Life-Span Human Development - Chapter 7 Cognition

vygotsky vs piaget

1. adult help vs peer help 2. social processes become inner individual one vs. inner processes become social (egocentric speech to social speech) 3. learning proceeds development vs. vice versu.

challenges of piaget

1. failed to distinguish between competence and performance 2. stages of developement are broad and quick 3. inadequetly explained development 4. didnt focus on social and cultural influence. didnt think adults could influence children.

contributions of piaget

1. infants active in their own development 2. ppl think diff based on their age 3. correct about stages of development.

substages of sensoirmotor stage

1. reflex actitivity (birth-1mth) 2. primary circular rxns (1-4 mths) 3. 2ndary circulary rxns (4-8mths) 4. coordination of secondary schemes (8-12 mths) 5. tertiary circular rxns (12-18 mths) 6. beginning of thought (18-24 mths)-

Fischer's four tiers

1. reflexive- basic reflexes operating during the 1month or so of life that need to prompted w/ stimulation. 2. sensorimotor action- actions on observable objects 3. representations- symbolic opertions on concrete objects 4. abstraction- operations integrate eariler representations into abstractions that involve mental juggling of concepts.

piaget's stages

1. sensorimotor- birth -2 2. preoperational 2-7 3. concrete operational 7-11 4. formal operation 11 and up * invarient order , but diff rate per child

aspects of preoperation stage

1. symbolic thought 2. perceptual salience 3. lack conservation 4. egocentrism 4. lack class inclusion

How social interactions drive cognitive development?

1. zone of proximal development 2. guided participation.

concrete operational stage

7-11 yrs. understanding of seriation, transitivity, reversability of thought, decentration, tranformational thought, logical reasoning, inductive reasoning, less egocentrism, multiple classification.

scheme

A cognitive structure or organized pattern of action or thought used to deal with experiences.

imaginary audience

A form of adolescent egocentrism that involves confusing one's own thoughts with the thoughts of a hypothesized audience for behavior and concluding that others share these preoccupations.

personal fable

A form of adolescent egocentrism that involves thinking that oneself and one's thoughts and feelings are unique or special. ex: can't get pregnant

relativistic thinking

A form of postformal operational thought in which it is understood that there are multiple ways of viewing a problem and that the solutions people arrive at will depend on their starting assumptions and perspective.

hypothetical-deductive reasoning

A form of problem solving in which a person starts with general or abstract ideas and deduces or traces their specific implications; "if-then" thinking.

seriation

A logical operation that allows a person to mentally order a set of stimuli along a quantifiable dimension such as height or weight.

imaginary companions

A play companion invented by a child in the preoperational stage who has developed the capacity for symbolic thought.

guided participation

A process in which children learn by actively participating in culturally relevant activities with the aid and support of their parents and other knowledgeable individuals.

dialectical thinking

An advanced form of thought that involves detecting paradoxes and inconsistencies among ideas and trying to reconcile (solve disagreement between) them.

clinical method

An unstandardized interviewing procedure used by Piaget in which a child's response to each successive question (or problem) determines what the investigator will ask next.

neuroconstructivism theory

Approach that explains the construction of new knowledge by the child in terms of changes in neural structures in response to experience. builds on piaget's theory

coordination of secondary schemes

During Piaget's sensorimotor period, the infant's combining of actions to solve problems, using one scheme as a means to an end, as in batting aside a barrier in order to grasp a toy.

tertiary circular reactions

During Piaget's sensorimotor period, the infant's experimenting with actions to find new ways to solve problems or produce interesting effects.

primary circular reactions

During Piaget's sensorimotor period, the infant's repetition of interacting acts centered on his or her own body (e.g. repeatedly kicking).

secondary circular reactions

During Piaget's sensorimotor period, the infant's repetition of interesting actions on objects (e.g. repeatedly shaking a rattle to make a noise).

adolescent egocentrism

Elkin's idea that A characteristic of adolescent thought that involves difficulty differentiating between the person's own thoughts and feelings and those of other people. personal fable and imaginary audience

skill

In Fischer's dynamic skill framework, a person's ability to perform a particular task in a specific context. it is task and context specific.

developmental range

In Fischer's dynamic skill framework, the concept that people's abilities vary depending on the context, from optimal levels in highly supportive contexts to lower levels in unsupportive situations.

dynamic

In Fischer's dynamic skill framework, the idea that human performance changes in response to changes in context.

adaptation

In Piaget's cognitive developmental theory, a person's inborn tendency to adjust to the demands of the environment, consisting of the complementary processes of assimilation and accommodation.

organization

In Piaget's cognitive developmental theory, a person's inborn tendency to combine and integrate available schemes into more coherent and complex systems or bodies of knowledge; as a memory strategy, a technique that involves grouping or classifying stimuli into meaningful clusters.

accommodation

In Piaget's cognitive developmental theory, the process of modifying existing schemes to incorporate or adapt to new experiences. Contrast with assimilation. In vision, a change in the shape of the eye's lens to bring objects at differing distances into focus.

transformational thought

In Piaget's theory, the ability to conceptualize transformations, or processes of change from one state to another, which appears in the stage of concrete operations. Contrast with static thought.

reversibility

In Piaget's theory, the ability to reverse or negate an action by mentally performing the opposite action.

equilibration

In Piaget's theory, the process of seeking a state of mental stability in which our thoughts (schemes) are consistent with the information we receive from the external world. changed by cognitive conflict

centration

In Piaget's theory, the tendency to focus on only one aspect of a problem when two or more aspects are relevant in preoperational stage.

static thought

In Piaget's theory, the thought characteristic of the preoperational period that is fixed on end states rather than on the changes that transform one state into another. Contrast with transformational thought.

scaffolding

Jerome Bruner's term for providing structure to a less skilled learner to encourage advancement.

private speech

Nonsocial speech, or speech for the self, commonly used by preschoolers to guide their activities and believed by Vygotsky to be the forerunner of inner speech, or silent thinking in words. occurs during difficult problems and open-ended activities. can happen regardless of age. shown to improve performance in tasks. childre transition to inner speech.

perceptual salience

Phenomenon in which the most obvious features of an object or situation have disproportionate influence on the perceptions and thought of young children. lack logical thinking.

piaget vs fischer

Piaget studied children in artificial settings not real life. Fischer said skills develop, not cogntiive structures.

assimilation

Piaget's term for the process by which children interpret new experiences in terms of their existing schemata. Contrast with accommodation.

decentration

The ability to focus on two or more dimensions of a problem at one time. piaget said children did not have this.

transitivity

The ability to recognize the necessary or logical relations among elements in a serial order (for example, that if A is taller than B, and B is taller than C, then A must be taller than C).

cognition

The activity of knowing and the processes through which knowledge is acquired (for example, attending, perceiving, remembering, and thinking).

symbolic capacity

The capacity to use symbols such as words, images, or actions to represent or stand for objects and experiences; representational thought. in last substage. 18-24months ex: shoes is telephone. pretend play

reaction time

The interval between the presentation of a stimulus and a response to it.

class inclusion

The logical understanding that parts or subclasses are included in the whole class and that the whole is therefore greater than any of its parts.

conservation

The recognition that certain properties of an object or substance do not change when its appearance is altered in some superficial way.

A-not-B error

The tendency of 8- to 12- month old infants to search for a hidden object in the last place they found it (A) rather than its new hiding place (B).

egocentrism

The tendency to view the world from the person's own perspective and fail to recognize that others may have different points of view. three mountain exp .

object permanence

The understanding that objects continue to exist when they are no longer visible or otherwise detectable to the senses; fully mastered by the end of infancy. mastered at end of 2nd year. 18-24 months.

decontextualize

To separate the demands of a task at hand from prior beliefs and knowledge.

zone of proximal development

Vygotsky's term for the difference between what a learner can accomplish independently and what a learner can accomplish with the guidance and encouragement of a more skilled partner. no test can adequately assess knowledge. ex; solving puzzle

formal operations stage

adolescent thinking systematically about hypothetical and abstract concepts and using hypothetical-deductive reasoning, not trial and error. ex: pendulum task

limitations of adult cognitive performance?

adults use formal operations w/ familiar concepts and concrete operation with unfamiliar concepts. education level nd culture also effects formal operation development.

piaget's def of intelligence

basic life function that helps an organism adapt to its environment. infants have few means to adapt.

how to improve formal operations?

better education and hands on learning

constuctivism

children actively construct theri own understandings based on their experiences

Vygotsky's sociocultural perspective

children learn through social experience w/ ppl around them. Intelligence is held in the culture, not the individual.

inductive vs transductive reasoning

drawing cause/effect conclusions logically based on facts vs just combining unrelated facts b/c they happen close in time.

postformal thought

in adult hood, Proposed stages of cognitive development that lie beyond formal operations and thinking outside the box. involves realistic thinking not absolutist thinking. theres no aboslute truth for every question.

why preschoolers fail at conservation task

lack 1. decentration 2. reversability 3. tranformational thought

Control of variables strategy (CVS) study ...

showed that children as young as 9 could recognize good or bad scientifc exp, but there was a big diff in those that could produce a good exp.

cognitive conflict or disequilibrium

when new events seriously challenge our current schemas. it stimulates cognitive growth.

invisible displacements

when object is moved while hidden and child looks for object where they orginally saw it.