Cognitive development 2

• Criticisms of Piaget

  • Competence or performance?
  • Does development really occur in stages?
  • Concepts of assimilation and accommodation are too vague
  • Definitions of how infants transition between stages are too vague
  • Proposed universality of stages (Rogoff, 1998) - in some cases children progress faster or progress differently without some stages
  • Development may not be domain general (Gopnik & Wellman, 1994)
• They have shown that his findings can be replicated but younger children can achieve greater success with modified versions of the tasks (Beilin, 1971, 1978)
• Little evidence for distinct ‘stages’, with development now believed to be more gradual than stage-like (Flavell, 1992)
• Empirical Evidence: Criticism of Piaget’s stage theory
• Post-Piaget: Stage 1


  1. Baillargeon & De Vos (1991) – young infants at a much younger age understand the properties of the surrounding world

  2. Experiment 1: 3.5 month infants demonstrate understanding of object permanence, height & trajectory. Look longer at tall carrot & short screen

  3. Experiment 2: 4 month infants demonstrate surprise when car can move through obstacle (mouse)
• Post-Piaget: Stage 2 Preoperational (2-7yrs)


  1. Primary outcome: reduction of egocentrism

  2. Test: Three-mountains task
• Post-Piaget: Stage 3 Concrete operational (7-11yrs)

  1. Primary outcome: conservation – semantic understanding

  2. Test: Conservation tasks
• Others have been more critical
• Strengths of Piaget

  • Developed a wide array of information across different domains under one theory
  • Stimulated a vast number of research studies (he established that children are not passive)
  • Supportive evidence (from Piaget and others)
  • Pushed cognitive theory forward
• Since Piaget, researchers have modified some of his experiments including changing the question/task
• Post-Piaget: Stage 2 Preoperational (2-7yrs)

  1. Question as to whether the task makes sense to children? Huges developed a hide-seek game for children to make it more suitable for children

  2. Hughes (1975) hide-seek policeman game: 90% children aged 3-5 now pass

  3. Level of understanding? Different levels of understanding, they need to understand how things look from different angles and how occlusion plays a factor

  4. Flavell, Everett, Croft & Flavell, 1981. Level 1: obstacle can occlude a view. Level 2: how an object looks from another perspective
• Post-Piaget: Stage 1 Sensorimotor (0-2yrs)

  1. Primary outcome: object permanence approx. 8-10mths

  2. Test 1: Blanket and ball paradigm

  3. Bowler (1965): Evidence of size constancy in 1 – 2 month old’s

  4. Baillargeon, Spelke and Wasserman (1985) & Baillargeon, 1987: Drawbridge task. Removed the need for physical ability to locate target – utilized a preferential looking paradigm. As young as 3.5 months
• Post-Piaget: Stage 1

  1. Test 2: A not B location test

  2. Memory? Minimizing the delay between hiding and searching when the toy is located in B results in fewer errors by children (Bremner and Bryant 1977, Diamond, 1985). It could be memory that plays a factor

  3. Difficulty with Inhibition? Even when objects are in clear view infants still search in the incorrect location (Butterworth, 1977). Could be motor memory that leads to children picking location A instinctively
• Children’s abilities are related to experience and culture (Fahrmeier, 1978: Hausa tribe children do not receive formal education - cannot conserve until 11 years of age although Piaget says it should happen at 7 years of age)
• Test for Stage 3: Conservation tasks
• Level 2: how an object looks from another perspective
• Post-Piaget: Stage 3 Concrete operational (7-11yrs)
• Infants perform much better if they are asked only once which means dual questioning makes them think they got the question wrong (Donaldson & McGarrigle, 1974)
• In the coin task, children witnessed a ‘naughty teddy’ mess up the coins. Success rates tripled: Children more much better at conserving after watching the ‘accidental transformation’ (McGarrigle & Donaldson, 1974)
• The pendulum task - work out which factor was most important in determining Post Piaget: Stage 4
• Magic Mice Paradigm (Gelman, 1972). 3-yr olds. Choose the winning and losing plate of mice (which had more). Demonstrate ability to identify ‘winning’ plate despite layout changes
• Children are born with few mental functions which are gradually transformed by their culture. Cognitive abilities do not develop on their own, but with the help of adults - by sharing an activity with a more experienced partner (who provides scaffolding). The social world determines the structure and pattern of internal cognition (not cognitive structures as Piaget believed)
• Mother: 'What’s at the park? Child: Babyswing Mother: That’s right, the babyswing. And what else? Child: (shrugs) Mother: A slid'
• Correct judgements are false positives? Still questionable how to prove conservation (Light et al, 1979)
• Vygotsky 1896 - 1934: Russian psychologist who said that development cannot be separated from its sociocultural context. Also, a constructivist theory of development, but language and interaction with other (more competent) people plays a more central role. Little apprentices opposite to what Piaget said, we follow people around us and learn so our cognition is a product of others knowledge which enriches you
• Post Piaget: Role of social-cultural learning?
• It is possible that the child might be confused by the standard experiment and think there is a link between changing the display and the question asked (odd paradigm that infant might be confused with)
• Primary outcome of Stage 3: conservation – semantic understanding
• Flavell, Everett, Croft & Flavell


  1981
• Level 1: obstacle can occlude a view
• A teddy comes and messes with the coins which makes the child could think the experimenter is simply expecting a different answer
• Variation in how we learn to conserve – dependent on the metric being assessed (e.g. number (6 yrs), liquid, length or mass (6-7 yrs), weight (9 yrs) and volume (11 yrs)
• Children (6 yrs) respond in a similar fashion in each condition (Moore & Frye, 1986)
• We develop different properties at different rates although the foundations are the same
• If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other. Questions over negative strategy (e.g. Watson & Johnson –Laird, 1972). Which cards do you turn over to establish if the rule is true or false? Confirmation bias – looking for evidence to support rather than negate a rule. Leads to questions over Piaget’s conceptualization and testing of formal operations
• Vygotsky suggested that there are four perspectives on how we can analyse cognitive development: Ontogenetic (changes across the lifespan), Microgenetic (short-term changes), Phylogenetic (evolutionary changes), Sociohistorical (cultural changes over time)
• Russel (1982): Role of social constructivism on conservation. Being more vocal plays a role in this
• ZPD – Zone of Proximal Development: The child internalises knowledge learned in a social context, decontextualises it, then adult gradually withdraws support until child able to take over the activity alone - then becomes something you can do unassisted while your knowledge has grown. Other people help child to optimise their ZPD through scaffolding - prompting the next step, guiding and supporting the child’s efforts, stretching the child’s skills
• Overall Conclusion
• Language

  • Integral to development
  • Primary method through which adults pass their knowledge onto children
  • Develops into a powerful tool in its own right
  • Cultural differences in language syntax can affect cognitive development