Lecture 4

• How does cognition develop according to Piaget?

  • Universally fixed order of phases → discontinuous development

  • Each phase qualitatively different

  • Child actively contributes to own knowledge formation

  (‘little scientist’)
• Piaget’s developmental phases

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• Schema

  Building blocks of knowledge (piece of knowledge)
• Assimilation


  existing schema is used in new situation
• Accomodation


  when the existing schema does not work, need to be changed to deal with a new situation
• Equilibration


  balance between assimilation and accommodation
• Piaget’s sensori-motor stage

  ▪ Learning about the world via senses and motor skills

  ▪ e.g., putting things in their mouths, crawling

  ▪ Cannot imagine the intentions, emotions and expectations (mental states) of others

  ▪ Circular responses: Develop through repetitive behavior patterns
• Piaget’s sensorimotor stage as image

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• Piaget’s sensorimotor stage: Object permanence


  ▪ = understanding that something exists when it is out of sight

  ▪ Around 9 months first signs of object permanence

  ▪ Tested by A-not-B error
• Better object permanence around...

  1 year
• Critiquing Piaget

  • Underestimated abilities of infants

  • Infants grasp the basics of physical reality well before age 1 (Piaget lacked advances methods)

  • Understanding of physical reality develops gradually not in huge qualitative stages

  • Information processing approach: a perspective on understanding that divides thinking into specific steps and processes, much like a computer
• cognition of babies

  ▪ Baby < 1 year basic understanding of laws of nature (gravity, volume,

  continuity of movement)

  ▪ Violation of expectancy

  → Looking longer after unexpected outcome
• Preoperational phase (2-7 years)

  The young child

  • learns to use symbols and language

  → Language = product of cognitive development

  • intuitive reasoning (‘magical’ thinking)

  • does not use the same logics as adults about

  the world (lack of conservation)

  • views the world from an egocentric perspective
• Symbolic capacity

  emerged at end of sensori-motor stage

  → advancements of preschoolers:

  • Use of words to refer to things, people, and events that are not physically present

  • Ability to refer to past and future

  • Pretend or fantasy play flourishes : chairs can stand for a train, role plays
• Intuitive reasoning

  • Preschoolers’ use of primitive reasoning and their avid

  acquisition of world knowledge

  • Curiosity blossoms: “Why?” questions central

  At the same time

  • Explanation of world with own logic

  • Their intuitive thought leads them to confidently believe that

  they know answers to all kinds of questions
• Feelings of participation (preschoolers)


  Child participates dynamically in the actions of nature → accompanied by beliefs in magic
• Animism (preschoolers)


  Things are conscious and alive
• Artificialism (preschoolers)


  everything is willed, intentional and organized for the good of man
• Finalism (preschoolers)


  everything has an explanation
• Transductive reasoning (preschoolers)


  Combining unrelated facts leading to draw faulty cause–effect conclusions simply because two events occur close together in time or space.
• Consequence of animism:

  to be afraid in the dark and imagining monsters and seeing living things in your room

  Phase in which children have nightmares and it might be difficult to calm down

  Sensitive to phantasies → in both positive and negative ways
• Imaginary companion

  Consequence of animism

  • 28% of the 3- and 4-year-olds report to play with an imaginary friend

  • Lasts into school-age years

  • Positive consequences:

  • Advanced cognitive and social development, higher levels of

  creativity and imagery use

  • More engagement in private speech than other children
• Conservation test:

  • Understanding that certain properties (volume/number/weight) remain identical despite changes in their appearance

  • Children in this phase (3-4 y.) do not have a notion of

  conservation
• Why do children in this phase do not understand conservation?

  1. Centering: attention goes to visually most salient parts →

  attention centered on single aspect of a problem

  2. Irreversibility: not able to mentally reverse change

  3. Static thought: thought is fixed on end states rather than the

  changes that transform one state into another
• Egocentric perspective


  = the inability to understand that other people have different points of

  view

  … they do not realize that what is in their mind is not in everyone else’s
• Concrete operational phase (7-11 years)

  • Realistic understanding of the world

  • Logic reasoning, but only in concrete situations

  (not yet abstractly in a ”scientific” way):

  • Conservation

  • Classification

  • Seriation

  • Transitivity
• Class inclusion

  logical understanding that parts are included in the whole
• Transitivity


  • Ability to logically combine relations to reach certain

  conclusions

  → Reasoning about the relations between elements in a series
• From the preoperational to the concrete operational phase

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• Early childhood: ages 3 to 6 (preschool and kindergarten)

  • Entering the world of play (pretending)

  • Developing language

  • Tethered to their immediate perceptions

  • Curiosity, try to explain the world
• Middle childhood: ages 7-11/12 (elementary school)

  • Inductive reasoning →Logic closer to the one of adults

  • Less egocentric view of the world

  • Due to advancements in inductive reasoning: developments in strategy usage, resulting in better memory (see next lecture)
• Formal operational phase

  • From concrete operations (on observable objects) to formal operations (imperceptible ideas) → hypothetical and abstract thinking

  • Classic task: Third eye task

  „If you could have a third eye and put it anywhere on

  your body, where would you put it, and why?”
• Formal operations

  • Abstract thinking

  • Think logically

  • Adolescents can think like scientists → hypothetical-deductive

  reasoning

  • Hypothetical deliberations (“Assuming that...”)

  • Systematically exploring possible realities (“What would

  happen if … ?”)

  • Adolescent Egocentrism: heightened self-consciousness

  • Imaginary audience

  • Personal fable
• Early formal operations

  • 11- to 13-year-olds can consider simple hypothetical propositions (e.g., three-eye problem), but not yet able to devise an overall game plan for solving a problem or to systematically generate and test hypotheses
• Late formal operations

  • By age of 16-17: only 50-60% of tasks testing scientific reasoning correctly solved → students more readily accept evidence consistent with their preexisting beliefs than evidence inconsistent with these beliefs
• Behave like adults

  • Approach problems in systematic way
  • Have independent control of complex situations
• High school curricula adapted to new skill

  • Understand a poetic metaphor
  • Understand chemistry experiment
  • Debate controversial/moral issues
• Thinking during formal operations

  • Identity
  • Planning for future
  • Better understanding of other people
  • Better appreciation of humor
• Confusion and rebellion against parents and ideas that do not seem logical enough

  Idealistic thinking, inventing perfect worlds and envisioning logical solutions to problems detected in the imperfect world around
• Formal operations fully achieved in adulthood?

  • Only about half of all American college students master Piaget’s

  scientific reasoning tasks → also show better grades

  • Cultural differences: in some societies, no adults able to solve tasks

  →Solving formal tasks linked to intelligence and, more importantly,

  formal education

  →Difference between areas of expertise: if expert: formal operations,

  if outside their expertise: concrete operations