Cognition and development

• What did Baillargeon suggest?

  Children are born with an innate knowledge of the physical world

  Babies' difficulty in Piaget's task was due to a lack of motor skills or distractibility

  Humans are born with a physical reasoning system (PRS) that becomes more sophisticated as we learn from experience
• What is object persistence?

  Objects remain in existence and their structure does not spontaneously change when out of view
• What does Baillaregeons research suggest?

  Piaget underestimated the cognitive abilities of children
• What are violation of expectation studies?

  An infant sees an expected event that is consistent with expectations and an unexpected / impossible event that violates expectations
• What was Baillargeon and Graber (1987) and what did it suggest?

  • Infants aged 5 -6 months
  • Expected event - short rabbit not seen in the gap when passing, tall rabbit seen
  • Unexpected/impossible - neither rabbit seen in the gap
  • Found infants looked at the impossible event for 33 seconds vs. 25 seconds in the expected event

  This was interpreted as they were surprised at the impossible event

  Suggests young infants have an understanding of object permanence
• What is knowledge of the psychological world?

  Idea that infants can anticipate people's actions by considering what they are thinking
• What was Song and Baillargeon (2008) and what does it suggest?

  Used violation of expectation to test false beliefs of others

  • Infants saw a woman show preference to a doll by repeatedly choosing it over a skunk toy
  • Woman looked away and toys put in boxes which baby saw
  • Skunk in a box with pigtails sticking out and doll in a plain box
  • 14.5 months showed surprise if woman went to the box with the doll

  Therefore the infants must have thought the woman would mistake the box with pigtails to contain the doll

  Suggests infants have an early knowledge of the psychological world
• What is equilibrium?

  Schemas accurately define the world around us
• What is assimilation?

  Acquiring new understanding and successfully incorporating new information into an existing schema
• What is disequilibrium?

  Unsuccessfully applying existing schema information to a new situation and discomfort arises
• What is accommodation?

  Modification to schemas when disequilibrium occurs to take new information into account

  This makes schemas more advanced
• What is equilibration?

  Disequilibrium leads to the driving force which is equilibration to carry out accommodation or create a new schema that better explains the new situation
• What opposing support is there for Piaget's "blank slate" theory?


  Evidence for infants being born with innate schemas

  Fantz (1961) - infants showed a preference for a schematic face

  Baillargeon - found infants much younger than 8 months to have evidence of object permanence
• What might Piaget have underplayed and how?

  Importance of language

  Piaget saw it as a result of development, while others such as Vygotsky saw it as necessary for development

  However

  Sinclair-de-Zwart taught appropriate verbal skills to non-conservers, but they were still unable to conserve, supporting Piaget's ideas
• What might have Piaget overemphasised the importance of?

  Equilibration

  Children's motivation to learn varies, so their motivation to relieve the discomfort or feeling the discomfort from disequilibrium varies

  Conclusions might be reflective of a biased sample of children from a university creche as their parents may be biologically more inclined to learn
• What are the applications for Piaget's ideas about children's learning?

  Discovery learning - children work things out themselves to form their schemas

  However

  Criticised as a method - Bennett (1976) found formal teaching led to more success in English and maths
• What are Piaget's 4 stages of development?

  Sensorimotor

  Pre-operational

  Concrete operational

  Formal operational
• What is the sensorimotor stage?

  0 - 2 years

  Exploring the world with basic schemas such as sucking and grasping

  Sub stages:

  • 0 - 8 months - child operates in the present only
  • 8 - 24 months - start to develop thought, actions become intentional and trial and error learning occurs

  Key cognitive skill: Object permanence, develops at about 8 months
• What is the key research for the Sensorimotor stage?

  Piaget's blanket study

  • Put a toy under a blanket while the child looks
  • Children look under the blanket from 8 months - shows object permanence
  • When the toy is moved to a different place, children looked in the correct place from 12 months

  Bower and Wishart (1972)

  • Children may have been confused by adult moving toy
  • Turned lights out while child was playing
  • 1 - 4 months would search for it up to 90 seconds
  • Therefore, Piaget may have underestimated the age object permanence develops
• What is the Pre-operational stage?

  2 - 6/7 years

  Reliant on what they see only

  2 substages:

  • Preconceptual period (2 - 4) - can use words and symbols to represent things, egocentric and show evidence of centration
  • Intuitive period (4 - 7) - Egocentrism starts to diminish, but conservation is not demonstrated
• What is egocentrism?

  Inability to see another's perspective
• What is centration?


  Tendency to attend to one aspect of a problem, object, or situation at a time, to the exclusion of others
• What is conservation?

  Realising the amount or volume of material remains the same even if redistributed
• What is the concrete operational stage?

  7 - 11 years

  Children can perform mental operations, but only on actual things and are incapable of abstract thought

  Key cognitive skill: Class inclusion - being able to categorise things and realising things can be in more than one category
• What is the key research for the Concrete operational stage?

  Piaget and Szeminska beads study

  • 20 wooden beads - 18 brown, 2 white
  • Asked "Are they all wooden?", "Are there more brown or white?", "Are there more brown or wooden?"
  • Children only answered the brown or wooden question right when in the concrete operational stage

  McGarrigle cows study

  • 4 cows on their side - 3 black, 1 white
  • Asked 6 year olds " more black cows or cows?" - 25% correct
  • "more black cows or sleeping cows?" - 48% correct
  • Children can develop class inclusion at an earlier age if the task is made easier
• What is the Formal Operational stage?

  11+ years

  Children can perform operations on both concrete and abstract situations

  Key skill developed: hypothetical thinking
• What is the key research for the Formal Operational stage?

  Inhelder and Piaget 4 beakers

  • Children given liquid and 4 beakers, had to figure out the combination to make a yellow liquid
  • Pre-operational stage - mixed liquids at random
  • Concrete operational stage - trial and error, stopped when problem solved
  • Formal operational - systematically tried all possible combinations
• What are the evaluation points for Piaget's 4 stages?

  Underestimation of children's abilities

  Validity of stages

  Cross-cultural applicability

  Validity of discovery learning

  Methodological concerns
• Why may Piaget have underestimated children's abilities in his 4 stages theory?

  Many studies have shown children to be more advanced at a younger age than what Piaget said e.g. Baillargeon

  Suggests Piaget's stages aren't completely accurate
• Why is there a question of the cross-cultural applicability of Piaget's stages?


  Research was done on western participants meaning the results may not be representative, and the focus was on intellect over basic concrete operations (e.g. making things) that would be more valued in other cultures and classes

  In some cultures, babies are primarily carried on their mother's back. This physical contact and varied stimuli affects how they perceive their environment and and their sense of object permanence
• What is the question of the validity of discovery learning?

  Bennett (1976) - found formal teaching to have more successful outcomes in English and maths

  Suggests not all implications of Piaget's theory are accurate or fully applicable
• What are the methodological concerns of Piaget's findings?


  Used small and unrepresentative samples

  Did not standardise methodology

  Tasks may have been too difficult, therefore giving inaccurate findings

  Research therefore lacks internal and ecological validity
• What is the key research into egocentrism (pre-operational stage)?

  Piaget's three mountains task

  • 3 mountains and a doll
  • Children asked which picture showed what the doll could see
  • Age 4 - showed egocentrism - always chose their view
  • Age 6 - chose a different perspective, but not always the correct one
  • Age 7 - 8 - chose correct picture

  Hughes policeman task

  • Argued Piaget's task was too difficult
  • Policeman doll placed at various points with X frame, child said if doll could be seen by policeman, then hid doll from policeman
  • 90% of 3.5 year olds managed, showing a lack of egocentrism
• What is the key research into conservation (concrete operational stage)?

  Piaget's conservation of liquid study

  McGarrigle and Donaldson counters study
• What was Piaget's conservation of liquid study?

  • 2 beakers of liquid with equal volume, child asked if they were the same
  • Water from one beaker was transferred to a tall, thin beaker, child asked the same question
  • Most children less than 7 thought there was more in the tall beaker, showing lack of conservation before the concrete operational stage
• What was McGarrigle and Donaldson's counter study?

  Moving water in Piaget's study may have confused children and thought something was done to the water

  McGarrigle and Donaldson

  • Children shown 2 rows of counters
  • 16% researcher vs. 62% naughty teddy correct identification of conservation of number (same number of counters in both rows)

  Suggests Piaget's results may have been de to errors in methodology and children are actually able to conserve at a younger age
• What was Selman's theory?

  Stages of perspective-taking

  Research of response to scenarios showed a stage of perspective-taking correlated with age - shows a clear developmental sequence

  However

  Correlation does not equal causation
• What are the 5 stages of Selman's theory?

  Undifferentiated

  Social-informative

  Self-reflective

  Mutual

  Societal
• What is Baillargeon's approach?

  Nativist

  Suggests all children are born with an innate knowledge of the physical world
• What did Baillargeon suggest about Piaget's tasks?

  Infants struggled with the task due to a lack of motor control or distractibility