PSYC 20651 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Cognitive Development, Railways Act 1921, 18 Months
Document Summary
Children build mental structures to adapt to the world. Schemes: actions or mental representations that organize knowledge. Children use and adapt their schemes by: Assimilation: incorporate new information into existing schemes. Accommodation: adjust schemes to fit new information and experiences. Grouping of isolated behaviors and thoughts into a higher order system. Ongoing refinement of schematic organization inherent part of development. Piaget proposed four stages based on how children reason. Infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating their sensory experiences with physical, motoris actions. Primary circular reaction: based on the attempt to reproduce an event (repetitive action) that initially occurred by chance. Intrigued by object properties and object manipulations. Object permanence: understanding that objects and events continue to exist even when they cannot be directly seen, heard, or touched. Children begin to represent the world with words, images, and drawings (symbolic thought) Egocentrism: inability to distinguish between one"s own perspective and others.