Early Cognition

Early Cognition

Piaget
1. Stages of Development
  1. Sensori-motor
    1. 0-2 years
    2. Intelligence is based entirely on actions
  2. Pre-operational
    1. Beginnings of symbolic thought
    2. 2-7 years
  3. Concrete Operations
    1. Ability to think logically about physical changes and relations
    2. 7-13 years
  4. Formal Operations
    1. Abstract and hypothetical reasoning
2. Cognition at different ages
  1. 6 months
    1. Infants appreciate difference between selves and objects but do not understand continued existence of objects beyond their own actions
  2. 9-18 months
    1. Infants develop an imperfect understanding of the continued existence of objects once occluded
  3. Birth
    1. Infants have no understanding of the world
3. Stage 3 error
  1. Babies of 6-9 months fail to search for occluded objects but do search for partly concealed objects. Piaget concluded that they do not understand the covered object still exists, and when they uncover the partly concealed objects, they believe their own actions reconstitute the object
4. Stage 4 error
  1. Infants of ~9 months retrieve a covered object at location A, but when it is hidden at location B, fail to search for it. Piaget concluded that the child does not understand that the object can exist elsewhere other than the place they originally uncovered it- it becomes a "thing of the place". They believe their own actions will reconstitute it regardless of where they search
Tests of infant cognition
1. Preferential looking
  1. Preferential looking experiments compare how long infants look at two stimuli as a measure of surprise or preference
    1. If there is a positive result, the infant can evidently distinguish between the stimuli and conclusions can be drawn. If there is a null result, it cannot be established whether they have no preference or simply cannot distinguish them
      1. Can conclusions be drawn? Is "surprise" the correct interpretation of the results? Could it not be to do with increased perceptual information
  2. Experiments where this is used
    1. Baillargeon et al: drawbridge experiments. Longer looking time at impossible event suggests surprise and therefore understanding of basic object properties
    2. Kellman and Spelke: Infants recognised continuity of partially concealed rod (looked for longer at unexpected event)
2. Habituation
  1. Habituation involves showing infants a stimulus until looking time decreases by 50%, then showing them novel stimuli
    1. Again, conclusions cannot be drawn from null results
    2. Used in Baillargeon experiment
A not B error
1. Infants of ~9 months retrieve a covered object at location A, but when it is hidden at location B, fail to search for it.
2. Piaget concluded that the child does not understand that the object can exist elsewhere other than the place they originally uncovered it- it becomes a "thing of the place". They believe their own actions will reconstitute it regardless of where they search
3. Alternative suggestions for error
  1. Lack of motor co-ordination to alter response
  2. Memory deficits
    1. Although error is made when object hidden under transparent cover
  3. Misunderstanding of task or confusion
Conservation
1. Piaget
  1. For conservation to occur, children must recognise the reversibility of the transofrmation. This means they need to decentre their attention from one dimension. Young children lack reversibility because they cannot think logically about physical changes
  2. Piaget concluded from the results of conservation tasks in young children that they lack reversibility due to egocentrism
2. Reversibility, Egocentrism and the Principle of Invariance
  1. Reversibility is the ability to manipulate mental representations of objects
  2. Egocentrism is the inability to consider objects or scenes from a different spatial or temporal perspective
  3. The Principle of Invariance states that there are relevant and irrelevant changes associated with an object (addition/subtraction vs perceptual transformations)
    1. Three Mountains Task
3. Criticisms of Piaget
  1. Naughty teddy
    1. Suggests results of conservation experiments may have been due at least in part to demand characteristics
  2. Neonate conservation
    1. Newborn babies act surprised when basic conservation is violated

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