Piaget: Cognitive Development

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Piaget Cognitive Development
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Some recurring questions...

• How can we find out what infants and children are
  thinking?
• How is a childs thinking different from an
  adults?
• Does nature or nurture have more influence on
  childrens development?
• Can a childs rate of development be accelerated?

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Jean Piaget (1896-1980)

• The first person to study cognitive development
  scientifically and systematically.
• The most influential theory of cognitive
  development.

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ADAPTATION SCHEMA

• The process by which the child changes its mental
  models of the world to match more closely how the
  world actually is. Piaget argued that children
  actively construct knowledge themselves as they
  interact with new objects or experiences.

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Cognitive development
As the child gets older its schemas become...
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Cognitive development
The childs understanding develops because...
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Sources of Continuity

• Three processes work together from birth to
  propel development forward
• Assimilation The process by which people
  translate incoming information into a form they
  can understand
• Accommodation The process by which people adapt
  current knowledge structures in response to new
  experiences
• Equilibration The process by which people
  balance assimilation and accommodation to create
  stable understanding

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Discontinuities

• The discontinuous aspects of Piagets theory are
  distinct, hierarchical stages
• Central properties of Piagets stage theory
• Qualitative change
• Broad applicability across topics and contexts
• Brief transitions
• Invariant sequence
• Hypothesized that children progress through four
  stages of cognitive development, each building on
  the previous one

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Stage Theories

• Development is discontinuous
• Each stage is qualitatively distinct
• The sequence is universal and invariant
• Piaget said that childrens cognitive development
  unfolds in stages.
• These statements are true of all stage theories
  of development. What might they mean as applied
  to cognitive development?
• What does a stage theory imply about development?

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Gradualist vs. Stage theories
Psychological attribute
How might the line representing a stage theory be
different?
Time
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A Constructivist Approach

• Jean Piagets theory remains the standard against
  which all other theories are judged
• Often labeled constructivist because it depicts
  children as constructing knowledge for themselves
• Children are seen as
• Active
• Learning many important lessons on their own
• Intrinsically motivated to learn

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Piagets stage theory

• Childrens ability to understand, think about and
  solve problems in the world develops in a
  stop-start manner.
• At each stage of development, the childs
  thinking is qualitatively different from the
  other stages.
• All children go through the same stages in the
  same order (but not all at the same rate)

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Piagets Stage Theory of Cognitive Development
Stage Stage Characteristics Typical Age
Sensorimotor stage Substages 1-3 Ability to deal with situations is limited to i) Having sensations and producing actions ii) The here and now 0-8 months
Sensorimotor stage Substages 4-6 Intentional actions emerge trial and error behaviour object concept object permanence develops simple pretend play language acquisition 8-24 months
Preoperational stage Preconceptual period Symbolic thought develops egocentrism animism centration 2-4 years
Preoperational stage Intuitive period Judgements based on appearance not logical thought less egocentric unable to conserve 4-7 years
Concrete operational stage Concrete operational stage Conservation seriation transitivity class inclusion 7-11 years
Formal operational stage Formal operational stage Abstract concepts hypothetical thinking flexibility in thinking 12 years
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Sensorimotor stage(0-2 years)

• In the first stage, the child thinks by sensing
  (sensori-) and by performing actions on
  (-motor) the world around it.
• It does not think by manipulating mental
  representations, like an adult does.
• Characterised by profound egocentrism. Does not
  distinguish between itself and the environment.
• Lack of object permanence. (Piaget argued object
  permanence starts to develop around 8 months)

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General Symbolic Function

• During the sensorimotor stage a range of
  cognitive abilities develop. These include
• Object permanence
• Self-recognition
• Deferred imitation
• Representational play
• They relate to the emergence of the general
  symbolic function, which is the capacity to
  represent the world mentally

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Object permanence

• Objects are tied to infants awareness of them
• out of sight, out of mind
• Hidden toy experiment
• 4 months no attempt to search for hidden object
• 4-9 months visual search for object
• 9 months search for and retrieve hidden object
• A-not-B task (Diamond, 1985)
• 9 months A/B error after 1/2 second delay
• 12 months 10 second delay needed to produce
  error

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Object permanence
Typical age Search behaviour
Before 8m Does not search for hidden object at all.
8-12m Searches for hidden object in initial hiding place even if the object is moved to a second hiding place while the child watches (the A not B error)
12-18m Searches in most recent hiding place.
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Object permanence

• Peekaboo is played across diverse cultures
  (Fernald ONeill, 1993). Recorded in as diverse
  communities as the US, Japan and Africa.
• 3-5 months babies laughs and smiles as the
  adults face moves in and out of view
• 5-8 months baby shows anticipation.
• 12 months babies start to imitate the game
  then it is the adult who acts more like an idiot.

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Piagets Sensorimotor

• According to Piaget the journey from reflex
  behaviour to thought is long and slow. For 18
  months or so, babies learn only from their
  movements (according to Piaget) and do not make
  the breakthrough to conceptual thought until
  18-24 months.
• Modern tools and simplified tasks suggest infants
  master conceptual thought earlier. What Piaget
  saw as inability may have been due to immature
  linguistic and motor skills.
• Infants more cognitively competent than Piaget
  envisioned. He may have been mistaken with his
  emphasis on motor skills as the prime engine of
  cognitive growth.

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Pre-operational stage (2 years 7 years)-
Cognitive advances

• Understands use of symbols ability to use
  symbols or mental representations without cues.
  Able to use numbers, words, images where the
  person has attached meaning. Also pretend
  play/fantasy play begins.
• Understanding objects in space understand scale
  models, maps and the objects or spaces they
  represent. In the mal experiment 90 of 5 year
  olds 60 of 4 year olds able to successfully
  find objects.
• Understanding causality while Piaget argued
  that children link two events simply because they
  occur close in time and not because of any sense
  of cause and effect relationship evidence
  suggests that children DO have a sense of cause
  and effect.

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Pre-operational stage (2 years 7 years)-
Cognitive advances

• Understanding identities and categorisation the
  idea that people and many things are essentially
  the same even if they change form, size or
  appearance. Ability to determine the difference
  between living and non-living things (the
  difference between a rock, a person and a doll).
  Also learn to label people as good or bad etc
• Understanding Number by age 4, most children
  have words for comparing quantities

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Pre-operational stage (2 years 7 years)-
Immature aspects

• Egocentrism
• Failure to understand CONSERVATION
• Lack THEORY OF MIND
• Failure to recognise FALSE BELIEFS
• Unable to distinguish between Appearance and
  Reality
• Difficulty distinguishing between Fantasy and
  Reality

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Pre-operational stage(2 years 7 years)
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Pre-operational stage(2 years 7 years)
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Egocentric Conversations
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Procedures Used to Test Conservation
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Theory of mind Sally anne
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PIAget concrete operational

• Children learn to carry out concrete operations
  logical manipulation of objects cause and
  effect and other relationships between objects
• Categorisation arrange objects in a series
  according to one or more dimensions Class
  inclusion (10 flowers 7 roses, 3 carnations
  are there more roses than flowers? Say roses
  because they compare roses with carnations rather
  than looking at the entire bunch.
• Inductive reasoning (my dog barks, Doriss dog
  barks, all dogs bark)
• Spatial thinking can use a map to find a hidden
  object can estimate distance to get from one
  place to another
• Number/math can work out simple story problems

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Piaget formal operational

• Capacity for Abstract Thought
• Use symbols to represent other symbols (x 8)
• Appreciate allegory and metaphor
• Think in terms of what might be rather than what
  is
• Hypothetical-deductive thinking the pendulum
  problem
• Piaget believed that the attainment of the formal
  operational stage in contrast to other stages is
  not universal

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Inhelder and Piagets Pendulum Problem

• The task is to compare the motions of longer and
  shorter strings, with lighter and heavier weights
  attached, in order to determine the influence of
  weight, string length, and dropping point on the
  time it takes for the pendulum to swing back and
  forth
• Children below age 12 usually perform
  unsystematic experiments and draw incorrect
  conclusions

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Critique of Piagets Theory

• Although Piagets theory remains highly
  influential, some weaknesses are now apparent
• The stage model depicts childrens thinking as
  being more consistent than it is
• Infants and young children are more cognitively
  competent than Piaget recognized
• Object permanence in 3-month-olds (Bower, 1974)
• Number conservation in 4 year olds (McGarrigle
  Donaldson, 1974)

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Critique of Piagets Theory

• Piagets theory understates the contribution of
  the social world to cognitive development
• Piagets tasks are culturally biased
• Schooling and literacy affect rates of
  development
• e.g. Greenfields study of the Wolof
• Formal operational thinking is not universal
• e.g. Gladwins study of the Polynesian islanders
• Piagets theory is vague about the cognitive
  processes that give rise to childrens thinking
  and about the mechanisms that produce cognitive
  growth