Development Part I Cognitive Development

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Development Part ICognitive Development
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Overview

• Piagets stages
• Theory of mind
• Challenges to Piaget
• Executive function

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Jean PiagetAugust 9, 1896 September 16,
1980Swiss philosopher, natural scientist and
developmental theoristFather of modern
cognitive developmental psychology
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General Approach the Nature / Nurture Issue

• Not an empiricist who thinks knowledge comes from
  the environment (nurture)
• Not a nativist who thinks knowledge is innate
  (nature)
• Piaget learning is always an act of creation or
  construction that involves an interaction between
  the individual and the environment.

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General approach learning is an active process

• Infant or child is like a scientist or detective
• He or she is constantly testing hypotheses about
  the physical and social worlds

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Several Key Concepts

• Schemas action patterns or a mental
  representation through which an infant organizes
  the world
• Assimilation childrens use of existing schemas
  to interpret and act on the environment
• Accommodation changes in schemas to adapt to
  something new in the environment

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Illustration of Schema, Assimilation
Accommodation
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Piagets Stage Theory
Formal operations (12)
Concrete operations Ages 7 to 12
Preoperational stageAges 2 to 7

• Different way of reasoning at each stage
• Discontinuous development
• Ages are approximate
• But order of stages cannot vary

SensorimotorstageAges 0 to 2
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Sensorimotor stage
Formal operations (12)
Concrete operations Ages 7 to 12
Preoperational stageAges 2 to 7
Abilities Babies learn about the world through
their senses and motor activity Limitation
Can't form mental representations Stage ends
when child achieves object permanence
SensorimotorstageAges 0 to 2
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• Object Permanence
•  
• The knowledge that objects continue to exist when
  you are not presently acting on them or sensing
  them

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Video Object Permanence (1 min.)
See also http//www.youtube.com/watch?vpCwiYCQr3
xsfeaturegv
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vue8y-JVhjS0feature
related
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A not B error

• Infant continues to search at the first hiding
  location after object is hidden in the new
  location.
• Infant seems to understand the permanence of
  the object only in relation to their own action

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Preoperational Stage
Formal operations (12)
Concrete operations Ages 7 to 12
Preoperational stageAges 2 to 7
Capacity for representational thought. Failure to
interrelate different dimensions. Failure to
conserve quantity. Egocentrism
SensorimotorstageAges 0 to 2
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Failure to conserve quantity
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Video Lack of Conservation (2 min.)
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vGLj0IZFLKvgfeature
related
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Egocentrism

• Young children are egocentric in the sense that
  they have difficulty understanding perspectives
  that are different from their own
• Piaget developed the mountain task child has to
  reason about the objects that are in view from
  perspective of a doll

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Video Egocentrism (1 min.)
http//www.open2.net/healtheducation/family_childd
evelopment/development/methods_video_perspectives.
html
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Social Cognition and Theory of Mind

• Preschoolers have the rudiments of a theory of
  mind childs ability to reason about their own
  mental states as well as the mental states of
  other people
• Limitations can be seen in childrens poor
  performance with false belief tasks.

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Video theory of mind (7 min.)
segment from Scientific American FrontiersIts a
kids world (season 5 3/29/1995)
http//www.pbs.org/saf/previous2.htm
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Critiques of Piagets claims about infants
reasoning

• Studies suggest that babies are born with a lot
  more innate knowledge about the world than Piaget
  gave them credit for
• Either that, or they learn extremely quickly

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Evaluation of Piagets theories

• Many of Piagets findings have held up
• Some of his explanations for his findings were
  wrong
• Piaget underestimated childrens abilities
• The stages are not discrete
• Recent research insights
• even infants have built-in understanding of the
  physical world and some concept of object
  permanence
• importance of executive control processes

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Infants do have some understanding of object
permanence
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(No Transcript)
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Video disappearing doll trick (2 min.)
segment from Scientific American FrontiersIts a
kids world (season 5 3/29/1995)
http//www.pbs.org/saf/previous2.htm
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Challenge to egocentrism

• A different perspective-taking task (Hughes)
• Task hide the little boy so the policeman cant
  find them

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Video successful perspective taking (17 secs.)
http//www.open2.net/healtheducation/family_childd
evelopment/development/methods_video_perspectives3
.html
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Executive Control Development of Prefrontal
Cortex

• Foremost part of the frontal lobes
• Matures slowly one of the last areas of the
  brain to fully develop
• Involved in executive control processes
• Overrides automatic responses (impulses)

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(No Transcript)
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Video A not B task reinterpreted (2 min.)
segment from Scientific American Frontiers Make
up your mind (season 13 10/15/2002)
http//www.pbs.org/saf/previous.htm
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Video perseverance of action (2 min.)
segment from Scientific American FrontiersIts a
kids world (season 5 3/29/1995)
http//www.pbs.org/saf/previous2.htm
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Video testing impulse control with Marshmallow
test (3 min.)
http//www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id6419327n se
e also http//www.youtube.com/watch?v6EjJsPylEOY
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Marshmallow Experiment (Mischel, 1972)

• Experiment tests ability to delay gratification
• Some grabbed the treat immediately. About a third
  were able to wait the entire 15 minutes
• A follow-up study was conducted 14 years later
• Children who waited 15 minutes (as opposed to 30
  seconds or less) tended to have better
  relationships and averaged 210 points higher on
  the SAT

For another video, see http//www.ted.com/talks/j
oachim_de_posada_says_don_t_eat_the_marshmallow_ye
t.html