Cognitive Development:
Broad Theories and Approaches
4 Theories of Cognitive Development
1.
2.
3.
4.
Piagetian Theory
Information Processing Theories
Core-Knowledge Theories
Sociocultural Theories
Cognitive vs. Social Development
Cognitive Development ~ development of
perception, attention, language, problem
solving, reasoning, memory, and conceptual
understanding
Social Development ~ development of
emotions, personality, family and peer
relationships, self-understanding,
aggression, and moral understanding.
Piagetian Theory: Child as Scientist
• He offered a constructivist
theory (the active child)--child is
motivated to learn does not need
rewards to do so.
• Saw children as generating
hypotheses, performing
experiments, and drawing
conclusions
3 Processes
• Assimilation = translate new info into a form you
already have/understand
• Accommodation = When this new info doesn’t fit
you need to restructure your “theories”
• Equilibration = balancing assimilation and
accommodation to create stable understanding
Piaget’s stage theory
formal operations
concrete operations
pre-operational
sensori-motor
0-2 yr
2-6 yr
7-10 yr 10-13yr
Sensorimotor Stage (birth - 2 years)
• [No need to know specific substages]
• Begin with simple reflexes and sensory-motor skills
and through assimilation/accommodation learned
(theory is weak on HOW such concepts were acquired)
*Over this stage infants increase their ability to hold
mental representations
• Infants live largely in the present --“out of sight, out of
mind”
Object Permanence
• Piaget claimed that until 8 mths of age infants did not
understand object permanence--that objects continue
to exist even when they are out of view
• (e.g. failed to reach under cloth for toy that was just
hidden) BUT…
Deferred Imitation
• Deferred imitation is the repetition of other
people’s behavior after a delay
• Occurs around 18-24 mths
• Evidence of persisting mental reps.
Preoperational Stage (ages 2 - 7)
• They acquire symbolic representation-the ability to see one thing to stand for
another (e.g. seen in their pretend play and
in their language acquisition).
Scale model studies
Preoperational Stage (ages 2 - 7)
• viewed by Piaget as only being able to focus
on one aspect of an event of problem--even
when multiple aspects are important
Centration: Centering attention on one dimension.
Preoperational Stage (ages 2 - 7)
• Children in this stage are viewed by Piaget
as not being capable of operations (i.e. preoperational)--that is, they can’t perform
reversible mental activities
• E.g. conservation concept
Conservation Concept
Siegler on Conservation Tasks
Preoperational Stage (ages 2 - 7)
• Egocentrism: According to Piaget, children at this
stage are also limited in their ability to take someone
else’s perspective--they only see it from their own
point of view
The 3 Mountain Task
Concrete Operational Stage (ages 7-12)
• understand conservation.
• begin to reason logically about concrete objects but
have difficulty with abstract concepts and
hypotheticals.
• Difficulty reasoning systematically
(e.g. --the pendulum problem).
Formal Operations Stage (ages 12+)
• begin to think abstractly and hypothetically
– E.g. Fondness for SciFi/Fantasy
– E.g. Comments like “what would you do if you
could be 13 again?” “Do you think there is another
planet out there with another ‘you’ on it?”
• now capable of systematic and scientific
reasoning
• Unlike the other stages Piaget believed that
some adults never reach this stage.
Where Piaget Left Us
Strengths
 A good overview of children’s thinking at different points
 Appealing due to its breadth
 Fascinating observations
Weaknesses/Criticisms
 Stage model depicts children’s thinking as being more
consistent than it is
 children are more cognitively competent than Piaget
recognized
 understates contribution of the social world
 vague about cognitive processes/mechanisms that produce
cognitive growth
Information-Processing Theories
• View children as
undergoing continuous
cognitive change.
• Describe how cognitive
change occurs.
• Mostly concerned with the
development of learning,
memory, and problemsolving skills.
Information Processing Theories:
Child as Problem Solver
•
difficulties solving some problems because of lack of
planning/use of strategy
3 factors that lead to a lack of planning in young children
1. Sometimes plans fail (high failure rate leads them to
believe planning is “not worth the effort”)
2. Young children are overoptimistic (e.g they think
they can remember more, get more done, and
communicate more effectively than they can)
3. Inhibition is difficult
Information Processing Theories
Cognitive growth is the result of three processes working
together and improving with age:
1. Basic Processes (e.g. encoding, generalizing,
recognizing objects)
2. Use of Strategies (e.g. rehearsal, selective attention)
3. Content Knowledge (e.g. scripts)
•
- greater knowledge of the world increases ability to
encode and recall info because it makes it easier to relate
new material to old. (e.g. playing first vs. 10th card
game)
Speed of Processing Increases with Age
Both experience AND brain maturation (Innate--preprogrammed development) and experience play a role in changes
in information processing (e.g. paving roads + beating pathways
analogy)
Myelination (the covering of
neurons with myelin, a fatty
substance that insulates the
axon) helps speed processing
and increases the child’s ability
to rule out distractions.
Core-Knowledge Theories:
Child as Theorist
Principles of core-knowledge theories:
– Children have innate cognitive capabilities
– Children form informal theories to help them
organize related information (naïve physics,
psychology, and biology)
– Focus on areas (such as understanding people)
that have been important throughout human
history
Modularity and Domain Specificity
numbers
people
objects
Principles of Modularity
1. Results in Domain Specificity--a special
system dedicated to a particular domain
(people, number, objects, faces, etc.)-system answers questions specific to that
area.
e.g 2 balls need contact to move, but people
don’t
Principles of Modularity
2. Fast and Mandatory
3. Restriction on Information Flow
-
Information Encapsulation and Lack of Access to Interlevels
e.g. Hollow Mask/Face illusion
Principles of Modularity
4. Characteristic Breakdown
Autism--Lack Naïve Psychology?
Prosopagnosia -- Unable to Process Faces
Wernicke’s aphasia--lack of meaning in language but
grammar is intact
(e.g. She swam everywhere he could
go but when it flooped his way over my brother....)
Broca’s Aphasia--lacks grammar but meaning is
intact (e.g. chair fall over broke)
* Not all skills (e.g. memory) or domains (e.g.
language) have 1 specific location/system
Sociocultural Theories of Cognitive
Development
• Cognitive development occurs in interpersonal
contact—(interaction with parents, siblings, teachers,
and playmates).
• Children are products of their cultures
– Emphasize aspects of cognitive development that involves use
of cultural tools, like symbol systems, artifacts, skills, and
values.
• E.g. Vygotsky vs. Piaget: Whereas Piaget depicted
children as trying to understand the world on their
own, Vygotsky portrayed them as social beings
intertwined with other people who were eager to help
them learn and gain skills.
Sociocultural Theories:
How Cognitive Change Occurs
• Guided participation: knowledgeable individuals guide learning
• Social scaffolding: More competent people provide temporary
frameworks that lead children to higher-order thinking.
• Zone of proximal development: The range between what children
can do unsupported and what they can do with optimal social
support.
• Intersubjectivity: Shared communication
– Joint attention: Infants and social partners focus on common
referent.
– Social referencing: Children look to social partners for guidance
about how to respond to unfamiliar events.
The Visual Cliff and Social Referencing
If Mom looks fearful,
child won’t cross.
If Mom looks happy,
child will cross.
Child uses emotional cues from social partner to
interpret new things!
Conclusion
• Why so many different theories?
• The cognitive theories have contradictory features--It
is not possible to create a unified grand theory
– (though they don’t disagree on all aspects so in many ways are
complementary).
• Each theory emphasizes different aspects and each has
its strengths and weaknesses
• We incorporate insights from all four theories to help
us understand children in different ways and in
different settings.