Piaget

Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Outline

• (1) General introduction.• (2) Sensory-Motor period.• (3) Pre-operational period.• (4) Concrete operations.• (5) Formal operations.• (6) Evaluation.

I: Terms and concepts.

Genetic Epistemology: A constructivist theory

• No innate ideas...not a nativist theory.• Nor is the child a “tabula rasa” with the

“real” world out there waiting to be discovered.

• Instead, mind is constructed through interaction with the environment; what is real depends on how developed one’s knowledge is

How does Piaget describe developmental change?

• Development occurs in stages, with a qualitative shift in the organization and complexity of cognition at each stage.

• Thus, children not simply slower, or less knowledgeable than adults instead, they understand the world in a qualitatively different way.

• Stages form an invariant sequence.

Stages of Cognitive Development

• (1) Sensorimotor (0-2 years)• (2) Pre-operational (2-7 years)• (3) Concrete Operational (7-11 years)• (4) Formal Operational (11-16 years)

What develops? Cognitive structures

• Cognitive structures are the means by which experience is interpreted and organized: reality very much in the eye of the beholder

• Early on, cognitive structures are quite basic, and consist of reflexes like sucking and grasping.

• Piaget referred to these structures as schemes.

How do cognitive structures develop?

• Through assimilation and accomodation.• Assimilation: The incorporation of new

experiences into existing structures.• Accommodation: The changing of an old

structures so that new experiences can be processed.

• Assimilation is conservative, while accommodation is progressive.

Why accommodate?

• Normally, the mind is in a state of equilibrium: existing structures are stable, and assimilation is mostly occurring.

• However, a discrepant experience can lead to disequilibrium or cognitive “instability”

• Child forced to accommodate existing structures.

Active view of development

• Child as scientist• Mental structures intrinsically active

constantly being applied to experience• Leads to curiosity and the desire to know • Development proceeds as the child actively

refines his/her knowledge of the world through many “small experiments”

Instructional learning viewed as relatively unimportant

• Teachers should not try to transmit knowledge, but should provide opportunities for discovery

• Child needs to construct or reinvent knowledge adult knowledge cannot be formally communicated to the child

• Limited importance of socio-cultural context; importance of peer interaction.

II: The Sensorimotor Period (0-2 years)

• Only some basic motor reflexes grasping, sucking, eye movements, orientation to sound, etc

• By exercising and coordinating these basic reflexes, infant develops intentionality and an understanding of object permanence.


• Intentionality refers to the ability to act in a goal-directed manner in other words, to do one thing in order that something else occurs.

• Requires an understanding of cause and effect


• Object permanence refers to the understanding that objects continue to exist even when no longer in view.

• Need to distinguish between an action and the thing acted on.

Stage 1 (0-1 month)

• Stage of reflex activity.• Many reflexes like reaching, grasping

sucking all operating independently.• Objects like "sensory pictures".• Subjectivity and objectivity fused.• Schemes activated by chance: No

intentionality.

Stage 2 (1-4 months)

• Stage of Primary Circular Reactions.• Infant’s behaviour, by chance, leads to an

interesting result & is repeated.• Circular: repetition.• Primary: centre on infant's own body.• Example: thumb-sucking.

Object concept at stage 2

• Passive expectation: if object disappears, infant will continue looking to the location where it disappeared, but will not search.

• In the infant mind, the existence of the object still very closely tied to schemes applied to experience

Intentions at stage 2

• Intentionality beginning to emerge: infant can now self-initiate certain schemes (e.g., thumb-sucking)


• Stage of Secondary Circular Reactions• Repetition of simple actions on external

objects.• Example: bang a toy to make a noise.

Intentionality at stage 3

• Poor understanding of the connection between causes and effect limits their ability to act intentionality.

• “Magical causality” accidentally banging toy makes many interesting things happen


• Visual anticipation.• If infant drops an object, and it disappears,

the infant will visually search for it. • Will also search for partially hidden objects• But will not search for completely hidden

objects.


• Co-ordination of secondary circular reactions.

• Secondary schemes combined to create new action sequences.

Intentionality at Stage 4

• First appearance of intentional or in Piaget’s terms, means-end behavior.

• Infant learns to use one secondary scheme (e.g., pulling a towel) in order that another secondary scheme can be activated (e.g., reaching and grasping a toy)


• Infant will search for hidden objects.• Does infant understand the object as

something that exists separate from the scheme applied to find the object?

• No. Evidence?• A not B error.

A trials

The A not B task

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The A not B task

A trials

The A not B task

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The A not B task

A trials

The A not B task

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The A not B task

A trials

The A not B task

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The A not B task

A trials

The A not B task

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The A not B task

A trials

The A not B task

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The A not B task

B trials

The A not B task The A not B task

B trials

The A not B task The A not B task

B trials

The A not B task

??

A not B error

• Infant continues to search at the first hiding location after object is hidden in the new location.

• Object still subjectively understood.• Object remains associated with a previously

successful scheme.


• Stage of Tertiary Circular Reactions.• Actions varied in an experimental fashion.• Pursuit of novelty• New means are discovered.• Limited to physical actions taken on objects

Object concept at stage 5.

• Can solve A not B.• Cannot solve A not B with invisible

displacement (Example from Piaget).

Stage 5 and invisible displacement

• Can only imagine the object as existing where it was last hidden.

• Invisible displacement requires the infant to mentally calculate the new location of the object.


• Can solve object search with invisible displacement.

• Infants now mentally represent physically absent objects.

• Understands object as something that exists independently of sensory-motor action.


• Sensori-motor period culminates with the emergence of the Symbolic function

• An idea or mental image is used to stand-in for a perceptually absent object

• Trial-and-error problem solving does not need to enacted but can undertaken through mental combination.

Summary

• Sensori-motor period culminates in the emergence of symbolic representation.

• Object permanence understood.• Basic means-ends skills have emerged.

Piaget – Part 2

Beyond the sensorimotor period

III: The pre-operational period

• Symbolic thought without operations.• Operations: logical principles that are

applied to symbols rather than objects.• 3 examples: reversibility, compensation,

and identity• In the absence of operations, thinking is

governed more by appearance than logical necessity.

Pre-operational thinking and problems of conservation


Conservation of liquid







• Why do pre-operational children fail problems of conservation?

• Because their thinking is not governed by principles of reversibility, compensation and identity



Reversibility: The pouring of water into the small container can be reversed.


Compensation: A decrease in the height of the new container is compensated by an increase in its width


Identity: No amount of liquid has been added or taken away.

• Why do pre-operational children fail problems of conservation?

• Because their thinking is not governed by principles of reversibility, compensation and identity

• If children applied these principles, they would conclude liquid is conserved


Characteristics of Pre-Operational Thinking

• Not governed by logical operations• Consequently, it appears egocentric (e.g., 3

mountains task) and intuitive (e.g., conservation tasks)

Doll 1 Doll 2

Child

3 Mountains Task

Doll 1 Doll 2

Child

3 Mountains Task

Characteristics of Pre-Operational Thinking

• (1) Egocentric• (2) Intuitive problem solving is not

reasoned or logical

Nature of intuitive reasoning

• No reversibility Cannot mentally undo a given action.

• Perceptual centration Focus on only one dimension of a problem.

• States versus transformations Transformations relating different states ignored.

What makes Pre-operational thinking stage-like?

• Because it appears to be a general characteristic of children’s thinking at this age.



• Examples:

(1) Other conservation problems.

Conservation of mass





• Examples:




• Examples:


(2) Emotion reasoning.

Emotion reasoning



• Examples:



(3) Moral reasoning.



• Examples:



(3) Moral reasoning. focus on consequences

IV: Concrete operational thinking

(7-12 years)• Qualitatively different reasoning in

conservation problems. • Flexible and decentered.• Co-ordination of multiple dimensions.• Logical vs. empirical problem solving.• Reversibility.• Awareness of transformations.

IV: Concrete operational thinking

(7-12 years)• Physical operations now internalized and

have become cognitive• Still, logic directed at physical or concrete

problems

Horizontal decalage

• Different conservation problems solved at different ages.

• Some claim it is a threat to Piaget’s domain general view of cognitive development

• Example: volume vs mass• But, invariant sequence observed.

V: Formal operations

• Thought no longer applied strictly to concrete problems.

• Directed inward: thought becomes the object of thought.

• Advances in use of deductive and inductive logic

V: Formal operations

• Deductive thought in period of concrete operations confined to familiar everyday experience: “If Sam steals Tim’s toy, then how will Tim feel?”

• Formal operations: “If we could eliminate injustice, would the world live in peace?”

• Thinking goes beyond experience, more abstract

Inductive reasoning

• Example: Pendulum problem• Scientific thinking: from specific

observations to general conclusions through hypothesis-testing

Inductive reasoning

• Example: Pendulum problem

How fast?

Inductive reasoning

• Formal operational children will systematically test all possibilities before arriving at a conclusion

VI: Evaluating Piaget

• Difficult.• An enormous theory.• Covers many ages and issues in

development.

Strengths

• Active rather than passive view of the child.• Revealed important invariants in cognitive

development.• Errors informative.• Perceptual-motor learning rather than

language important for development.• Tasks.

Weaknesses

• The competence-performance distinction

Competence

• Knowledge, rules, and concepts that form the basis of cognition.

• Inferred from behaviour.

Performance

• Energy level, interest, attention, language skills, motivation etc.

• Factors that effect the expression of a competence.

Competence-performance distinction.

• Piaget attributed infants success (or lack of success) to competence.

• However, he gave no consideration to performance factors that may have constrained the expression of knowledge.

• Example: A not B

Performance-competence distinction and A not B

• A not B errors thought to indicate poor understanding of objects.

• However, motor components of the task may constrain the expression of infants knowledge.

• Example: Baillergeon.• Object permanence observed in 5 month-

olds using a looking time task.

Other examples

• Borke (1975) & the 3 mountains task.• Bruner (1966) & the liquid conservation

task.

• More detailed task analysis required.

Stages?

• Stage like progression only observed if one assumes a bird-eye view.

• Closer inspection reveals more continuous changes (Siegler, 1988).

Summary

• Piaget’s theory is wide-ranging and influential.

• Source of continued controversy.• People continue to address many of the

questions he raised, but using different methods and concepts.

Documents

Piaget