Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

1. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

2. The Prefrontal Cortex This portion of the brain (bright blue) shows extensive development from 3 to 6 years of age and is believed to play important roles in attention and working memory Prefrontal cortex Figure 8.1

3. 7.2 Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development The Sensorimotor Stage The Preoperational Stage The Concrete Operational Stage The Formal Operational Stage

4. Formal Operations (adolescence to adult) Concrete Operations (~ 7-12 yrs) Preoperational Period (~2 to 6 yrs) Sensorimotor Period (~Birth to 2 yrs) Inborn Reflexes Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

6. From birth to approximately 2 years Begins with reflexive responding and ends with using symbols Object permanence: understanding that objects exist independently 7.2 The Sensorimotor Stage

7. From approximately 2 to 7 years Children use symbols but are many errors in thinking Egocentrism: The inability to distinguish between one’s own perspective and someone else’s perspective. Confuse appearance and reality 7.2 The Preoperational Stage

8. Three Mountains Problem 7.2: The Preoperational Stage

9. The Three Mountain Tasks

10. Conservation Tasks 7.2: The Preoperational Stage

11. Piaget’s Conservation Task

12. B C A A B C Piaget’s Conservation Task Child is asked if (A) and (C) have the same amount of liquid. The preoperational child says “no” and will point to (C) as having more liquid than (A). Two identical beakers shown to child, and then experimenter pours liquid from (B) into (C) Figure 8.8

13. Some Dimensions of Conservation: Number, Matter, and Length Figure 8.9

14. From approximately 7 to 11 years Thinking based on mental operations (strategies and rules that make thinking more systematic and powerful) Operations can be reversed Focus on the real and concrete, not the abstract 7.2 The Concrete Operational Stage

15. From approximately 11 years to adulthood Adolescents can think hypothetically Use deductive reasoning 7.2 The Formal Operational Stage

16. Object Permanence and the “Impossible Event” 7.3: Criticisms of the Theory

17. Theory of Mind 7.4 The Child as Theorist

18. Cognitive development is inseparable from social and cultural contexts Zone of proximal development: difference between what can do alone or with assistance Scaffolding: teaching style that matches assistance to learner’s needs The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) student can work with the student can work assistance of an instructor ________________________ independently The Sociocultural Perspective: Vygotsky’s Theory ZPD

20. Comparison of Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s Theories Sociocultural Context Constructivism Stages Key processes Role of language View on education Implications for teacher Figure 8.11

21. 8 7 6 5 4 Digit Span 3 2 1 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Adult Age (years) Developmental Changes in Memory Span In one study: memory span increased from 3 digits at age 2, to 5 digits at age 7, to 7 digits at age 12. Figure 8.13

22. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

23. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

24. Sensorimotor Substages

25. Sensorimotor Substages

26. Object permanence • Objects are tied to infant’s awareness of them • “out of sight, out of mind” • Hidden toy experiment • 4 months: no attempt to search for hidden object • 4-9 months: visual search for object • 9 months: search for and retrieve hidden object • A-not-B task (Diamond, 1985) • 9 months: A/B error after 1/2 second delay • 12 months: 10 second delay needed to produce error

27. Piaget’s A-Not-B Task

28. Sensorimotor Substages

29. Preoperational Stage • A mix of impressive cognitive acquisitions and equally impressive limitations • A notable acquisition is symbolic representation, the use of one object to stand for another, which makes a variety of new behaviors possible • A major limitation is egocentrism, the tendency to perceive the world solely from one’s own point of view • A related limitation is centration, the tendency to focus on a single, perceptually striking feature of an object or event • Preoperational children also lack of understanding of the conservation concept, the idea that merely changing the appearance of objects does not change their key properties

30. Piaget’s Three-Mountain Task

31. Egocentric Conversations

32. The Balance Scale: An Example of Centration

33. Procedures Used to Test Conservation

34. Concrete Operational Stage • Children begin to reason logically about the world • They can solve conservation problems, but their successful reasoning is largely limited to concrete situations • Thinking systematically remains difficult

35. Inhelder and Piaget’s Pendulum Problem • The task is to compare the motions of longer and shorter strings, with lighter and heavier weights attached, in order to determine the influence of weight, string length, and dropping point on the time it takes for the pendulum to swing back and forth • Children below age 12 usually perform unsystematic experiments and draw incorrect conclusions

36. Formal Operational Stage • Cognitive development culminates in the ability to think abstractly and to reason hypothetically • Individuals can imagine alternative worlds and reason systematically about all possible outcomes of a situation • Piaget believed that the attainment of the formal operations stage, in contrast to the other stages, is not universal

37. Implications for Education • Piaget’s view of children’s cognitive development suggests that children’s distinctive ways of thinking at different ages need to be considered in deciding how best to teach them • In addition, because children learn by mentally and physically interacting with the environment, relevant physical activities, accompanied by questions that call attention to the lessons of the activities, are important in educational practice

38. Critique of Piaget’s Theory • Although Piaget’s theory remains highly influential, some weaknesses are now apparent • The stage model depicts children’s thinking as being more consistent than it is • Infants and young children are more cognitively competent than Piaget recognized • Object permanence in 3-month-olds (Bower, 1974) • Number conservation in 4 year olds (McGarrigle & Donaldson, 1974)

39. Critique of Piaget’s Theory • Piaget’s theory understates the contribution of the social world to cognitive development • Piaget’s tasks are culturally biased • Schooling and literacy affect rates of development • e.g. Greenfield’s study of the Wolof • Formal operational thinking is not universal • e.g. Gladwin’s study of the Polynesian islanders • Piaget’s theory is vague about the cognitive processes that give rise to children’s thinking and about the mechanisms that produce cognitive growth