Cognitivism
Cognitive: of or pertaining to the mental processes of perception, memory, judgment, and reasoning, as
contrasted with emotional and volitional (act of making a conscious choice or decision) processes.
Taken from dictionary.com
Cognitivism: A theory of learning. The idea of cognitivism is that learning is a conscious, rational
process. People learn by making models, maps and frameworks in their mind.
Taken from macmillandictionaries.com
Cognitive behaviour: Being able to judge and reason effectively and having a perception of
surroundings. An example is an advertising executive who, based on awareness and thoughts, derives
the content of an ad or promotion for a product line.
Taken from answers.com
Most humans are able to make sense of the world around them. We can make plans, solve problems,
recall events from the past, and understand the behaviour of other humans. We tend to take such
abilities for granted, but they have to be acquired. They do not appear to be present in newborn
humans (neonates). As far as we can tell, babies are not born with knowledge or understanding. Babies
do not appear to think. Of course it is impossible to be certain about the cognitive abilities of human
neonates - they do not have language, so we cannot ask them.
A child's cognitive development is not just about acquiring knowledge. The child has to develop or
construct a mental model of the world. For example, a family of two parents and four children usually
eat their evening meal together. One day the eldest boy is absent on a school trip. The youngest child
notices that his elder brother is missing. To be able to do this, the child must have a stored
representation of the family which includes all its members. This is just part of the mental model of his
world that the child has constructed. During the meal, a parent asks the little boy what he would like for
Christmas. To deal with this question, the boy has to have some idea of what Christmas is, and some
ability to predict what will please him. His mental model of the world includes the idea of Christmas, but
also an idea of himself.
Another way of understanding this cognitive ability is to imagine what it would be like if you did not
have a mental model of your world. It would mean that you would not be able to make so much use of
information from your past experience, or to plan future actions. You would simply respond to events
and stimuli which affected you at the moment. As a result your behaviour would be much more like the
behaviour of many non-human animals - you would spend most of your time seeking to meet your
present needs and avoiding present threats.
Piaget researched and wrote on the subject of cognitive development from 1929 to 1980. Unlike
previous psychologists, Piaget suggested that the way children think is not merely less sophisticated
than adults, because it is based on less knowledge, but that it is also qualitatively different – i.e. children
simply do not think in the same way as adults.
This idea was extremely radical at the time, but it was now become generally accepted in cognitive
developmental psychology. In fact, you may regard this as common sense. Piaget was interested both in
how children learnt and in how they thought. Piaget believed that children progress through four stages
of cognitive development.
However, because Piaget concentrated on the individual child, he failed to consider the effect that the
social setting may have on cognitive development. Vygotsky (1896 - 1934) believed the way that adults
use language and gestures and the child's experience through social interactions are very influential on
cognitive development. Vygotsky's work remained little known because it was banned by Stalin after
Vygotsky’s death. Vygotsky is credited with developing the concept of Social Cognition (aka Social
Development Theory of Learning), which proposes that social interaction and culture has a dramatic
impact on cognitive development. Vygotsky centred much of his research on a phenomenon he coined
as "the Zone of Proximal Development," or ZPD.
Bruner's theory of socio-cognitive stages assumes, like Piaget, that knowing is a form of cognitive
construction, with the individual taking an active role rather than being a passive receiver of
information. Bruner views cognitive growth as dependent upon the development of two processes. He
calls these Representation and Integration.
Representation: This involves being competent in the ability to represent cognitively, the “recurrent
regularities” of the environment.
Integration: This involves being competent in the ability to link past, present and future.
In his research on the cognitive development of children (1966), Jerome Bruner proposed three modes
of representation:
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Enactive representation (action-based)
Iconic representation (image-based)
Symbolic representation (language-based)
Modes of representation are the way in which information or knowledge are stored and encoded in
memory.
Rather than neat age related stages (like Piaget), the modes of representation are integrated and only
loosely sequential as they "translate" into each other.
Cognitive Approach
The term cognitive psychology came into use with the publication of the book Cognitive Psychology by
Ulric Neisser in 1967. Cognitive Psychology revolves around the notion that if we want to know what
makes people tick then the way to do it is to figure out what processes are actually going on in their
minds.
Cognition literally means “knowing”. In other words, psychologists from this approach study cognition
which is ‘the mental act or process by which knowledge is acquired.’
They focus on the way humans process information, looking at how we treat information that comes in
to the person (what behaviourists would call stimuli) and how this treatment leads to responses. In
other words, they are interested in the variables that mediate between stimulus/input and
response/output. Cognitive psychology assumes our behaviour is an internal process including
perception, attention, language, memory and thought
The cognitive approach applies a nomothetic approach (relating to the search for general laws or traits,
especially in personality theory) to discover human cognitive processes, but have also adopted
idiographic techniques through using case studies (e.g. KF, HM).
Typically cognitive psychologists use the laboratory experiment to study behaviour. This is because the
cognitive approach is a scientific one. For example, participants will take part in memory tests in strictly
controlled conditions. However, the widely used lab experiment can be criticised for lacking ecological
validity (a major criticism of cognitive psychology).
Cognitive psychology became of great importance in the mid-1950s. Several factors were important in
this: 
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Dissatisfaction with the behaviourist approach in its simple emphasis on external behaviour
rather than internal processes
The development of better experimental methods
The start of the use of computers allowed psychologists to try to understand the complexities of
human cognition by comparing it with something simpler and better understood i.e. an artificial
system such as a computer.
The cognitive approach began to revolutionise psychology in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, to
become the dominant approach (i.e. perspective) in psychology by the late 1970s. Interest in mental
processes had been gradually restored through the work of Piaget and Tolman. Other factors were
important in the early development of the cognitive approach. For example, dissatisfaction with the
behaviourist approach in its simple emphasis on behaviour rather than internal processes and the
development of better experimental methods. But it was the arrival of the computer that gave cognitive
psychology the terminology and metaphor it needed to investigate the human mind. The start of the use
of computers allowed psychologists to try to understand the complexities of human cognition by
comparing it with something simpler and better understood i.e. an artificial system such as a computer.
The work of Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) has become the foundation of much research and theory in
cognitive development over the past several decades, particularly of what has become known as Social
Development Theory.
Vygotsky's theories stress the fundamental role of social interaction in the development of cognition
(Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1985), as he believed strongly that community plays a central role in the
process of "making meaning."
Unlike Piaget's notion that childrens' development must necessarily preceed their learning, Vygotsky
argued, "learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized,
specifically human psychological function" (1978, p. 90). In other words, social learning tends to precede
(i.e. come before) development.
Vygotsky has developed a socio-cultural approach to cognitive development. He developed his theories
at around the same time as Jean Piaget was starting to develop his theories (1920's and 30's), but he
died at the age of 38 and so his theories are incomplete - although some of his writings are still being
translated from Russian.
No single principle (such as Piaget's equilibration) can account for development. Individual development
cannot be understood without reference to the social and cultural context within which it is embedded.
Higher mental processes in the individual have their origin in social processes.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive.html
Vygotsky's theory differs from that of Piaget in a number of important ways:
1: Vygotsky places more emphasis on culture affecting/shaping cognitive development - this contradicts
Piaget's view of universal stages and content of development. (Vygotsky does not refer to stages in the
way that Piaget does).
2: Vygotsky places considerably more emphasis on social factors contributing to cognitive development
(Piaget is criticised for underestimating this).
3: Vygotsky places more (and different) emphasis on the role of language in cognitive development
(again Piaget is criticised for lack of emphasis on this).
1. Effects of Culture: - Tools of intellectual adaptation
Like Piaget, Vygotsky claimed that infants are born with the basic materials/abilities for intellectual
development - Piaget focuses on motor reflexes and sensory abilities.
Vygotsky refers to Elementary Mental Functions –
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Attention
Sensation
Perception
Memory
Eventually, through interaction within the socio-cultural environment, these are developed into more
sophisticated and effective mental processes/strategies which he refers to as Higher Mental Functions.
E.g. Memory. In young children this is limited by biological factors. However, culture determines the
type of memory strategy we develop. E.g., in our culture we learn note-taking to aid memory, but in preliterate societies other strategies must be developed, such as tying knots in string to remember, or
carrying pebbles, or repetition of the names of ancestors until large numbers can be repeated.
Vygotsky refers to tools of intellectual adaptation - these allow children to use the basic mental
functions more effectively/adaptively, and these are culturally determined (e.g. memory mnemonics,
mind maps).
Vygotsky therefore sees cognitive functions, even those carried out alone, as affected by the beliefs,
values and tools of intellectual adaptation of the culture in which a person develops and therefore socioculturally determined. The tools of intellectual adaptation therefore vary from culture to culture - as in
the memory example.
2. Social Influences on Cognitive Development
Like Piaget, Vygotsky believes that young children are curious and actively involved in their own learning
and the discovery and development of new understandings/schema. However, Vygotsky placed more
emphasis on social contributions to the process of development, whereas Piaget emphasised selfinitiated discovery.
According to Vygotsky, much important learning by the child occurs through social interaction with a
skilful tutor. The tutor may model behaviours and/or provide verbal instructions for the child. Vygotsky
refers to this as co-operative or collaborative dialogue. The child seeks to understand the actions or
instructions provided by the tutor (often the parent or teacher) then internalises the information, using
it to guide or regulate their own performance.
Shaffer (1996) gives the example of a young girl who is given her first jigsaw. Alone, she performs poorly
in attempting to solve the puzzle. The father then sits with her and describes or demonstrates some
basic strategies, such as finding all the comer/edge pieces and provides a couple of pieces for the child
to put together herself and offers encouragement when she does so. As the child becomes more
competent, the father allows the child to work more independently. According to Vygotsky, this type of
social interaction involving co-operative or collaborative dialogue promotes cognitive development.
In order to gain an understanding of Vygotsky's theories on cognitive development, one must
understand two of the main principles of Vygotsky's work: the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) and
the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).
More Knowledgeable Other
The more knowledgeable other (MKO) is somewhat self-explanatory; it refers to someone who has a
better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, with respect to a particular task, process,
or concept. Although the implication is that the MKO is a teacher or an older adult, this is not necessarily
the case. Many times, a child's peers or an adult's children may be the individuals with more knowledge
or experience. (For example, who is more likely to know more about the newest teen-age music groups,
how to win at the most recent Playstation game, or how to correctly perform the newest dance craze - a
child or their parents?)
In fact, the MKO need not be a person at all. Some companies, to support employees in their learning
process, are now using electronic performance support systems. Electronic tutors have also been used
in educational settings to facilitate and guide students through the learning process. The key to MKOs is
that they must have (or be programmed with) more knowledge about the topic being learned than the
learner does.
Zone of Proximal Development
The concept of the More Knowledgeable Other is integrally related to the second important principle of
Vygotsky's work, the Zone of Proximal Development.
This is an important concept that relates to the difference between what a child can achieve
independently and what a child can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.
For example, the child could not solve the jigsaw puzzle (in the example above) by itself and would have
taken a long time to do so (if at all), but was able to solve it following interaction with the father, and
has developed competence at this skill that will be applied to future jigsaws.
Vygotsky sees the Zone of Proximal Development as the area where the most sensitive instruction or
guidance should be given - allowing the child to develop skills they will then use on their own developing higher mental functions.
Vygotsky also views interaction with peers as an effective way of developing skills and strategies. He
suggests that teachers use cooperative learning exercises where less competent children develop with
help from more skilful peers - within the zone of proximal development.
Evidence for Vygotsky and the ZPD
Freund (1990) conducted a study in which children had to decide which items of furniture should be
placed in particular houses of a dolls house. Some children were allowed to play with their mother in a
similar situation before they attempted it alone (zone of proximal development) whilst others were
allowed to work on this by themselves (Piaget's discovery learning). Freund found that those who had
previously worked with their mother (ZPD) showed greatest improvement compared with their first
attempt at the task. The conclusion being that guided learning within the ZPD led to greater
understanding/performance than working alone (discovery learning).
http://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html
Bruner's Three Modes of Representation
Enactive:
This appears first. It involves encoding action based information and storing it in our memory. For
example, in the form of movement as a muscle memory, a baby might remember the action of shaking a
rattle.
The child represents past events through motor responses, i.e. an infant will “shake a rattle” which has
just been removed or dropped, as if the movements themselves are expected to produce the
accustomed sound. And this is not just limited to children.
Many adults can perform a variety of motor tasks (typing, sewing a shirt, operating a lawn mower) that
they would find difficult to describe in iconic (picture) or symbolic (word) form.
Iconic:
This is where information is stored visually in the form of images (a mental picture in the mind’s eye).
For some, this is conscious; others say they don’t experience it. This may explain why, when we are
learning a new subject, it is often helpful to have diagrams or illustrations to accompany verbal
information.
Symbolic:
This develops last. This is where information is stored in the form of a code or symbol, such as
language. This is the most adaptable form of representation, for actions & images have a fixed relation
to that which they represent. “Dog” is a symbolic representation of a single class.
Symbols are flexible in that they can be manipulated, ordered, classified etc, so the user isn’t
constrained by actions or images. In the symbolic stage, knowledge is stored primarily as words,
mathematical symbols, or in other symbol systems.
Bruner's theory suggests it is effective when faced with new material to follow a progression from
enactive to iconic to symbolic representation; this holds true even for adult learners. A true instructional
designer, Bruner's work also suggests that a learner even of a very young age is capable of learning any
material so long as the instruction is organized appropriately, in sharp contrast to the beliefs of Piaget
and other stage theorists.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.html
A bit about Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980) was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, where his job was to
develop French versions of questions on English intelligence tests. He became intrigued with the reasons
children gave for their wrong answers on the questions that required logical thinking.
Piaget was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development. His contributions
include a theory of cognitive child development, detailed observational studies of cognition in children,
and a series of simple but ingenious tests to reveal different cognitive abilities.
Before Piaget’s work, the common assumption was that children are merely less competent thinkers
than adults. Piaget showed that young children think in strikingly different ways compared to adults.
According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure (genetically inherited and
evolved) on which all subsequent learning and knowledge is based.
Piaget's Theory Differs From Others In Several Ways:
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It is concerned with children, rather than all learners.
It focuses on development, rather than learning per se, so it does not address learning of
information or specific behaviours.
It proposes discrete stages of development, marked by qualitative differences, rather than a
gradual increase in number and complexity of behaviours, concepts, ideas, etc.
The goal of the theory is to explain the mechanisms and processes by which the infant, and then the
child, develops into an individual who can reason and think using hypotheses. To Piaget, cognitive
development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes as a result of maturation and
experience. Children construct an understanding of the world around them, then experience
discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment.
There Are Three Basic Components To Piaget's Theory:
1. Schemas (building blocks of knowledge) (A schema is a cognitive framework or concept
that helps organize and interpret information)
2. Processes that enable the transition from one stage to another (assimilation,
accommodation, and equilibration)
3. Stages of Cognitive Development (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational,
formal operational)
Piaget emphasised the importance of schemas in cognitive development, and described how
they were developed or acquired. A schema can be defined as a set of linked mental
representations of the world, which we use both to understand and to respond to situations.
The assumption is that we store these mental representations and apply them when needed.
For example, a person might have a schema about buying a meal in a restaurant. The schema is
a stored form of the pattern of behaviour which includes looking at a menu, ordering food,
eating it and paying the bill. (This is an example of a type of schema called a 'script'.)
Whenever they are in a restaurant, they retrieve this schema from memory and apply it to the
situation. The schemas Piaget described tend to be simpler than this - especially those used by
infants. He described how - as a child gets older - his or her schemas become more numerous
and elaborate.
Schema’s – a way of organizing knowledge, as follows;
http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html
Assimilation and Accommodation
Piaget viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This
happens through:

Assimilation – which is using an existing schema to a new situation.

Accommodation – happens when the existing schema (knowledge) needs to be changed to take
in new information.

Equilibration – is the force, which moves development along. An unpleasant state of
disequilibrium happens when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas
(assimilation.) Equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as we do not like to be
frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge (accommodation).
Once the new information is acquired the process of assimilation with the new schema will
continue until the next time we need to make an adjustment to it.
Example of assimilation
A 2 year old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has long frizzy hair on the sides.
To his father’s horror, the toddler shouts “Clown, clown” (Sigler et al., 2003).
Example of accommodation
In the “clown” incident, the boy’s father explained to his son that the man was not a clown and
that even though his hair was like a clown’s, he wasn’t wearing a funny costume and wasn’t doing
silly things to make people laugh
With this new knowledge, the boy was able to change his schema of “clown” and make this idea
fit better to a standard concept of “clown”.
According to Piaget, teaching can support these developmental processes by
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Providing support for the "spontaneous research" of the child
Using active methods that require rediscovering or reconstructing "truths"
Using collaborative, as well as individual activities
Devising situations that present useful problems, and create disequilibrium in the child
Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development
A child's cognitive development is about a child developing or constructing a mental model of the world.
Imagine what it would be like if you did not have a mental model of your world. It would mean that you
would not be able to make so much use of information from your past experience, or to plan future
actions.
Piaget was interested both in how children learnt and in how they thought.
Piaget believed that children think differently than adults and stated they go through 4 universal stages
of cognitive development.
Cognitive Stage of
Development
Key Feature
Study
Sensorimotor
0 -2 yrs
Object Permanence
Blanket & Ball Study
Preoperational
2-7 yrs
Egocentrism
Three Mountains
Concrete Operational
7 – 11 yrs
Conservation
Conservation of Number
Manipulate Ideas in Head, e.g.
Abstract Reasoning
Pendulum Task
Formal Operational
11yrs +
An important thing to understand about these different levels is that they are qualitatively different. In
other words, at each successive stage, it's not just a matter of doing something better, but of doing a
different thing altogether.
The function of cognitive growth is to produce increasingly powerful cognitive structures that permit the
individual to act on the environment with greater flexibility.
Evaluation of Piaget's Theory
Strengths

The influence of Piaget’s ideas in developmental psychology has been enormous. He changed
how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying children. He was an
inspiration to many who came after and took up his ideas.

His ideas have been of practical use in understanding and communicating with children,
particularly in the field of education (Discovery Learning).
Weaknesses

Are the stages real? Vygotsky and Bruner would rather not talk about stages at all, preferring to
see development as continuous. Others have queried the age ranges of the stages. Some
studies have shown that progress to the formal operational stage is not guaranteed.

Because Piaget concentrated on the universal stages of cognitive development and biological
maturation, he failed to consider the effect that the social setting and culture may have on
cognitive development (re: Vygotsky).

Piaget’s methods (observation and clinical interviews) are more open to biased interpretation
than other methods, i.e. subjective (Piaget observed alone).

As several studies have shown Piaget underestimated the abilities of children because his tests
were sometimes confusing or difficult to understand (e.g. Martin Hughes, 1975).

The concept of schema is incompatible with the theories of Bruner and Vygotsky.
Behaviourism would also refute Piaget’s schema theory.

Piaget carried out his studies with a handful of participants – in the early studies he generally
used his own children (biased sample).
Taken from http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html Jean Piaget - Child Development
Difference Between Bruner and Piaget
Obviously there are similarities between Piaget and Bruner, but an important difference is that
Bruner’s modes are not related in terms of which presuppose the one that precedes it. Whilst
sometimes one mode may dominate in usage, they co-exist. Bruner states that what determines the
level of intellectual development is the extent to which the child has been given appropriate instruction
together with practice or experience. SO- the right way of presentation and the right explanation will
enable a child to grasp a concept usually only understood by an adult. His theory stresses the role of
education and the adult.
Although Bruner proposes stages of cognitive development, he doesn’t see them as representing
different separate modes of thought at different points of development (like Piaget). Instead, he sees a
gradual development of cognitive skills and techniques into more integrated “adult” cognitive
techniques.
Bruner views symbolic representation as crucial for cognitive development and since language is our
primary means of symbolising the world; he attaches great importance to language in determining
cognitive development.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.html
Possible questions to ask:
1. Can you think of any cognitive learning that you use on a daily basis? Explain. E.g. we
know that when working in the sun we should cover up or wear sunscreen, why? We may
have personally experienced sunburn and the pain that goes with it so from that
experience we can associate sustained sun exposure to pain and we don’t like pain.
2. Does you teaching involve cognitive strategies at the moment, whether intentional or
unintentional? If so how.
3. How can you include more cognitive teaching strategies into your current classes?
YouTube cognitivism video links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcb6zLIVq5k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC_eyWibGac
and for something a bit lighter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8mo2CLSKJ8