cognitive development - PD

• principles of piaget's stage theory

  • schemes
  • adaptation
  • equilibration
  • organisation
• principles of piaget's stage theory

  schemes?

  • knowledge structure used to interpret the world
  • modified through experience
• principles of piaget's stage theory

  adaptation?

  assimilation + accomodation
• assimilation: adapt incoming information to fit knowledge
• accommodation: adapt knowledge to fit incoming information
• principles of piaget's stage theory:

  • equilibration?

  assimilation-accommodation balance
• principles of piaget's stage theory:

  organisation?

  process of linking schemas
• piaget's stage theory of cognitive development:

  sensoritmotor stage?

  0-2 years

  fails to differentiate between self and surroundings
• cognitive development]

  A) sensorimotor

  B) preoperational

  C) concrete operational

  D) 7-11

  E) formal operational

  
• piaget's stage theory of cog development

  preoperational stage?

  2-7 years

  symbolic representation without principled thought
• piaget's stage theory of cog development

  concrete operational stage?

  7-11 years

  principled thought confined to real, immediate problems
• piaget stage theory of cog development

  formal operational ?

  11 years

  abstract reasoning
• the information processing approach

  • IPA has been recently applied to study of cognitive development
  • modern view: thinking is information processing
• the information processing approach

  similarities with piaget's theory?

  • identify children's cognitive limitations and abilities at different ages
  • determine what aspect of cognition develops and how
• information processing approach:

  major differences:

  IPA

  • focuses on children's information processing limitations
  • allows more detailed analysis of changes in cognitive ability
  • stems from model of adult cognition
• IPA highlights how cognition develops:

  attention

  • children become better able to attend to important features of a task
  • vurpilot (1968)
  • showed 3 - 9 year olds 2 slightly different pictures
  • asked to say whether same/different
  • recorded eye movements
  • 6 years and older: attended to all important features
  • younger children showed attentional limitations
• IPA

  memory development

  memory encoding strategies improve with age

  flavell et al

  • 5, 7 and 10 year olds shown 7 pictures
  • experimenter pointed to 3 pictures
  • task: 15 sec delay; point to the same 3 pictures in the same order
  • all 10 yr olds rehearsed, .50% of y 7r olds, 10% of 5 yr olds
  • all children who rehearsed were more accurate
• IPA reexamination of Piaget's findings

  Byrant and trabasso

  • hypothesised : transitive inference errors are due to memory limits
  • piagets errors due to forgetting relevant info, not lack of reasioning
• encoding limitations

  e..g. (2X3 ; may encode x as +)
• computation limitations (e.g. no multiplication rule in LTM)
• Ways in which children’s cognition may be limited

  Brainerd

  • Encoding limitations (e.g : 2x3 ; may encode x as + )
  • Computation limitations (e.g. no multiplication rule in LTM)
  • Retrieval limitations (e.g. failure to retrieve multiplication rule)
  • Workspace limitations (WM too small to hold all necessary info)
  • Storage limitations (unable to maintain necessary info in WM)
• Retrieval limitations (e.g. failure to retrieve multiplication rule
• brainerd - childrens limited cog

  workspace limitations : (WM too small to hold all necessary info)
• brainerd - childrens limited cog

  Storage limitations (unable to maintain necessary info in WM)
• Rigorous IPA reexamination of Piaget’s findings

  Brainerd reexamined Piaget’s work rigorously

  Piaget & Inhelder (1951)

  • Probability judgment task 4 & 5yr olds shown 10 picture tokens: 7x rabbit, 3x horse
  • Hid tokens, picked one out, asked child ‘what picture will it be?’
  • Repeated 5 times
  • Piaget found children did not consistently respond ‘rabbit’
  • Piaget

  concluded that errors result from limitations of reasoning
• Brainerd

  Can Piaget's findings be explained in terms of IP limitations?

  Found children accurate on 1st trial: i.e. can encode correctly

  Hypothesis: Storage limitation?

  Repeat with second set of identical tokens in view

  No effect
• information processing approach

  neo-piagetian theory

  how does Working Memory become more efficient?

  1. Brain maturation
  2. automatisation
  3. 3. formation of central conceptual structures
• • neo-piagetian theory

  Maturation

  • myelination
  • new neural connections formed between each stage
  • increase in WM size?
  • older children have larger digit span (size vs strategies)
• neo-piagetian theory - how does VM become more efficient

  2) automatisation

  • results from practice; repeated use of schemas
  • schemes demand less attention, freeing up WM space
• neo-piagetian theory

  how does WM become more efficient?

  3) formation of 'central conceptual structures'

  • once schemes are sufficiently automatic, they are organised into more efficient structures
  • allows more advanced ways of thinking in many situations
  • e.g. conservation structure
  • child automises schemes from various conservation tasks
  • eventually forms a structure representing the general principle
• Neo-Piagetian Theory - Noelting's Juice Problem (1980)

  Objective: Investigate cognitive development stages in children.

  Method: Examined strategies in solving a juice-related problem.

  Age Groups: 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, and 9-10.

  Findings: Distinct stages identified with evolving problem-solving strategies.

  Working Memory: Strategies progressed with age, utilizing increasing working memory capacity.

  Example: 3-4 yrs: Single-location search; 5-6 yrs: Compared juice glasses in different locations.

  Significance: Illustrates cognitive developmental progression in children's problem-solving.
• evaluation of neo-piagetian theory

  • case theory can explain how piagetian achievements (e.g. conservation) occur at different ages"
  • stages are revealed by tasks that make progressively greater demands on WM resources
  • has been useful in teaching children specific tasks
• cognitive evolution theory (siegler)

  • argues :
  • focusing on stages ignores important periods of change
  • need to study development at a fine scale: stage theories miss important features
  • tasks like Noelting focus on progression from one strategy to the next
  • other tasks who child trying multiple strategies
• Cognitive evolution theory

  Siegler + Robinson (1982)

  • Examined 4 & 5yr olds on arithmetic problems; ‘1+2?’
  • Repeated experiment 6 times
  • Children used the following strategies:
  • 1)put up fingers then count them out loud
  • 2) put up fingers then count them mentally
  • 3) count out loud without putting up fingers
  • 4) retrieve answer from memory
  • Found most children use between 2-4 strategies
  • Alternate between more and less complex strategies
• cognitive evolution theory

  • the theory argues multiple strategies compete until most successful one is selected
  • transition is subtle- child may tolerate errors of simple strategies
  • social interaction is one way a child can come to choose most successful strategy
• conclusions of cog evaluation theory

  • despite criticisms, piagets theory remains influential
  • neo-piagetian theoriest have worked towards integrating Piaget's theory with a modern IP theory of cognition
  • IP highlights important avenues for developmental research
  • research on evolution strategies highlights the utility of fine-scale examination of development absent in traditional approaches
  • IP approach is only well suited to tasks where steps in processing are well-defined. currently has little to say about social factors