate number sense (ANS)
approximate number sense (ANS)
a cognitive system that allows infants to intuitively estimate numbers and magnitudes
foundations of differences in math ability
Research shows a positive correlation between infant ANS and preschool math ability. This suggests that ANS lays the foundation for later math ability
when does categorization begin?
in infancy
habituation paradigm for categorization in infancy
showed 3-month-olds various pictures of cats
Habituated them to the general category of cats, looking at novel cat photos less and less
test phase of the habituation paradigm for categorization in infancy
a photo of a dog
results of the habituation paradigm for categorization in infancy
infants looked longer at the dog, suggesting that they saw all cats as a single category and dogs as a different category
habituation paradigm for general categorization in infancy method
6-month-olds were habituated to photos of mammals
habituation paradigm for general categorization in infancy results
on test trials, kids looked longer at non-mammals
habituation paradigm for general categorization in infancy implications
this shows that infants had formed the category of mammals by recognizing similarities between mammals
3 broad categories
9-month-olds divide objects into 3 broad categories: people, animals, and inanimate objects
evidence for 3 broad categories
- This is indexed by different reactions to members of each of these categories
- Ex. in lab settings, 9-month-olds pay more attention to animals than inanimate objects but smile less at animals than they do people
importance of categorization
- Helps make sense of the world by simplifying it
- Allows children to make inferences and predicts about objects of that same category
forming categories based on shape
- Infants focus on similarities in shape when forming categories
forming categories based on shape study
various objects were placed in front of 12-month-olds. The experimenter picked up the target object and demonstrated that it rattles. Infants were more likely to assume that an object of similar shape also rattles vs. objects similar in colour or texture
implications of forming categories based on shape
results in difficulties undestanding exceptions (ex. they fail to understand that a boat is a vehicle because it lacks wheels)
when do infants start to form category hierarchies?
by 2-3 years
category hierarchies
organize object categories by set-subset relations
benefits of category hierarchies
Allow for finer distinctions among objects within each level
superordinate categories
provide general information
basic categories
provide medium information
subordinate categories
provide specific information
what categories do children learn first?
basic categories
objects at the basic level
have obvious similarities
objects at the superordinate level
have similarities are less obvious
objects at the subordinate level
have differences that are hard to detect
critcism of the nativist view
Over-estimates infants’ innate cognitive understanding
findings of nativist studies can instead be explained by:
- perceptual features of stimuli
- learning from the environment
perceptual features of stimuli
infants may look longer at certain stimuli because they are more visually interesting and not because they understand the concept being tested
learning from the environment
3-month-olds have learned a lot about the world in about 810 hours of awake time
3 Views of Learning about the Physical World
- Piaget’s View
- Nativist View
- Learning View
how do children learn from the environment
- Children actively learn from the environment on their own
- Caregivers play a role in children’s learning by determining the quality of the home environment
examples of children learning from the environment on their own
- Trial and error
- Statistical learning
statistical learning
Forming associations between stimuli that occur in predictable patterns
statistical learning is an example of _____
observational learning
statistical learning study design
habituation paradigm with 2-month-olds
statistical learning study method
habituated infants to sequences of 3 pairs of shapes. The first shape in a pair always came before the second shape in the pair
statistical learning study test
- presented infants with a familiar sequence and a novel sequence
- Familiar sequence: the same pair of shapes
- Novel sequence: randomly ordering the same shapes (no pattern)
statistical learning study results
2-month-olds looked longer at the novel sequence, suggesting that they had learned the order of shapes in the habituation phase
statistical learning study takeaway
Evidence that infants are sensitive to statistical regularities in their environment
implications of statistical learning
- Babies actively interpret the world around them and draw conclusions
- Statistical learning is innate and domain-general (mechanisms through which infants learn in various domains)
- Contrast with the nativist theory, which asserts the existence of innate, domain-specific learning mechanisms
Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME)
- The gold standard for measuring the home environment
- Researchers visit a child’s home, observe the environment and interview the caregiver
how is HOME formatted?
Checklist of characteristics that reflect 2 factors
2 factors reflected in HOME
parenting quality & stimulation of the environment
parenting quality
responsiveness, acceptance, and involvement
stimulation of the environment
variety and presence of interesting toys
what do high scores on HOME indicate?
higher quality home environment
what do high HOME scores predict?
positively predict children’s cognitive skills and development (IQ, Math and reading comprehension, and Language ability)
what is the most important factor in HOME?
parenting quality
factors influencing home environment
SES and culture
SES and home environment
low SES is associated with a lower-quality home environment
culture and home environment
- Determines the specific contents of what a child learns
- The process through which children learn is universal
- Children everywhere benefit from accepting/involved parents and stimulating environments
development of our understanding of the physical world (nativist view)
- 2 months: statistical learning
- 3 months: understand that solid objects can’t go through other objects, object permanence, understanding of gravity, understanding of basic categories (dog vs. cat)
- 6 months: have ANS for 2:1 ratios, understand superordinate categories (mammals vs. non-mammals)
- 9 months: have ANS for 3:2 ratios
- 12 months: form categories by shape
- 2-3 years: form category hierarchies
