Developmental Psychology
 Study of psychological changes
that occur in human beings as they age
 Originally concerned with infants and children
 Also includes adolescence and more recently, Aging
 Studies change across a broad range of topics
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Motor skills
Problem solving abilities
Conceptual understanding
Acquisition of language
Moral understanding
Identity formation
Developmental Psychology
 Key questions
 Do children think in a different way to adults
 Or do they simply lack the experience of adults?
 Is development gradual - accumulation of knowledge
 Or does it take big jumps - step from one way of thinking to another?
 Are children born with innate knowledge
 Or do they figure things out through experience?
 Is development driven by the social context
 Or by something inside each child?
Developmental Psychology
 A number of areas can be studied in Developmental
Psychology
 Example: educational psychology, social psychology
 We focus on Cognitive Development
(We are cognitivists)
 Focus on Piaget’s theory
 Why is it interesting for AI?
 As early as 1950 Turing proposed
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Build a child AI, rather than an adult
Teach it what it needs to know
Why build a child?
Easier than adult because he knows less
Jean Piaget
 Born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland,
on August 9, 1896
 Took an early interest in nature,
especially the collecting of shells
 Became interested in
Biological Adaptation
 …Led to interest in human intelligence and knowledge
surely the highest form of biological adaptation
What Is It About?
Genetic Epistemology
Genetic doesn’t mean Genetic Algorithm
Genetic means studying the origin
 Where it comes from
Epistemology means “theory of knowledge”
So Genetic Epistemology is
 A theory of where knowledge comes from
What Is It About?
Genetic Epistemology
Highest form of biological adaptation
Piaget’s Observations
The first thing Piaget noticed:
Children’s way of thinking is really different to adults
Q
A
Why does a helium balloon go up?
Because there’s a gas inside,
when there’s a lot of gas it’s heavy,
it’s very strong and then it flies.
Q
Q
Why does a large boat float?
Why does a small pebble sink to the bottom?
But a small chip of wood floats…
Q
Why does a large piece of wood float?
Piaget’s Theory
 Piaget noticed:
Children’s way of thinking is really different to adults
 But he also noticed something in common
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When they have a contradiction…
Gradually they change their world model
Come up with a new way to explain what they see
They are creative in conjecturing new models
Just like a scientist discovering laws of physics
 Key point: Children CONSTRUCT their own model of the world.
 Intelligence is about having a function that can
 Take on board new data
 Construct a theory of the world which fits the data
“Just as the main functions of the living being are identical
in all organisms but correspond to organs which are very
different in different groups,
so also between the child and the adult a continuous
creation of varied structures may be observed
although the main functions of thought remain constant.”
Piaget
Piaget’s Theory – How It Works
Cognitive structures
Continuous creation
Cognitive functions
Organise + Adapt
Invariant – nucleus in infant
Constructivism
Piaget’s Observations
The progress of development
Variable ages + much overlap
old habits reappear
Show how little is known initially
Gain insight into functions used
In the beginning: Reflex ( 0  1 months )
Sucking and grasping reflexes
Respond to stimuli
For play/practise
Reflex preserves itself by repeating
Schema: S-R-S
Stimulus-Response-Stimulus
In the beginning: Reflex ( 0  1 months )
Sucking and grasping reflexes
Respond to stimuli
For play/practise
Reflex preserves itself by repeating
Development
Search improves
Accommodates to new objects
Discerns stimuli for special modes
Sign recognition improves
Circular Reactions ( 1  4 months )
Thumb sucking
Grasping:
1. Reflex, with interest
2. Grab object and suck hand
3. Carry object to mouth
4. Grab object when in view
Suddenly realise hand and vision are in the same world
5. Intentional motion of hand
Repeating Discoveries ( 4  8 months )
Repeat interesting spectacle
Interrupted grabbing
Reconstruct whole from visible part
But does not retrieve if completely hidden
Remove obstacles to perception
Objects have no other side
Image at disposal of action
Bridge: actions dissociated from end result
Intelligent Coordination
( 8  12 months )
Explore object properties
Chain actions to achieve goal
Intention; find means; apply actions
Objects have other side
Search for vanished objects
A not B error
Failure to modify action
Bridge: dropping objects
Experimentation ( 12  18 months )
Adjust actions using feedback
Stick
Support
Really trying to understand the world
Succeeds on A not B
Fails covert displacements
Limited construction of reality
Representation ( 18  24 months )
Planning becomes covert
Combining action sequences
Experimentation
Succeeds in covert displacements
Imitation to represent
Difficulty  old magic forms reappear
Preoperational (2-7)
Play and Imitation
Fails seriation tasks
Does not know conservation
Language - preconcepts
Transduction instead of induction/deduction
Q
A
Why does a helium balloon go up?
Because there’s a gas inside,
when there’s a lot of gas it’s heavy,
it’s very strong and then it flies.
Concrete Operational (7-11)
Knows conservation
Can manipulate concrete objects mentally
Cannot manipulate abstract relations
Edith fairer Lily; Edith darker Susan
Cannot accept assumptions
Formal Operational (11+)
Can manipulate abstract relations
Can entertain non-concrete hypotheses
General Themes
Incremental construction
Repeating work on a new plane
Implicit representation of concepts
Only pay attention to what makes sense
Development driven by conflict
“Every time we teach a child something,
we keep him from inventing it himself.”
Piaget
Commonsense is Not Intelligence
Not sufficient
Structure not function
Not necessary
Function can build structure
Comparison with Darwin
 Darwin looked at all the various forms of life and asked
 where did they come from?
 He saw a common mechanism…
 which could have given rise to all the varieties of life we see today.
 Many complex forms of life…
 could evolve out of very simple forms of life
 by a relatively simple mechanism
 Piaget looked at all the various forms of mental activity
 in humans of all ages
 saw a common mechanism which could have given rise to them all
 Complexities of adult human mind…
 could grow out simple forms in infant’s mind
 a relatively simple set of innate structures and functions.
 Darwin was concerned with the origin of species
 Piaget was concerned with the origin of mind
Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory
 Some people contradict Piaget’s theory
 But beware! They lie!
 Considerable controversy in the field
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Results to corroborate Piaget’s theory
And results to contradict his theory
And results to contradict the contradictions
And …
 Psychology has a lot of conflicting results
 A science in its infancy, just over 100 years old
 (Compare Physics)
Course Overview
 What is AI?
 What are the Major Challenges?
 What are the
Main Techniques?
Looking
at the Science
 Engineering vs. Science
 Introduction to Cognitive Science
 Cognitive
1
Step back
and lookPsychology
at the Science
 Cognitive Psychology 2
 Cognitive
 Step back and
look at theDevelopment
History of AI
 Linguistics
 What are the
Major Schools of Thought?
 Neuroscience
 Philosophy
 Where are we failing, and why?
 What of the Future?