Download 10b - Developmental 2 (Cognitive) Notes

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Developmental, Part 2
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Cover picture: Increasing sophistication of the human brain
o Maturation
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Review of Friday’s lecture:
o Cognitive, moral, and psychosocial models running in parallel.
 Process of unfolding
o Sensitive periods (vs. critical periods) after birth
 Developmental tasks involved in each.
 But not “once and for all”
 Resilience
 Brain Plasticity and the Human Spirit
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Cog. Dev.: Piaget
o Structural epistemology
 Theory of knowledge
 “An object is not just an object.”
 Born from our relationship with it.
o Evolution of schemas involve assimilation and accommodation
 Cat and dog example.
o Epistemology develops over four stages.
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Sensory-Motor (birth to two years)
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Using sensory and motor abilities to master and understand the
world.
o “We don’t learn to walk.”
o Repetitions and rehearsal of movements/responses
 From gross to fine motor skills.
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Developmental task:
o Object permanence
 By 8 months
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Preoperational (2 to 7)
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Ability to pretend, to manipulate symbols, and to engage in
creative play.
o Norah: “No, you’re Mufasa!”
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Developing sense of past and future.
o Norah: “Are our friends coming tomorrow?”
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But perspective taking is still egocentric.
o Egocentrism test
 How mountains would look from doll’s point of
view
o Centering on one dimension at a time
 Unable to understand how grandmother is also
mother’s mother.
 Daddy/mama
o Developmental task:
 Ability to decenter is requisite for …
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Concrete operational thought

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Development of logic based on what one knows via direct
experience.
o First conservation
 Overcoming centration
 Tendency to look at one aspect of an object
and ignore others
 Video
 Rows of coins
o Then reversibility
 Math problems (1 + 2 = 3 and 3 – 2 = 1)
o Then classification and seriation
 Hierarchical categories and rank ordering
Formal operational thought

Ability to think abstractly and hypothetically through concepts.
o Understand form/structure of complex problems
 e.g, algebra
o Hypothesis testing
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o Thinking via principles and possibilities
 Reasoning contrary to fact (i.e., considering the
opposite)
Reciprocity (i.e., empathy - ability to take on another’s perspective
and still hold one’s own).
 Adolescents and causes

Conclusion: Again, an unfolding process
o Question about learning disability.
 Hardwiring (critical period)
 Vs. software (sensitive period)
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A second perspective on cognitive development: Vygotsky
o Instead of structural epistemology:
 Cognitive development mediated by cultural context
 Interactions between child and environment
 Zone of proximal development
 Learning happens best out of the interaction between independent
learning and assisted performance
 Scaffolding

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Socially-shared mental tools (e.g., language, technology, signs)
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Language informs the way we think.
o Categories of socially-relevant distinctions
o Eskimos have multiple terms for ‘snow’

Children’s developing thought is modeled as well.
o What is loudest and brightest
o What is repeated most in world around them.
However, it also limits the possibilities for how one is able to think.
 Recall from Goleman: Being vs. doing.

Lowest common denominator
o 93% of preschoolers know Golden Arches
o 65% know their letters
o Lewis Black

Possibilities for social roles.
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Bilingual education
o Danger of English becoming universal in a global society.