Cognition and development

• How is disequilibrium created?
• What creates motivation to learn?
• This occurs when new experiences that are radically different from our existing schemas are used to create new or completely change our existing schemas
• Piaget proposed the theory of maturation- the idea that children do not know less than adults, but that they think differently from them, and when they grow older, the way that they think changes
• This a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two given or assumed propositions. E.g. ‘All yellow cats have two heads. I have a yellow cat called Charlie. How many heads does Charlie have?’ The answer would be two, which can be inferred from the information given
• Describe Piaget and Inhelder’s 1956 study on
• Motivation to learn is created when disequilibrium arises, to try and reduce this children learn new things with the hope that the new information they learn can be assimilated to increase their understanding
• List Piaget’s four stages of Intellectual Development
• Piaget’s four stages of Intellectual Development

  • Sensorimotor (0-2 years)
  • Pre-operational (2-7 years)
  • Concrete (7-11 years)
  • Formal Operations (11+)
• Define class inclusion
• When does accommodation occur?
• What is a syllogism?
• Explain Piaget’s theory of maturation
• This is the idea that classifications have subsets
• It is created when existing schemas are insufficient in helping a child make sense of the world around them. This can also occur when new situations not inline with schemas that are encountered
• What are mirror neurons?
• Learning occurs through observation of what is around us. Depending on where an individual is from, they will have different experiences, causing various types of learning
• Progressive strategies used to scaffold learning

  • Demonstration
  • Preparation for child
  • Indication of materials
  • Specific verbal instruction
  • General Prompting
• Describe Piaget and Inhelder’s 1956 study on egocentrism
• Children in the study were shown model mountains with different features- either a cross, a house or snow. Those of the children that were in the preoperational stage found it difficult to select a picture that showed a view contrary to their own
• Describe Baillargeon and Graber’s study
• How are cultural differences in learning explained?
• ZPD stands for the Zone of Proximal Development and is a stage which is the gap between current capabilities and knowledge, and future knowledge and capabilities
• What is the ZPD?
• Med propositions

  • All yellow cats have two heads
  • I have a yellow cat called Charlie. How many heads does Charlie have?
• Wood’s features of scaffolding

  • Recruitment
  • Reduction in degrees of freedom
  • Direction Maintenance
• Infants were shown a short or a tall rabbit passing behind a screen with a window. The rabbit could only be seen passing the window if they were tall, but not if they were short (possible situation). In an impossible condition, neither rabbit could be seen. The infants looked at the possible situation for a shorter time than the impossible situation, this was presumed to be because they were surprised at the impossible
• According to Ramachandran and Oberman (2006), having a damaged mirror system can lead to ASD as individuals are unable to imitate and understand the social behavior of others
• PRS stands for Physical Reasoning System and is an innate system proposed by Baillargeon that helps us learn details of the physical world more quickly
• Selman’s levels of perspective taking

  • Social Information Role Taking
  • Self-reflective role-taking
  • Mutual role-talking
• Strategies used to scaffold learning

  1. Demonstration

  2. Preparation for child

  3. Indication of materials

  4. Specific verbal instruction

  5. General Prompting
• Violation of expectation research is used to investigate infant abilities by comparing reactions to expected and unexpected events to make inferences about cognitive capabilities
• Mirror neurons are neurons that respond to the activity of other neurons
• Piaget


  suggest children reason differently from adults, see the world in different ways. Cognition development was a result of maturation and interaction with the environment.
• Schemas


  mental structures containing knowledge about the world.

  Some may represent a group of related concepts. (schema for dog - wet nose, fur...)

  
  

  Can be behavioural (grasping an object) or Cognitive (classifying objects) or social (Schema for a event or person)

  
  

  - They are 'programs' people construct for dealing with the world.

  - Children are born with a small number of schemas and in infancy develop new ones from interaction with the environment.

  - New experiences lead to new and more complex schemas being developed.

  
  

  Develop through process of adaption..
• Assimilation


  Applying an extra schema to a new situation or object.

  
  

  When faced with new information, compare it to info already have to try fit it into info you already have.
• Accomodation


  Forming a new schema distinct from the existing schema.

  
  

  Exists because existing schema has to change because incoming information conflicts with what is already known - disequilibrium.
• Equilibrium and Disequilibrium


  Driving force behind adaption - principle of equilibration. A mental balance between what is already known and incoming info.

  - Occurs when a child's schema can deal with most new info through assimilation

  - an unpleasant state of disequilibrium can occur when new info cannot be fitted into existing schemas.

  - Equilibrium drives learning process, do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering new challenge - accomodation.
• Evaluation : Piaget Schemas and Cognitive Theory - Supporting Research / Innate Schemas

  Evidence to support theory some schemas are innate.

  Fantz - Studies 2 month old babies, put display board above them with two pictures attached.

  A sketch of a human face and a bullseye.

  Babies spent 2x as long looking at the human face.

  Human babies have innate schemas for facial recognition.

  Hunt - babies at 3 months can tell difference between members of their families.
• Evaluation : Piaget Schemas and Cognitive Theory - Debate - Nature/Nurture

  Explains cognitive development through the combined interaction of nature and nurture.

  Piaget believed cognitive development was a result of nature - and that as a child becomes older (biological maturation) - certain mental processes become possible, and through nurture, as children interact with the environment, their understanding of the world becomes more complex.