Theory of cognitive development
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The Theory of Cognitive Development, one of the most historically
influential theories was developed by Jean Piaget, a Swiss Philosopher
(1896–1980). His genetic epistemological theory provided many central
concepts in the field of developmental psychology and concerned the growth
of intelligence, which for Piaget, meant the ability to more accurately
represent the world and perform logical operations on representations of
concepts grounded in interactions with the world. The theory concerns the
emergence and construction of schemata — schemes of how one perceives
the world — in "developmental stages", times when children are acquiring
new ways of mentally representing information. The theory is considered
"constructivist", meaning that, unlike nativist theories (which describe
cognitive development as the unfolding of innate knowledge and abilities) or
empiricist theories (which describe cognitive development as the gradual
acquisition of knowledge through experience), it asserts that we construct our
cognitive abilities through self-motivated action in the world. For his
development of the theory, Piaget was awarded the Erasmus Prize.[1] Piaget
divided schemes that children use to understand the world through four main
periods, roughly correlated with and becoming increasingly sophisticated with
age:
Sensorimotor period (years 0–2)
Preoperational period (years 2–7)
Concrete operational period (years 7–11)
Formal operational period (years 11 and up)
Contents
[hide]
1 Piaget's four stages
1.1 Sensorimotor period
1.2 Preoperational stage
1.3 Concrete operational stage
1.4 Formal operational stage
2 General information regarding the stages
3 Stages reconsidered from a "Bottom-up"
viewpoint:
4 Challenges to Piagetian stage theory
5 Post Piagetian and Neo-Piagetian stages
6 Piagetian and post-Piagetian stage
theories/heuristics
7 References
[edit]
Piaget's four stages
[edit]
Sensorimotor period
Infants are born with a set of congenital reflexes that allow them to float in the
heavily dense world, according to Piaget, in addition to a drive to explore their
world. Their initial schemas are formed through differentiation of the
congenital reflexes. The sensorimotor period is the first of the four periods.
According to Piaget, this stage marks the development of essential spatial
abilities and understanding of the world in six sub-stages:
1. The first sub-stage, known as the reflex schema stage, occurs from
birth to one month and is associated primarily with the development of
reflexes.
2. The second sub-stage, primary circular reaction phase, occurs from
one month to four months and is associated primarily with the
development of habits.
3. The third sub-stage, the secondary circular reactions phase, occurs
from four to eight months and is associated primarily with the
development of coordination between vision and prehension.
4. The fourth sub-stage; called the co-ordination of secondary course
round modest circular reactions stage, which occurs from eight to
twelve months, is when Piaget (1954) thought that object permanence
developed.
5. The fifth sub-stage; the tertiary circular reactions phase, occurs from
twelve to eighteen months. New means through active experimentation
and creativity in the actions of the "little scientist".
6. The sixth sub-stage, considered "beginnings of symbolic
representation", from eighteen months to twenty four months. New
means through mental combinations considering before doing provides
the child with new ways of achieving a goal without resorting to trialand-error experiments.
[edit]
Preoperational stage
The Preoperational stage is the second of four stages of cognitive
development. By observing sequences of play, Piaget was able to
demonstrate that towards the end of the second year a qualitatively new kind
of psychological functioning occurs.
(Pre)Operatory Thought in Piagetian theory is any procedure for mentally
acting on objects. The hallmark of the preoperational stage is sparse and
logically inadequate mental operations. During this stage the child learns to
use and to represent objects by images and words, in other words they learn
to use symbolic thinking. Thinking is still egocentric: The child has difficulty
taking the viewpoint of others.
The child can classify objects by a single feature: e.g. groups together all the
red blocks regardless of shape or all the square blocks regardless of color.
According to Piaget, the Pre-Operational stage of development follows the
Sensorimotor stage and occurs between 2–7 years of age. In this stage,
children develop their language skills. They begin representing things with
words and images. However, they still use intuitive rather than logical
reasoning. At the beginning of this stage, they tend to be egocentric, that is,
they are not aware that other people do not think, know and perceive the
same as them. Children have highly imaginative minds at this time and
actually assign emotions to inanimate objects. The theory of mind is also
critical to this stage.
The Preoperational Stage can be further broken down into the Preconceptual
Stage and the Intuitive Stage. The Preconceptual stage (2-4 years) is
marked by egocentric thinking and animistic thought. A child who displays
animistic thought tends to assign living attributes to inanimate objects, for
example that a glass would feel pain if it were broken.
The Intuitive(4-7 years) stage is when children start employing mental
activities to solve problems and obtain goals but they are unaware of how
they came to their conclusions. For example a child is shown 7 dogs and 3
cats and asked if there are more dogs than cats. The child would respond
positively. However when asked if there are more dogs than animals the child
would once again respond positively. Such fundamental errors in logic show
the transition between intuitiveness in solving problems and true logical
reasoning acquired in later years when the child grows up.
Piaget considered that children primarily learn through imitation and play
throughout these first two stages, as they build up symbolic images through
internalized activity.[1][2]
[edit]
Concrete operational stage
The Concrete operational stage is the third of four stages of cognitive
development in Piaget's theory. This stage, which follows the Preoperational
stage, occurs between the ages of 7 and 11 years and is characterized by the
appropriate use of logic. Important processes during this stage are:
Seriation—the ability to sort objects in an order according to size, shape, or
any other characteristic. For example, if given different-shaded objects they
may make a color gradient.
Classification—the ability to name and identify sets of objects according to
appearance, size or other characteristic, including the idea that one set of
objects can include another.
Decentering—where the child takes into account multiple aspects of a
problem to solve it. For example, the child will no longer perceive an
exceptionally wide but short cup to contain less than a normally-wide, taller
cup.
Reversibility—where the child understands that numbers or objects can be
changed, then returned to their original state. For this reason, a child will be
able to rapidly determine that if 4+4 equals 8, 8−4 will equal 4, the original
quantity.
Conservation—understanding that quantity, length or number of items is
unrelated to the arrangement or appearance of the object or items. For
instance, when a child is presented with two equally-sized, full cups they will
be able to discern that if water is transferred to a pitcher it will conserve the
quantity and be equal to the other filled cup.
Elimination of Egocentrism—the ability to view things from another's
perspective (even if they think incorrectly). For instance, show a child a comic
in which Jane puts a doll under a box, leaves the room, and then Melissa
moves the doll to a drawer, and Jane comes back. A child in the concrete
operations stage will say that Jane will still think it's under the box even
though the child knows it is in the drawer. (See also False-belief task).
Children in this stage can, however, only solve problems that apply to actual
(concrete) objects or events, and not abstract concepts or hypothetical tasks.
[edit]
Formal operational stage
The formal operational period is the fourth and final of the periods of cognitive
development in Piaget's theory. This stage, which follows the Concrete
Operational stage, commences at around 12 years of age (puberty) and
continues into adulthood. It is characterized by acquisition of the ability to
think abstractly, reason logically and draw conclusions from the information
available. During this stage the young adult is able to understand such things
as love, "shades of gray", logical proofs, and values. Lucidly, biological factors
may be traced to this stage as it occurs during puberty (the time at which
another period of neural pruning occurs), marking the entry to adulthood in
Physiology, cognition, moral judgement (Kohlberg), Psychosexual
development (Freud), and psychosocial development (Erikson). Some twothirds of people do not develop this form of reasoning fully enough that it
becomes their normal mode for cognition, and so they remain, even as adults,
concrete operational thinkers.
[edit]
General information regarding the stages
These four stages have been found to have the following characteristics:
They apply to thought rather than children
Although the timing may vary, the sequence of the stages does not.
Universal (not culturally specific)
Generalizable: the representational and logical operations available to
the child should extend to all kinds of concepts and content knowledge
Stages are logically organized wholes
Hierarchical nature of stage sequences (each successive stage
incorporates elements of previous stages, but is more differentiated and
integrated)
Stages represent qualitative differences in modes of thinking, not
merely quantitative differences
Stages reconsidered from a "Bottom-up"
viewpoint:
[edit]
In view of its complexity, Psychology-as-an-academic-study is still in a
comparatively undeveloped form in which endless "hermeneutic" debates are
often required when it comes to detail. That should not surprise us. After all,
Chemistry and Genetics have both been through that stage, and have since
left it!
(1) Probably the key progress-step arises when we can get a clear
understanding of what constitutes the building-blocks of the physical
mechanisms. Piaget's "scheme"-concept is a good step in the right direction
(just as Mendel's "gene"-concept was a useful half-solution) — but both these
concepts are mere abstractions unless we can say something more concrete
about them.
Piaget himself clearly toyed tentatively with the idea that his most basic
schemes might be RNA, but confessed that biochemistry was beyond his
competence (Piaget, 1967). This is documented in some detail by Traill
(2005), who goes on to show that subsequent evidence does indeed support
the RNA idea. [3] But even if RNA is not the answer, it seems that some such
physical embodiment must eventually be found if Non-clinical Psychology is to
follow the lead of Genetics and Chemistry.
(2) The next needed progress is probably to find some plausible way in which
these building-blocks could be harnessed. In principle this could be done
experimentally, but that hardly seems possible for the current scheme-and-
Psychology problem — at any rate not until the topic is taken seriously
enough to attract a large budget.
The alternative is to build up a theoretical model (based on as much existing
evidence and interdisciplinary knowledge as possible) and see what can be
done to "re-design" mind-mechanisms, at least in principle — meanwhile
giving due credit to Piaget's stages, equilibration, decalage, etc., along with
info-tech, physics, and anything else deemed relevant.
One such attempt (though without reference to Piaget), was made by the
eminent Medical-Cybernetician Ross Ashby (1903-1972) in his book Design
for a Brain (1952, espec. Chapter 7). The main point of interest here is that he
postulated a system of hierarchical controls in which active units at level-n,
would be controlled by those at level-(n+1) — which in turn might have their
parameters re-set by level-(n+2) — and so on. Note (i) that he did actually
build robot "tortoises" by this formula (alarming observers by their uncanny
abilities), and that (ii) this has an apparently-significant resemblance to
Piaget's stages. (iii) Ashby suggested that human-intelligence may be chiefly
due to a "runaway" capability, with no hard limit on how many "n" levels there
might be — whereas other animals would always have a greater-or-lesser
limit, for some reason. The same might well be claimed for Piaget's stages,
even if they are actually different.
(3) Ashby confessed to certain shortcomings of his model, notably the fact
that he had to fine-tune its details himself, whereas a proper bio-model should
have been self organizing. The theoretical aspects of this venture were later
carried forward (whilst incorporating Piagetian aspects) by Traill (1978, 1999,
2005), who chose to label the Sensorimotor level (or its earliest substage)
"M0L", with subsequent higher levels being called M1L, M2L, etc. (e.g. 1978,
section C2.3) — which could sometimes be more convenient than Piaget's
names: "Pre-operational" etc.
[edit]
Challenges to Piagetian stage theory
Piagetians accounts of development have been challenged on several
grounds. First, as Piaget himself noted, development does not always
progress in the smooth manner his theory seems to predict. 'Decalage', or
unpredicted gaps in the developmental progression, suggest that the stage
model is at best a useful approximation. More broadly, Piaget's theory is
'domain general', predicting that cognitive maturation occurs concurrently
across different domains of knowledge (such as mathematics, logic,
understanding of physics, of language, etc). However, more recent cognitive
developmentalists have been much influenced by trends in cognitive science
away from domain generality and towards domain specificity or modularity of
mind, under which different cognitive faculties may be largely independent of
one another and thus develop according to quite different time-tables. In this
vein, many current cognitive developmentalists argue that rather than being
domain general learners, children come equipped with domain specific
theories, sometimes referred to as 'core knowledge', which allows them to
break into learning within that domain. For example, even young infants
appear to understand some basic principles of physics (e.g. that one object
cannot pass through another) and human intention (e.g. that a hand
repeatedly reaching for an object has that object, not just a particular path of
motion, as its goal). These basic assumptions may be the building block out
of which more elaborate knowledge is constructed. Psychologist's such as
Vygotsky thought differently to Piaget and suggested that language was more
important than Piaget implied.
[edit]
Post Piagetian and Neo-Piagetian stages
There are four major changes to the number of stages and their definitions.
First and foremost, the half stages are now shown to be stages. PascualLeone (1987? Please confirm)discovered this. Almost all Post Piagetians accept
this.(E.g. ... ?)
Second, postformal stages have been shown to exist. Kurt Fischer suggested
two, Michael Commons presents evidence for four postformal stages: the
systematic, metasystematic, paradigmatic and cross paradigmatic.
(Commons & Richards, 2003; Oliver, 2004).
Thirdly, Fischer has considered a stage suggested by Biggs and Biggs. It is a
stage before the early preoperational. Commons and Richards call this stage
the sentential because organisms can sequence representations of concepts.
Fourthly Traill (1978, Section C5.4; 1999, Section 8.4) suggests that there
may be pre-sensorimotor stages ("M−1L", "M−2L", … … ) — evolved either
prenatally in-the-womb and/or transmitted genetically, having been developed
by the species and hence describable as "instincts". This is in the context of a
search for a micro-physiological basis for human mental capacity↑. Here then,
we are trying to complete the picture of the extreme-lower levels of the
hierarchy, whereas the other three cases above are more concerned with
application to the higher levels dealing with education and related macro
effects.
↑
For various reasons it had been concluded that those most-basic micro-elements
for logic-related thinking must have essentially a 1D stringlike structure (probably
ncRNA). If so, then even the known sensorimotor Piagetian-schemes seem to be too
complex, too evolved. Hence the need to seek lower levels which could be seen as
the building-blocks. (Traill 1976, 2005).
Piagetian and post-Piagetian stage
theories/heuristics
[edit]
Michael Barnes' stages of religious and scientific thinking
Michael Lamport Commons' Model of Hierarchical Complexity
Kieran Egan's stages of understanding
Suzy Gablik's stages of art history
Christopher Hallpike's stages of moral understanding
Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development
Don Lepan's theory of the origins of modern thought and drama
Charles Raddings theory of the medieval intellectual development
R.J. Robinson's stages of history and theory of the origins of
intelligence
Stafford Beer, a cybernetician and business-consultant, attempted to
apply Ashby's principles to Companies and Government organizations.
(e.g. Beer, 1972).
[edit]
References
Ashby, W.Ross (1952 / 1960) Design for a Brain. London: Chapman &
Hall
Biggs, J. & K.Collis (1982). A system of evaluating learning outcomes:
The SOLO Taxonomy. New York: Academic Press.
Chapman, M. (1988). "Constructive Evolution: Origins and
Development of Piaget’s Thought". New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Cole, M, et al. (2005). The Development of Children. New York: Worth
Publishers.
Commons, M.L. & F.A. Richards (1984). "A general model of stage
theory" — and — "Applying the general stage model". In M.L.Commons,
F.A.Richards, & C.Armon (Eds.). Beyond formal operations: Vol.1: Late
adolescent and adult cognitivedevelopment (pp. 120-140, 141-157). New
York: Praeger.
Commons, M.L. & F.A. Richards (2002). "Organizing components into
combinations: How stage transition works". Journal of Adult Development,
9(3), 159-177.
Commons, M.L. & F.A. Richards (2003). "Four postformal stages". In J.
Demick & C. Andreoletti (Eds.), Handbook of adult development (pp. 199219). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
Fischer, K.W. (1980). "A theory of cognitive development: The control
and construction of hierarchical skills". Psychological Review, 87(2), 477531.
Oliver, C.R. (2004). Impact of catastrophe on pivotal national leaders'
vision statements: Correspondences and discrepancies in moral
reasoning, explanatory style, and rumination. Dissertation: Fielding
Graduate Institute.
http://dareassociation.org/Carl.Oliver_Dissertation_2004.pdf
Pascual-Leone, J. (1970). "A mathematical model for the transition rule
in Piaget's developmental stages", Acta Psychologica, 32(4), 301-345.
Pascual-Leone, J. (1987). "Organismic processes for neo-Piagetian
theories: A dialectical causal account of cognitive development". In:
A.Demetriou (Ed.) The neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development:
Towards an integration. Amsterdam: North-Holland; pp.531-569.
Piaget, J. (1937 / 1954). La construction du réel chez l'enfant / The
construction of reality in the child. New York: Basic Books.
Piaget, J. (1967). Biology and Knowledge.
Piaget, J. (1977). The Essential Piaget. ed by Howard E. Gruber and J.
Jacques Vonèche, New York: Basic Books. [An anthology of Piaget's
works, with editorial comment].
Piaget, J. (1983). "Piaget's theory". In P. Mussen (ed). Handbook of
Child Psychology. 4th edition. Vol. 1. New York: Wiley.
Piaget, J. (1995). Sociological Studies. London: Routledge.
Piaget, J. (2000). "Commentary on Vygotsky". New Ideas in
Psychology, 18, 241–259.
Piaget, J. (2001). Studies in Reflecting Abstraction. Hove, UK:
Psychology Press.
Seifer, Calvin Educational Psychology
Traill, R.R. (1976 / 2007) Short papers and letters on the 'linear microelement' theory of mental mechanism, and related questions of scientific
method. Monograph 18, Cybernetics Department, Brunel University. [[2]]
Traill, R.R. (1978) Molecular Explanation for Intelligence, including its
growth, maintenance, and failings. Thesis, Brunel University, Uxbridge,
Middx. http://hdl.handle.net/2438/729 [or separate chapters via
http://www.ondwelle.com ]
Traill, R.R. (1999) Mind and Micro-Mechanism: a Hunt for the Missing
Theory. Melbourne: Ondwelle. ISBN 0-9577737-0-6
Traill, R.R. (2005 / 2008) Thinking by Molecule, Synapse, or both? —
From Piaget's Schema, to the Selecting/Editing of ncRNA. Melbourne:
Ondwelle. http://www.ondwelle.com/OSM02.pdf
[hide]
v•d•e
Human development: biological - psychological - Overview table
Pre- and perinatal
Infancy
Childhood
Adolescence
Adulthood
Theorists-theories
Prenatal development • Pre- and perinatal psychology
Infant and child development (stages) • Infancy
Child development (stages)
Toddlerhood • Preadolescence
Youth development • Puberty
Early adulthood • Middle adulthood • Late adulthood • Ageing &
Senescence
John Bowlby-attachment • Erik Erikson-psychosocial • Sigmund Freud-
psychosexual • Lawrence Kohlberg-moral • Jean Piaget-cognitive • Lev
Vygotsky-cultural-historical