Date: 21st March, 2013

Time: 1-2pm

Place: FoM: Reading Room and ARLT

Lectures covered:

From : 14/2 (Properties of Different Memory Processes)

To: 14/3 (Psychological Development of Children)

Psychology 220 Second Assessment

How to write and shade student ID in the computer sheet given for the exam -

For 2008, 2009, 2010 students – Year and last 4 digits

2008 – 082456

2009 – 094536

2010 – 105567

For 2011 students – Year and last 5 digits

2011 – 1115212

What is “cognition”?

Cognition refers to thinking, including language, learning, memory, and intelligence.

Jean Piaget (born 1896) was a pioneer in studying cognitive development in humans.

More recent research has both validated and extended Piaget’s ideas about infant’s cognitive abilities.

Cognitive Theory • Cognitive equilibrium—state of mental balance.

• If threatened, how do we achieve equilibrium

again?

• Assimilation: taking new information in by incorporating it into previous “schemas” ▫ Schemas: theories about how the physical and

social worlds operate (categories) • Accommodation: requires an adjustment of

previous schemas upon new information

Cognitive Theory (cont.)

Example: A 10 month old learns that a red ball bounces. If given a blue ball, he will bounce it too (assimilation). If given a red tomato (which looks like a red ball), he may try to bounce it. He needs to accommodate his schema of round, red things.

Cognitive Theory • Jean Piaget’s 4 Stages

▫ sensorimotor

▫ pre-operational

▫ concrete operational

▫ formal operational

YVES DEBRAINE / BLACK STAR

Sensorimotor Intelligence (Birth-2yrs)

Piaget’s first stage of cognitive development, characterized by learning through senses and motor actions.

PHOTODISC

Sensorimotor Intelligence (Cont.)

Infants are busy discovering the relationship between their actions and the consequences of those actions.

Reflexes- sucking, grasping, staring, listening birth to 1 month.

Assimilation and coordination of reflexes (1-4 months).

Example: An infant sucks a bottle differently than the mother’s nipple.

Awareness of things-responding to people and objects (4-8 months).

Example: clapping hands when mother says “patty cake”

Object Permanence (~8 months): the understanding that an object continues to exists even if it is not present.

Active experimentation (12-18 months).

Example: putting a teddy bear in the toilet and then flushing it.

Mental combinations (18-24 months)

Infants can think before taking action, for example, wondering before flushing remembering that the toilet overflowed the last time.

Preoperational Thought (2-6 yrs)

• Preoperational thought is characterized by:

▫ Egocentrism

▫ Centration

▫ Focus on appearance

▫ Static reasoning

▫ Irreversibility

▫ Lack of conservation

Egocentrism

Egocentrism is the tendency to think about the world entirely from their own personal perspective.

Example: A child tries to comfort his upset father by giving him a teddy bear.

Centration

Centration is the tendency to focus on one aspect of a situation to the exclusion of others.

Example: A child insists that lions and tigers are not “cats”!

Example: Insist that “daddy” is a father, not a brother.

This is a type of egocentrism.

Focus on Appearance

When looking at something, young children tend to focus only on what is apparent, ignoring other relevant attributes.

Example: A girl with a short haircut “must” be a boy. Or the “taller” child must be “older.”

Static Reasoning Young children assume the world is unchanging.

Example: A boy is surprised to learn that “his” teacher is also someone’s mother!

If things DO change, they occur totally and suddenly (e.g., a child “wakes up” tall).

Irreversibility

Irreversibility is the idea that nothing can be undone. It is the failure to recognize that reversal of a process can sometimes restore something to its original state.

Example: A child refuses to eat a hamburger that is “contaminated” by lettuce, even after the lettuce is removed.

(Lack of) Conservation Conservation is the idea that the amount of a

substance remains the same, despite changes in its appearance.

Piaget found that most preoperational thinkers lack conservation.

Example: Break a cookie in half, and a young child might think there are 2 cookies!

Tests of Various Types of Conservation

A Critique of Piaget’s Theory

Many of the tasks designed to test stage theories requires several skills.

Example 1. Object permanence : the infant might know the object still exists but is unable to show this knowledge through searching behavior

Example 2. Conservation: When you ask children about the “aggregate” or collection rather than the individual items, they are less likely to be influenced by visual appearance.

Piaget’s Third Stage (6-11yrs)

Concrete operational thought is the ability to reason logically about direct experiences and perceptions.

Children in this stage become more systematic, objective, and scientific thinkers–but only about tangible, visible things.

Logical Principles

Classification: organization into groups according to common property

Example: Show 5 roses and 2 tulips. Ask, “Are there more roses or flowers?”

Kids in middle childhood know that roses are a subcategory of “flowers.”

Essence and Change

Identity: certain characteristics of an object remain the same even if other characteristics change

Examples: frozen water is still water; a butterfly was once a caterpillar; liquid in smaller glass is the same liquid

Essence and Change (cont.)

Reversibility: reversing the process by which something was changed brings the original conditions

Example: if 5 + 9 = 14, then

14 – 9 must equal 5! Also, imagine pouring water back in conservation task.

Essence and Change (cont.)

Reciprocity is the principle that things may change in opposite ways, and thus balance each other out.

Example: A child states that the decreased height in the shorter glass is balanced out by its increased width.

Piaget’s Highest Stage (12yrs- adulthood)

Adolescents are in Piaget’s 4th stage, formal operational thought, characterized by:

logical thought

hypothetical thought

abstract thought

deductive reasoning

Inductive Reasoning

Specific General

It consists of making observations and then drawing conclusions based on those observations (“bottom-up” thinking).

Example: All of the swans I have seen in my life are white in color, therefore, all swans are white.

Deductive Reasoning General specific

You we start with the conclusion and then see if the evidence for that conclusion is valid. Generally, if the evidence is valid, the conclusion it supports is valid as well (“top-down” thinking).

Example: All oranges are fruits All fruits grow on trees Therefore, all oranges grow on trees

Formal Operational Tasks The Balance Scale Problem

Mixing Chemicals

Formal Operational Thought Adolescents can think about possibilities and

about the future.

They often question adult values, practices.

They love to think and discuss life, and are often idealists.