Outline
• (1) General introduction.• (2) Sensory-Motor period.• (3) Pre-operational period.• (4) Concrete operations.• (5) Formal operations.• (6) Evaluation.
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.
II: The Sensorimotor Period (0-2 years)
• 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
II: The Sensorimotor Period (0-2 years)
• 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 3 (4-8 months)
• 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
Object concept at stage 3
• 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.
Stage 4 (8-12 months)
• 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)
Object concept at stage 4
• 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 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 5 (12-18 months)
• 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.
Stage 6 (18-24 months)
• 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.
Stage 6 (18-24 months)
• 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.
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.
• Why do pre-operational children fail problems of conservation?
• Because their thinking is not governed by principles of reversibility, compensation and identity
Pre-operational thinking and problems of conservation
Pre-operational thinking and problems of conservation
Reversibility: The pouring of water into the small container can be reversed.
Pre-operational thinking and problems of conservation
Compensation: A decrease in the height of the new container is compensated by an increase in its width
Pre-operational thinking and problems of conservation
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
Pre-operational thinking and problems of conservation
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
(2) Emotion reasoning.
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.
(2) Emotion reasoning.
(3) Moral reasoning.
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.
(2) Emotion reasoning.
(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
• 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.
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).