Problem 4 – Berk / Shaffer&Kipp
Cognition refers to the inner processes and products of the mind that lead to ‘knowing’. It includes all
mental activity. Humans rely on thinking and not only adapt but transform their environments.
PIAGET’ COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY – constructivist approach: humans don’t start out as
cognitive beings, they act on objects and events to discover to build psychological structures
Piaget’s theory has 4 stages. The stages provide a general theory of development, all aspect of cognition
change in a similar course. The stages are invariant, they always occur in a fixed order and no stage can be
skipped (Invariant Developmental Sequence). The stages are universal.
Specific psychological structures are called schemes: organized ways of making sense of experience. These
schemes change with age. At first schemes are sensorimotor actions (dropping objects etc.) Soon the
toddler shows evidence of thinking and transitions from a sensorimotor approach to a cognitive approach
based on mental representations: internal depictions of information that the mind can manipulate. Our
most powerful mental representations are images and concepts. We use mental image to retrace our steps
or imitate another’s behavior, and we use concepts to be more efficient thinkers by organizing our
experiences.
2 factors that influence the change of schemes: adaptation and organization.
Adaptation: involves building schemes through direct interaction with the environment.
Has two complementary activities: assimilation and accommodation.
During assimilation we use our current schemes to interpret the external world.
In accommodation we create new schemes or adjust old ones after noticing that our current way of
thinking doesn’t capture the environment completely.
When the child assimilates more than it accommodates, it’s in a steady stage of cognitive equilibrium.
During times of cognitive change, the child in a state of disequilibrium or cognitive discomfort. After
modifying their schemes, they move back to assimilation. This back-and-forth movement is called
equilibration.
Organization: occurs internally, apart from direct contact with the environment. Once children form new
schemes, they rearrange and link them with other schemes to create an interconnected cognitive system.
Schemes truly reach equilibrium when they become part of a broad network and can be jointly applied to
the world.
Equilibrium Assimilation Accommodation Organization
1. THE SENSORIMOTOR STAGE: BIRTH TO 2 YEARS
Toddlers think with their eyes, ears, hands and other sensorimotor equipment, they can’t yet carry out
activities mentally.
Substages:
1. Reflexive Schemes (birth – 1 month): newborn reflexes - babies suck, grasp and look the same way
no matter what happens
2. Primary Circular Reactions (1 – 4 months): Simple motor habits – first non-reflexive schemes such
as sucking the fist or thumb. These repetitive acts are always centered on the infant’s own body.
They also have limited anticipation of events (mom=feeding)
, 3. Secondary Circular Reactions (4 – 8 months): They can make interesting things happen to objects
beyond their own bodies – motor achievements such as reaching for and manipulating objects (e.g.
hitting). They repeat these for pleasure and these results are discovered by chance. They imitate
familiar behavior.
4. Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions (8 – 12 months): Intentional and goal-directed
behavior to solve problems. Ability for object permanence: the understanding that objects exist
when they’re out of sight but still make A-not-B error (if they reach several times for an object in
place A, then see it moved to place B, they still reach for place A), improved anticipation of events,
imitation of behavior slightly improved
5. Tertiary Circular Reactions (12-18 months): Imitate new behaviors (stacking blocks, scribbling on
paper, making funny faces). They explore the properties of objects (fitting a shape) and are
motivated to learn about the way things work. Display accurate A-B search.
6. Mental Representation (18 months – 2 years): Inner experimentation: solving problems on a
mental/symbolic level without trial-and-error. They can solve advanced object permanence
problems such as invisible displacement, deferred imitation: the ability to remember and copy
behavior of models who aren’t present, make-believe play: acting out every day and imaginary
activities.
Violation-of-expectation method is used to discover what infants know about hidden objects. They
habituate babies to a physical event to familiarize them with a situation so they can test their knowledge.
Or they show babies an expected event and an unexpected event, and if the baby is surprised by the
unexpected event then it’s aware of the aspect of physical world.
Short-tall carrot experiment: Infants as young as 2-3 months look longer at unexpected event, they must
have awareness that the object behind a screen continues to exist.
4-5-month olds will track a ball’s path of movement as it appears and disappears behind a barrier, gazing
ahead to where they expect it to reappear.
6-month olds’ ERP brain wave activity was displayed when a black square moved until it covered an object
(object permanence) and when the object disappeared as the black square moved across the object.
Infants displayed a particular wave pattern for the first one, the same when adults are told to sustain a
mental image of an object.
Violation of expectation only expects the baby to react. But searching for an object is far more cognitively
demanding. Infants can solve some tasks; 8-10-month-olds remove the cover from a partially covered
object. 10-month olds can search for an object put on a table and then covered by cloth, but they can’t
search for an object that’s first concealed in a hand and then put under a cloth (invisible displacement).
Babies expect the object to reappear in the hand because that’s where it initially disappeared. Not until 14
months can most babies infer that the hand put the object under the cloth. Around this age they can also
find the object a day or more later.
Mental Representations
Deferred and Inferred Imitation: Deferred imitation is the ability to reproduce behavior that has been
witnessed in the past. Piaget said this first appears at 18 to 24 months. But others disagree and say that it
begins much earlier. In one study with 6- and 9-month olds, infants could form flexible mental
representation of chains of relevant associations (a-b, b-c, then a-c). Ability to recall modeled behaviors the
order they occurred is evident as early as 6 months. At 12-months old, toddlers imitate rationally, by
inferring others’ intensions. They are more likely to imitate purposeful behavior than accidental.
Cognition refers to the inner processes and products of the mind that lead to ‘knowing’. It includes all
mental activity. Humans rely on thinking and not only adapt but transform their environments.
PIAGET’ COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY – constructivist approach: humans don’t start out as
cognitive beings, they act on objects and events to discover to build psychological structures
Piaget’s theory has 4 stages. The stages provide a general theory of development, all aspect of cognition
change in a similar course. The stages are invariant, they always occur in a fixed order and no stage can be
skipped (Invariant Developmental Sequence). The stages are universal.
Specific psychological structures are called schemes: organized ways of making sense of experience. These
schemes change with age. At first schemes are sensorimotor actions (dropping objects etc.) Soon the
toddler shows evidence of thinking and transitions from a sensorimotor approach to a cognitive approach
based on mental representations: internal depictions of information that the mind can manipulate. Our
most powerful mental representations are images and concepts. We use mental image to retrace our steps
or imitate another’s behavior, and we use concepts to be more efficient thinkers by organizing our
experiences.
2 factors that influence the change of schemes: adaptation and organization.
Adaptation: involves building schemes through direct interaction with the environment.
Has two complementary activities: assimilation and accommodation.
During assimilation we use our current schemes to interpret the external world.
In accommodation we create new schemes or adjust old ones after noticing that our current way of
thinking doesn’t capture the environment completely.
When the child assimilates more than it accommodates, it’s in a steady stage of cognitive equilibrium.
During times of cognitive change, the child in a state of disequilibrium or cognitive discomfort. After
modifying their schemes, they move back to assimilation. This back-and-forth movement is called
equilibration.
Organization: occurs internally, apart from direct contact with the environment. Once children form new
schemes, they rearrange and link them with other schemes to create an interconnected cognitive system.
Schemes truly reach equilibrium when they become part of a broad network and can be jointly applied to
the world.
Equilibrium Assimilation Accommodation Organization
1. THE SENSORIMOTOR STAGE: BIRTH TO 2 YEARS
Toddlers think with their eyes, ears, hands and other sensorimotor equipment, they can’t yet carry out
activities mentally.
Substages:
1. Reflexive Schemes (birth – 1 month): newborn reflexes - babies suck, grasp and look the same way
no matter what happens
2. Primary Circular Reactions (1 – 4 months): Simple motor habits – first non-reflexive schemes such
as sucking the fist or thumb. These repetitive acts are always centered on the infant’s own body.
They also have limited anticipation of events (mom=feeding)
, 3. Secondary Circular Reactions (4 – 8 months): They can make interesting things happen to objects
beyond their own bodies – motor achievements such as reaching for and manipulating objects (e.g.
hitting). They repeat these for pleasure and these results are discovered by chance. They imitate
familiar behavior.
4. Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions (8 – 12 months): Intentional and goal-directed
behavior to solve problems. Ability for object permanence: the understanding that objects exist
when they’re out of sight but still make A-not-B error (if they reach several times for an object in
place A, then see it moved to place B, they still reach for place A), improved anticipation of events,
imitation of behavior slightly improved
5. Tertiary Circular Reactions (12-18 months): Imitate new behaviors (stacking blocks, scribbling on
paper, making funny faces). They explore the properties of objects (fitting a shape) and are
motivated to learn about the way things work. Display accurate A-B search.
6. Mental Representation (18 months – 2 years): Inner experimentation: solving problems on a
mental/symbolic level without trial-and-error. They can solve advanced object permanence
problems such as invisible displacement, deferred imitation: the ability to remember and copy
behavior of models who aren’t present, make-believe play: acting out every day and imaginary
activities.
Violation-of-expectation method is used to discover what infants know about hidden objects. They
habituate babies to a physical event to familiarize them with a situation so they can test their knowledge.
Or they show babies an expected event and an unexpected event, and if the baby is surprised by the
unexpected event then it’s aware of the aspect of physical world.
Short-tall carrot experiment: Infants as young as 2-3 months look longer at unexpected event, they must
have awareness that the object behind a screen continues to exist.
4-5-month olds will track a ball’s path of movement as it appears and disappears behind a barrier, gazing
ahead to where they expect it to reappear.
6-month olds’ ERP brain wave activity was displayed when a black square moved until it covered an object
(object permanence) and when the object disappeared as the black square moved across the object.
Infants displayed a particular wave pattern for the first one, the same when adults are told to sustain a
mental image of an object.
Violation of expectation only expects the baby to react. But searching for an object is far more cognitively
demanding. Infants can solve some tasks; 8-10-month-olds remove the cover from a partially covered
object. 10-month olds can search for an object put on a table and then covered by cloth, but they can’t
search for an object that’s first concealed in a hand and then put under a cloth (invisible displacement).
Babies expect the object to reappear in the hand because that’s where it initially disappeared. Not until 14
months can most babies infer that the hand put the object under the cloth. Around this age they can also
find the object a day or more later.
Mental Representations
Deferred and Inferred Imitation: Deferred imitation is the ability to reproduce behavior that has been
witnessed in the past. Piaget said this first appears at 18 to 24 months. But others disagree and say that it
begins much earlier. In one study with 6- and 9-month olds, infants could form flexible mental
representation of chains of relevant associations (a-b, b-c, then a-c). Ability to recall modeled behaviors the
order they occurred is evident as early as 6 months. At 12-months old, toddlers imitate rationally, by
inferring others’ intensions. They are more likely to imitate purposeful behavior than accidental.
