Piaget Flashcards
What is Cognition?
How we think about things, the way we understand our world
What was Piaget interested in?
Genetic epistemology - genesis of knowledge
What two main cognitive structures do we acquire?
Mental schemata and concepts
What is schemata?
A mental representation of an action which includes knowledge and experience we have acquired relating to that action
What are concepts?
Rules that describe the properties of environmental events and how they relate to other concepts
What is assimilation?
When a schema is adapted to other subjects but isn’t changed
What is equilibrium?
The process of adapting schemata without any real change
How do we learn schemata and concepts?
Disequilibrium, Accommodation and Equlibriation
What is Disequilibrium?
Coming across an object for which the existing schema is a poor fit
What is accomodation?
Process of changing an existing schema
What is equilibrium between?
disequilibrium and accommodation.
What are the 4 stages of Cognitive Development?
Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete operations, Formal operations
What happens in Stage 1?
Discovery of relations between sensation and motor behaviour - familiarity with objects
What happens in Stage 2?
Use of symbols to represent objects
internally, especially through language - evidence of thinking abstractly
What happens in Stage 3?
Mastery of “logic” and development
of rational thinking - Flexibility
What happens in Stage 4?
Development of abstract thinking and hypothetical reasoning - conservation
What are the features of preoperational thought?
Symbolism, Egocentrism, Inability to engage in operations
What are the 3 ways to promote conservation?
Compensation, reversibility and identity
What is conservation?
A recognition that some properties of objects remain fundamentally unchanged despite a change in external appearance
What methodological concerns are there?
Use of case studies, natural observations
What criticisms are there?
Under estimation of ages - object permanence min 8-9 months
What is object permanence?
Children understanding something continues to exist even if not perceptually visible
What did Gelman argue about conservation?
Children judging here and now not what happened before
What did Rose and Blank find about Conservation?
Form of questioning may be misleading, problems finding age of conservation
What criticisms are there of Rose and Blank?
Difficult to assess how each stage derives from previous, development beyond adolescence
