Chapter 7 Cognition. Chapter 7: Cognition Cognition: the activity of knowing and the processes...
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Transcript of Chapter 7 Cognition. Chapter 7: Cognition Cognition: the activity of knowing and the processes...
Chapter 7
Cognition
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
2.3
Cognition unfolds in a sequence of four stages.
Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
• Genetic Epistemology
– How we come to know reality
• Clinical Method
– Question and answer technique
– Used to discover how children think about problems
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.
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.
• 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
Process of Change in Jean 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.
Cognitive DevelopmentPiaget’s Theory
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).
The Sensorimotor Period
© 2015. Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
Symbolic Function Substage(2-4 Years)
• Symbolic thought: Mental representation of an object that is not present
Copyright (c) 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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.
Can this boy report what the clown doll sees?
Copyright (c) 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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.
Piaget’s Conservation Task
Intuitive substage (4-7 years)
• Intuitive rather than logical
• Lack classification ability
• Lack transformational thought
• 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
Copyright (c) 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Class Inclusion
How would you group these?
Copyright (c) 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Classification
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?
vv
Copyright (c) 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Preoperational stage
Conservation of Length
Is one of these lines longer or are they they same?What would the pre-operational child say?
Copyright (c) 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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. Copyright (c) 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Conservation of Length
Are all of these lines the same length? Is one longer?What would the pre-operational child say?
Copyright (c) 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Conservation of Length
Preoperational children are tricked by perception. The think the one “out front” is longer.
Copyright (c) 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Conservation of Area Which side has more green?
Copyright (c) 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Both have the same area of green. Preoperational children rely on perception and think the one on the right has more.
Copyright (c) 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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?
Copyright (c) 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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.Copyright (c) 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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?”
Figure 7.4
Comparison of Preoperational and Concrete-Operational Thinking
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
Hypothetical-deductive reasoning
Which factor makes the pendulum go faster or slower?
1)Length of string2)Weight3)Point of release4)Amount of impetus
The shorter the string the faster the swing
The Pendulum Problem
Expertise and Formal Pperations
• Adolescent egocentrism
– Enhanced ability to reflect on one’s own and other’s thoughts
• Imaginary audience
• Personal fable
–“No one has ever felt like this before!”
–“I drive better when I’m drunk!”
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
• Dialectical thinking– Detecting paradoxes and inconsistencies
among ideas and trying to reconcile them
Aging and Cognitive Skills
• Some mental abilities decline as the average person ages
• Other explanations– Cohort effect– May be differences in style– Lack of motivation
Piaget
• Contributions
– Stimulated much research
– Correct about the sequence of cognitive development
• Challenges
– Underestimated young minds
– Focused on competence
– Domain specific rather than stages
– Social influences left out (too much the “isolated scientist.”
A Modern Take on Constructivism
• Neuroconstructivism theory– New knowledge is constructed in the
context of existing knowledge and is constrained by genetic as well as environmental factors
– Believe that the neural structures in the brain underlying cognitive phenomenon develop and change in response to experience
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)
Cognitive Development Vygotsky’s Theory
The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
student can work with the student can workassistance of an instructor ________________________ independently
Language and Thought• Develop independently of each other• Have external or social origins
ScaffoldingTeacher adjusts the level of support as performance
rises
ZPD
Scaffolding
1. New Task = Mentor + Learner
2. Time Passes = Gradual Release
3. Learner Takes on the Responsibility for learning
Applications of Vygotsky’s Theory
A Comparison of Vygotsky and Piaget
7.3 Fischer’s Dynamic Skill Framework
• Kurt Fischer– Not possible to analyze behavior outside
the context in which it occurs – Behavior emerges from interactions
between person and context– Human performance is dynamic
• Changes in response to changes in context
Comparison to Piaget and Vygotsky
• Piaget – Tested children in artificial settings– Cognitive structures develop
• Fischer– Study of development should happen in
natural context– Skill levels change and develop
Comparison to Piaget and Vygotsky
• Fischer proposes a series of four tiers– Reflexive– Sensorimotor action– Representations– Abstractions
Comparison to Piaget and Vygotsky
• Uses concept of zone of proximal development:– To explain how cognition advances from
one level to another
• Uses term developmental range:– To better capture their findings that
people’s abilities vary with context