1. Chapter 7 Cognition

2. Constructivism – people are active learners
Chapter 7: Cognition
Cognition: the activity of knowing and the processes through which knowledge is acquired and problems are solved
Constructivism – people are active learners

3. How we come to know reality Clinical Method
Jean Piaget ( )
Genetic Epistemology
How we come to know reality
Clinical Method
Question and answer technique
Used to discover how children think about problems

4. Clinical Method (example of a 6 year old)
Piaget: Why is it dark at night?
Van: Because we sleep better, and so that it shall be dark in the rooms.
Piaget: Where does the darkness come from?
Van: Because the sky becomes grey.
Piaget: What makes the sky become grey?
Van: The clouds become dark.
Piaget: How is that?
Van: G-d makes the clouds become dark.

5. Piaget
Intelligence: How well we adapt
Scheme (s) or schema (schemata)/cognitive structures
Organization
- Children systematically combine existing schemes into new and more complex ones.
- E.g., infant who gazes, reaches, and grasps will organize these simple schemes into a complex structure called visually directed reading.

6. Adaptation
Adjusting to the environment
Using assimilation and accommodation
Assimilation
Using existing schemes to interpret new experiences
E.g., Birds are things that fly
Accommodation
Modifying schemes to fit new experience
E.g., Butterflies are different than Birds even though they both fly
Equilibrium
A resolution of conflict to create a balance

7. Cognitive Development Piaget’s Theory
Piaget’s Four Stages
Cognition unfolds in a sequence of four stages.
Each is age-related and distinctive.
Each stage is discontinuous from and more advanced than another.

8. Piaget
Sensorimotor Stage
Newborn uses reflexes to understand world
Eventually - mental representation
Object Permanence
A, not B, error – 8 to 12 month-olds search for an object in the place where they last found it (A) rather than in its new hiding place (B).
Symbolic Capacity (read in book)

9. Sensorimotor stage

10. Symbolic Function Substage (2-4 Years)
Symbolic thought: Mental representation of an object that is not present (drawing, pretend play, and language)
Egocentrism: The inability to distinguish between one’s own perspective and someone else’s perspective.
Animism: The belief that inanimate objects have “lifelike” qualities and are capable of action.

11. Can this boy report what the clown doll sees?

12. They Centrate: Focusing on one characteristic to the exclusion of others.
No Conservation: Some characteristic of an object stays the same even though the object might change in appearance.

13. Piaget’s Conservation Task

14. Intuitive rather than logical
Lack classification ability
Lack conservation due to static thinking, irreversible thought and centration
Asks a lot of questions
signals the emergence of the interest in reasoning
reflects intellectual curiosity

15. How would you group these?

16. Classification v v This grouping is by shape and size and color. It is
multiple classification. The child has to think of three
dimensions at once. In what stage could the child do this?

17. Preoperational stage

18. Conservation of Length
Is one of these lines longer or are they they same?
What would the pre-operational child say?

19. Conservation of Length
The preoperational child would say the one on
the top is longer. Pre-operational children
base their concepts on perception, not logic.

20. Conservation of Length
Are all of these lines the same length? Is one longer?
What would the pre-operational child say?

21. Conservation of Length
Preoperational children are tricked by perception.
The think the one “out front” is longer.

22. Conservation of Area Which side has more green?

23. Both have the same area of green
Both have the same area of green. Preoperational children rely on perception and think the one on the right has more.

24. Conservation of Number
Do these two rows have the same number of balls?
Do these two rows have the same number of balls?
Which has more?

25. Conservation of Number
Pre-operational children think the row on the
bottom has more. Later they develop
one-to-one correspondence.
They understand there is one for this
one, one for that one, and one for that one, etc.

26. Concrete Operations
Age 7-11
Can conserve
Decentration
Reversible thinking
Logical thinking (limited to reality)
Seriation and classification
Transitive thinking:
“ If J is taller than M, and M is taller than S, who is taller – J or S?”

27. Figure 7.4 Some common tests of the child’s ability to conserve.

28. Short Answer
When a child can focus on both width and length of two triangles in order to compare their areas, Piaget would say that the child is capable of _________________.

29. Formal Operations
Adolescence/puberty
Logical thinking about ideas
Hypothetical and abstract thinking
Hypothetical-deductive reasoning – from general ideas to their specific implications
Decontextual thinking
Ability to separate prior knowledge/beliefs from new evidence to the contrary

30. Formal Operations 2
Adolescent egocentrism
Differentiating own thoughts from others’
Imaginary audience
Also, learning to present themselves to a real audience
Personal fable
“No one has ever felt like this before!”
“I drive better when I’m drunk!”

31. Cognition in Adulthood
Formal operations requires
Normal intelligence
Higher education (scientific thinking)
Lower performance on formal operations
Use only in field of expertise
Postformal thought
Relativistic thinking: Labouvie-Vief
No absolute answer in many situations

32. Piaget
Contributions
Stimulated much research
Correct about the sequence of cognitive development
Challenges
Underestimated young minds
Focused on performance not competence
Domain specific rather than stages
Social influences left out (too much the “isolated scientist.”

33. Vygotsky
Emphasized the socio-cultural context
Culture affects how and what we think
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
Accomplishment with guidance
Where lessons should be aimed
Guided participation (a form of scaffolding) learning
Private speech/ guides behavior (3 & 4 yr olds)

34. Cognitive Development Vygotsky’s Theory
The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
student can work with the student can work
assistance of an instructor ________________________ independently
Language and Thought
Develop independently of each other
Have external or social origins
Scaffolding
Teacher adjusts the level of support as performance rises
ZPD

35. Scaffolding Applications of Vygotsky’s Theory
New Task = Mentor + Learner
2. Time Passes = Gradual Release
3. Learner Takes on the Responsibility for learning
Scaffolding