Theories Flashcards
Epistemology
Cognitive development
Cognition
Asks questions about where our knowledge comes from and how it changes/develops
Answers these questions by studying how our thinking and knowledge develop as we mature
- Changes in our thinking and knowledge ocer time
The mental process of obtaining knowledge thru thought and experience
Plato - Nativism
Aristotle - Empiricism
We’re born with innate knowledge (Cognitive development is just brain maturation)
Whole world appears to us directly as a whole made up of objects
We’re born as blank slates
We gain knowledge from experience
Jean Piaget - Constructivism
Combo of nativism and empiricism
Development of child’s thinking is a bio adaptation to enviro
Child is active participant in development of knowledge
How does constructivism relate and differ from nativism and empiricism?
Nativism:
- Universal and biologically constrained
- BUT driven by adaption and environmental interaction, not maturation and inheritance
Empiricism:
- Knowledge develops thru interaction w/ enviro
- BUT existing knowledge shapes access to new knowledge and cog devel involves qualitative change (instead of just increase in quantitative associations)
How does an infant adapt w/ constructivism? (3)
Assimilation: You see something and match it w/ an existing schema
(Seeing a new dog breed and matching it w/ dog schema bcuz of similar features)
Accommodation: Schemas are adjusted/refined to differentiate from other schemas
(Realizing cat is not a dog despite similar features and adding more features to dog schema)
Equilibriation
What are the features of Piaget’s stage theory? (5)
Has 4 stages
Invariant sequence (Order of stages will not vary, ages may)
Discrete stages (Qualitative diffs between stages)
Cumulative (Current knowledge builds on existing ones)
Universal (Everyone has these stages)
Describe the 6 substages of the sensorimotor stage regarding object permanence
(Piaget’s stage theory)
1) 0-1 months
- No concept if objects or external world
- Reflexive grasping/sucking
2) 1-4 months
- Begins to recognize objects
- Visual tracking of objects
- Circular reactions of grasping/sucking/looking/listening (choosing to do these things helps them get better at it)
3) 4-8 months
- Objects exist when visible
- Reaching for visible objects only
4) 8-12 months
- Pairing of objects and actions
- Reach for hidden objects
- A not B errors (Reaches for most recent/common place an object is found despite seeing it be put somewhere else)
5) 12-18 months
- Failure to consider hidden movements of objects
- Correct in A not B tasks
- Fail invisible displacement tasks (Can’t believe object under something else is moving with it)
6) 18+ months
- Hidden objects continue to exist and can be tracked thru space
- Follow hidden trajectory
- More adult-like behav
Describe the 4 stages of Piaget’s stage theory
Sensorimotor: 0-2 years
- Sensory experiences and motor reflexes only
- No symbolic rep and knowledge is only sensation or action
- Ends w/ capacity of object permanence, pretend play, mean-end behaviours
Pre-operational: 6-7 years
- Synbomic abilities
- Egocentric (Struggles to see perspective of others)
- Predictable errors in conservation, class inclusion, transivity
Concrete operational: 7-11/12 years
- Think w/ logical structures
- Succeed in perceptual logical reasoning tasks
- Struggle w/ abstraction and hypotheticals
Formal operational: 12+ years
- Capable of hypothetical and abstract reasoning
- Capable of scientific reasoning and creating alternative hypotheses
Explain the 3 errors in the pre-operational stage (Piaget):
Conservation
Class inclusion
Transivity
Believes that amount changes when shape changes
- Pouring liquid into larger glass, belief that there’s less water
- Spreading out coins, belief that there are more coins
Tends to say there’s more of a subcategory of an object than the total amount of that object
“Are there more yellow flowers or flowers?”
Can’t identify relationships based on past info
“If A>B and B>C, what is the relationship between A and C?”
What is object permanence?
Objects…
- Have substance
- Maintain their identity when moved
- Continue to exist when out of sight
Indicator of capacity for representation
Problems with Piaget’s stage theory
Relied too much on action as indicator of understanding (Underestimated capabilities of infants and children)
- Eye contact might be way of communicating help instead of just losing interest in object
Children’s performance not universally consistent or stage-like
No consideration of social/cultural diffs
- May cause inconsistency or development may be more continuous
Underspecification of mechanisms involved in assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium
Describe the deductive reasoning task and how the concrete operational and formal operational stages differ in responses
Task explains 2 scenarios:
- Hammer breaks vase
- Feather breaks vase
Concrete - Can’t understand abstract rules that don’t match their belief
- Can’t believe feather breaks vase
Formal - Can understand abstract rules and conform to their laws despite not matching previous knowledge
- Because the rule in the world is that feathers can break glass, the vase will break if a feather hits it
