Human Development

Cognitive Development

Announcements

Review session.
Tom Sgouros will be performing "Judy, or What is it Like to be a Puppet?" on November 7th, 7:00 P.M., in Furman 114.
Psi Chi meeting Wed., Oct. 31st, 5:00 P.M. in Wilson 115.
"Major Event", Sarratt Promenade, Tuesday, Oct. 30, & Thursday, Nov. 1, 5-7 P.M.

Basic Questions

At what age do various cognitive abilities appear?
Nature vs. nurture?
Stage-like vs. continuous?
Domain general vs. domain specific?
What are the mechanisms of cognitive development?

Theories of Cognitive Development

Piaget's Theory
Vygotsky's Theory
Information-processing Approach

Jean Piaget
(1896-1980)

Most comprehensive theory of cognitive development.
Greater emphasis on the biological aspect of development.
Graduate student of Alfred Binet's
Piaget was fascinated by the wrong answers children gave to intelligence test questions.

Principles of Piaget's Theory

Function of intelligence is to aid in adaptation to the environment.
Schemata
Mental models of the world and how it works.
Equilibration
A balance is sought between the cognitive demands of the environment and the schemata available to the child.

Processes of Equilibration

Assimilation
Objects and events are interpreted in terms of existing schemata.
Accommodation
Schemata are changed to accommodate new experiences.

Stages of Development

Sensorimotor stage
Preoperational stage
Concrete-operational stage
Formal-operational stage

Sensorimotor Stage

Birth to approximately 2 years.
Schemata centered on sensory & motor development.
Progression from reflexive (e.g., sucking grasping) to active interaction with the environment (e.g., playing with toy).
Object permanence develops.

Preoperational Stage

Ages 2 to 7.
Development of representational thought (e.g., symbolic play).
Communication may be egocentric.
Tend to focus on one aspect of a situation (centration).
cannot understand conservation.
cannot understand reversibility.

Concrete-operational Stage

Ages 7 to 11.
The abilities to visualize, to verbalize, and to mentally manipulate objects develop.
Develop concept of conservation.
Reversible thinking develops.

Formal-operational Stage

Ages 11+
Mental operations on abstract symbols and ideas.
Can conceive of second-order relations (e.g., analogies).

Evaluation

Many theorists believe that development is continuous.
Theorists have questioned the accuracy of the age of transitions.
Research was focused entirely on children in Western cultures.
Aborigines (nomadic) vs. Baoulé (farming)
Formal-operational stage may be dependent on experience.

Lev Vygotsky
(1896-1934)

Russian psychologist.
Died at 38 of tuberculosis.

Principles of Vygotsky's Theory

Internalization
The absorption of knowledge from context; children recreate within themselves what they experience in social interactions.
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
Range of ability between a child's observable level and a child's potential, latent level.
Social rather than biological emphasis.

Implications for Assessment

Static assessment environment (standard)
Examiner asks questions, child answers.
Dynamic assessment environment
Examiner has teacher-tester role.
When child answers incorrectly, the examiner provides a sequence of guided and graded hints.
Interest is in the child's ability to use hints.

Implications for Learning

Mediated Learning Experiences (MLE)
Child is introduced to an interesting environment (e.g., museum) or task (e.g., cooking).
The experience is then interpreted in language the child can understand.

Information-Processing Approaches

Seek to understand cognitive development in terms of how people of different ages process information.
Ask how our processes, strategies, or ways of representing information change with development. What causes these changes?
Tends to be a focus on particular types of information processing.

Examples

Perceptual skills
Memory
Verbal Comprehension

Perceptual Skills

Sensory integration
"Matching" film with sound track appears at about 4 months.
Appearance vs. reality
Sponge "rock."

Memory

Metamemory
Young children seriously overestimate their ability to recall information, and rarely rehearse, even if encouraged to do so.

Memory

Childhood "amnesia"
Absolute threshold analogy
- Determine median age of early childhood memories, and median age of childhood events for which one is amnesic, and then average these estimates.
Bruce et al. (2000)
- Adults described and dated two personal events from the first 8 years of life; one they could recollect and one they knew happened but couldn't recall.

Memory

Estimate of 4.64 years fits nicely with theories of childhood amnesia that attribute its decline to cognitive development in later preschool years; e.g., development of language, social, and narrative skills.

Verbal Comprehension

Comprehension monitoring is poor in young children.

Baked Alaska

To make it they put the ice cream in a very hot oven. The ice cream in Baked Alaska melts when it gets that hot. Then they take the ice cream out of the oven and serve it right away. When they make Baked Alaska, the ice cream stays firm and does not melt.

Verbal Comprehension

Among children 8-11, almost half who read the passage did not notice the contradiction.
Understandable in terms of resource allocation.

Interim Summary

Piaget
Biological maturation is crucial; environment is secondary.
Four stages.
Primarily domain general.
Cognitive development occurs through assimilation and accommodation.

Interim Summary

Vygotsky
Social-physical environment is crucial; maturational readiness may set ZPD.
Continuous.
ZPD may apply to many domains, but experience may only support development in specific ones.
Cognitive development occurs through internalization of experience within ZPD.

Interim Summary

Information Processing
Nature provides the foundation; nurture determines how it is manifested.
Continuous.
Domain general and specific.
Internal changes in cognitive processing as a result of maturation, experience, & child's own shaping of cognitive processes.

Demonstrations