Piaget Recap From Challenges of Developmental Research ...
PSYC 354 Summer 2014 Lecture Three: Piaget Recap From Challenges of Developmental Research, Conceptual Analysis, and Developmental Theory Many challenges to developmental research (our brainstorm) One major issue has to do with characterizing/studying the cognitive development of preverbal human infants Great amount of interpretation (“rich” v. “lean”) perspectives Physics envy and conceptual analysis Probabilistic Epigenesis Reaction Range: Developmental outcomes are predetermined by genetics Not just a genotype changing developmental system Norm of Reaction Model: The genetic difference that is only expressed under the same developmental conditions under which it was selected (the developmental manifold) Cognitive Development The development of thinking Theories of Cognitive Development: • Piaget • Vygotsky • Information Processing/Mental Logic View Jean Piaget (18961980) First psychologists to make a systematic study of cognitive development • Theory of cognitive development • Detailed observational studies of children’s cognition • Series of simple, clever tests to reveal cognitive abilities Genetic epistemology development of knowledge • How does knowledge develop? Science and Religion Understood from “without” rather than “within” (epistemological context overlooked) Trained as a zoologist not a developmental psychologist The “received view” Interest were broad “The Nature of Knowledge” Wrote a lot of papers and books but were not well written Believed in a Theory of Stages (Classification of Thinking) • Sensorimotor • Preoperational • Operational • Formal Operational Stages as forms of thinking • Structure as potentialities, not entities in the head Theory of equilibration
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Applies to knowledge in general Generativity and rigour Process of Development; continuous • Development v. Change (structures)
The 4 Factors in Development 1) Maturation Biological basis (Nature) • Necessary but not efficient/sufficient 2) Experience Physical Nurture Physical knowledge Properties of objects Logicalmathematical knowledge • Knowledge from actions on objects 3) Experience Social Already assumes development Doesn’t explain new knowledge 4) Equilibration (Engine of Development) Other factors insufficient Piaget’s Theory of Knowledge: Constructivism Knowledge develop through action • Knowledge is neither innate nor copied from the world. • E.g. Object permanence Children are active in constructing new knowledge, not passively taught • Infants understand the world in terms of possible actions • Egocentrism Piaget’s Theory of Sensorimotor Development Schemes: A sensorimotor action that infant repeats when faced with similar opportunities Disequilibrium: Imbalance between activities and environmental effects, or among organism’s own schemes Equilibration: The process of achieving new equilibrium following disequilibrium • Leads to better equilibrium • Able to compensate • Balance • Process not a state • Organization Among child’s activities • Adaptation Relations between the child and the world
PSYC 354 Summer 2014 Adaptation Assimilation Organism understands environment in terms of existing schemes Accommodation Schemes are general • Need adjustments or accommodation when applied in a particular situation SubStages 1) Stage One: Reflexes (01 months) • E.g. Sucking, looking, touching • Improvement • Organization of perceptions, coordinated movements and a need 2) Stage Two: Primary Circular Reactions (14 months) • Cycle of movements that repeat a sensation discovered by chance, repeating an action for its own sake (not the result of action) • Centred on the infant’s body…”discovery” • Coordination of schemes (e.g. looking and hearing) 3) Stage Three: Secondary Circular Reactions (48 months) • Involves objects in external environment • Focus on consequences/effects not just activity • Reproduce interesting effect of action discovered by chance (not figuring out how to do something) 4) Stage Four: Coordinating Secondary Schemes (812 months) • Causality: Trying to achieve a goal • Coordinating not just fusing schemes (as in Stage 2) • Intention: Separation of means and ends (value) • Schemes become more “mobile” i.e. can be detached from original contents and applied to other objects and situations 5) Stage Five: Tertiary Circular Reactions (1218 months) • Discovery of new means through active experimentation; finding objects limited to perceptual field 6) Stage Six: Mental Combinations (1824 months) • Invention of new means through mental combinations (rather than trying it out, as in Stage 5) • Instead of a series of trials and errors the solution is found before the act, not after • Coordination of schemes before the act The Child’s Construction of Reality Organization of Reality • Decentration through differentiation and coordination of schemes
PSYC 354 Summer 2014 Development of understanding of: • Objects • Space • Time • Causality • None of these categories are taken as given (in contrast to nativistic, Environmental Psychology, core knowledge accounts) The Objects Concept (6 SubStages) Leading to Object Permanence Stage 1 & 2: (14 months) • No special behaviour but still some idea of objects • Expects someone to reappear Stage 3: (48 months) • Can find partially covered object Stage 4: (812 months) • Can find completely covered object; A not B error Stage 5: (1218 months) • Can follow visible displacements Stage 6: (1824 months) • Can follow invisible displacements Stages: What is the Point? Depends what view of stage you take Piaget was a structuralist (formalist): • Each stage has a characteristic structure/form/organization (descriptive) • He was not a functionalist • Not age or consistency but rather sequence and how children develop from stage to stage Challenges to Piaget Baillargeon (1987) • Piaget underestimated infants due to his method of assessment (i.e. infants development object permanence wayyy earlier than what he said) Looking time paradigm • Habituation/dishabituation • Violation of expectation • Used to study perceptual development Baillargeon Piaget underestimated infants’ object knowledge (3.5 v. 10 months) A not B task too complicated it requires motor coordination (young infants are physically unable to express this conceptual knowledge in this task) Drawbridge Methodology: • Infants habituated to screen moving 180 degrees
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Shown possible or impossible event (box behind drawbridge) Stops at 112 degrees (possible) Continues to 180 degrees (impossible) Hypothesis: If infants have an object concept they will be surprised about the impossible event and they will look longer (results supported hypothesis) Methodological Critique Interpretation of looking time – what does it mean? • Developed for perceptual research • Indicated that infants notice a difference Perceptual rather than conceptual explanations • Just shows they notice a difference • Should not need habituation if infants already understand objects • Infants prefer 180 degrees rotation (the impossible event) v. 112 degrees rotation (the possible event) if box present or not D they simply prefer more movement? Researchers must play the “default game” Conceptual Critique What is meant by representation? • Are Baillargeon and Piaget talking about the same thing? • Empiricism v. Constructivism: perception v. action • We have no model of “partial” representations • Memory Trace v. “Externality” Representation as encoding information in neural networks (Haith). Then even fetuses “represent” Represent v. Represent Developmental Critique Is this a developmental view? • Preformationist assumptions? Lack of developmental analysis • Modular accounts, dichotomous views Invoking “innate” is a nondevelopmental view • Any “innate” feature is still a product of developmental process • Speaks to ignorance of processes, not an explanation of development (nominal fallacy) Haith’s Explanation Infants have had a lot of experience already • No need to invoke anything beyond already established perceptual explanations Infants look longer at events that are weird So What?
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Ages Piaget stated for cognitive milestones have come under attack Has spawned an entire cottage industry of ripping on Piaget and the ages he gave Part of why this is stems from a “mental logic” view and misunderstanding what Piaget meant by “stage”…we’ll get to that shortly…
Preoperational Thought Can represent absent objects; not tied to here and now Onset of semiotic functioning (use of symbols) • Practical knowledge of sensorimotor development is reconstructed on new representational level Fail conservation tasks • Perception bound i.e. mislead by appearances Concrete Operational Thought “Operation”: An interiorized action that is reversible • Actions, e.g. putting together, taking apart, adding, subtracting, grouping • Interiorized: Don’t have to be performed Restricted to reasoning about actual objects Conservation: • Understanding that certain properties of an object can remain the same while others change • Logical Truth: Not given empirically • Centration: Tendency to focus on one property or change while ignoring the others • Reversibility: Changes can be undone Conversation of: • Liquid, number, substance, length, weight Criticism of Piaget Horizontal Decalage • Inconsistency in stage of reasoning • E.g. conservation of substance (78 years), weight (910 years), volume (1112 years) A problem for Piaget’s theory, or for the “received view” of his theory Piaget Expects Inconsistency For Piaget, thought develops through action If operations are internalized actions, they would be content specific Same Structure: Two possible meanings • Formal v. Functional • Coordinated actions v. Mental logic • E.g. transitivity of length v. weight
PSYC 354 Summer 2014 A > B and B C “Procedural Decalages” Inconsistency in reasoning on different versions of a task Simplified tasks • Critics said Piaget’s tasks were too difficult for preschoolers thus he’s underestimating their abilities Competency v. Performance Competency + performance factors = Observed performance Research Strategy • Eliminate performance factors to measure competence more accurately • E.g. simplified threemountain task, simplified conservation of number task Problem Is this simplified task measuring the same competence? • Modified conservation of number task is no longer an evaluation of coordinating relations and logic • Can subsidize instead (i.e. “counting at a glance”) Piaget’s tasks are meant to assess children’s ability to overcome misleading clues. The tasks are meant to be difficult Stages Formal v. Functionalist Piaget describing forms of thinking not describing children Implications for: Ages and Stages and inconsistency in stages (Decalage) Formal Operational Thought Concrete Operations: Restricted to reasoning about actual objects E.g. Experimenter hides chip in hand • “Either the chip in my hand is green or not green” • Or: “the chip in my hand is green and it is not green” • True, False or Can’t Tell? • Concrete Operational Answer: “Can’t Tell” Reasoning based on form; separate form from content; relations amount statements • If…then statements: If the bears are white in the far North And Novvolisk is in the far North Then what colour are the bears in Novvolisk? Can think about logical possibilities Hypothetical Deductive Thought: Generate hypotheses and test • E.g. Pendulum task, which factor (length of string, weight of object, height of dropping, or force of push) determined frequency of oscillation Are Formal Operations Universal? Not found in all individuals or perhaps all cultures
PSYC 354 Summer 2014 Three possible explanations: 1) Different rates of development Depends on the quality and frequency of intellectual stimulation 2) Diversification of aptitudes Only some adolescents are talented in logic, math 3) Language capacities? Linguistic capacity Summary To understand the criticism facing Piaget, best to start with his actual position • Legitimate to criticize him, but not when you are criticizing a cartoon i.e. “received” view in textbooks (and the view of many current researchers) Important to know his interests, epistemology, his model of development, what he meant by stages, why he made his tasks “difficult”, the role “age” played in his stage theory, etc.
PSYC 354 Summer 2014 • • •
Applies to knowledge in general Generativity and rigour Process of Development; continuous • Development v. Change (structures)
The 4 Factors in Development 1) Maturation Biological basis (Nature) • Necessary but not efficient/sufficient 2) Experience Physical Nurture Physical knowledge Properties of objects Logicalmathematical knowledge • Knowledge from actions on objects 3) Experience Social Already assumes development Doesn’t explain new knowledge 4) Equilibration (Engine of Development) Other factors insufficient Piaget’s Theory of Knowledge: Constructivism Knowledge develop through action • Knowledge is neither innate nor copied from the world. • E.g. Object permanence Children are active in constructing new knowledge, not passively taught • Infants understand the world in terms of possible actions • Egocentrism Piaget’s Theory of Sensorimotor Development Schemes: A sensorimotor action that infant repeats when faced with similar opportunities Disequilibrium: Imbalance between activities and environmental effects, or among organism’s own schemes Equilibration: The process of achieving new equilibrium following disequilibrium • Leads to better equilibrium • Able to compensate • Balance • Process not a state • Organization Among child’s activities • Adaptation Relations between the child and the world
PSYC 354 Summer 2014 Adaptation Assimilation Organism understands environment in terms of existing schemes Accommodation Schemes are general • Need adjustments or accommodation when applied in a particular situation SubStages 1) Stage One: Reflexes (01 months) • E.g. Sucking, looking, touching • Improvement • Organization of perceptions, coordinated movements and a need 2) Stage Two: Primary Circular Reactions (14 months) • Cycle of movements that repeat a sensation discovered by chance, repeating an action for its own sake (not the result of action) • Centred on the infant’s body…”discovery” • Coordination of schemes (e.g. looking and hearing) 3) Stage Three: Secondary Circular Reactions (48 months) • Involves objects in external environment • Focus on consequences/effects not just activity • Reproduce interesting effect of action discovered by chance (not figuring out how to do something) 4) Stage Four: Coordinating Secondary Schemes (812 months) • Causality: Trying to achieve a goal • Coordinating not just fusing schemes (as in Stage 2) • Intention: Separation of means and ends (value) • Schemes become more “mobile” i.e. can be detached from original contents and applied to other objects and situations 5) Stage Five: Tertiary Circular Reactions (1218 months) • Discovery of new means through active experimentation; finding objects limited to perceptual field 6) Stage Six: Mental Combinations (1824 months) • Invention of new means through mental combinations (rather than trying it out, as in Stage 5) • Instead of a series of trials and errors the solution is found before the act, not after • Coordination of schemes before the act The Child’s Construction of Reality Organization of Reality • Decentration through differentiation and coordination of schemes
PSYC 354 Summer 2014 Development of understanding of: • Objects • Space • Time • Causality • None of these categories are taken as given (in contrast to nativistic, Environmental Psychology, core knowledge accounts) The Objects Concept (6 SubStages) Leading to Object Permanence Stage 1 & 2: (14 months) • No special behaviour but still some idea of objects • Expects someone to reappear Stage 3: (48 months) • Can find partially covered object Stage 4: (812 months) • Can find completely covered object; A not B error Stage 5: (1218 months) • Can follow visible displacements Stage 6: (1824 months) • Can follow invisible displacements Stages: What is the Point? Depends what view of stage you take Piaget was a structuralist (formalist): • Each stage has a characteristic structure/form/organization (descriptive) • He was not a functionalist • Not age or consistency but rather sequence and how children develop from stage to stage Challenges to Piaget Baillargeon (1987) • Piaget underestimated infants due to his method of assessment (i.e. infants development object permanence wayyy earlier than what he said) Looking time paradigm • Habituation/dishabituation • Violation of expectation • Used to study perceptual development Baillargeon Piaget underestimated infants’ object knowledge (3.5 v. 10 months) A not B task too complicated it requires motor coordination (young infants are physically unable to express this conceptual knowledge in this task) Drawbridge Methodology: • Infants habituated to screen moving 180 degrees
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Shown possible or impossible event (box behind drawbridge) Stops at 112 degrees (possible) Continues to 180 degrees (impossible) Hypothesis: If infants have an object concept they will be surprised about the impossible event and they will look longer (results supported hypothesis) Methodological Critique Interpretation of looking time – what does it mean? • Developed for perceptual research • Indicated that infants notice a difference Perceptual rather than conceptual explanations • Just shows they notice a difference • Should not need habituation if infants already understand objects • Infants prefer 180 degrees rotation (the impossible event) v. 112 degrees rotation (the possible event) if box present or not D they simply prefer more movement? Researchers must play the “default game” Conceptual Critique What is meant by representation? • Are Baillargeon and Piaget talking about the same thing? • Empiricism v. Constructivism: perception v. action • We have no model of “partial” representations • Memory Trace v. “Externality” Representation as encoding information in neural networks (Haith). Then even fetuses “represent” Represent v. Represent Developmental Critique Is this a developmental view? • Preformationist assumptions? Lack of developmental analysis • Modular accounts, dichotomous views Invoking “innate” is a nondevelopmental view • Any “innate” feature is still a product of developmental process • Speaks to ignorance of processes, not an explanation of development (nominal fallacy) Haith’s Explanation Infants have had a lot of experience already • No need to invoke anything beyond already established perceptual explanations Infants look longer at events that are weird So What?
PSYC 354 Summer 2014 • •
Ages Piaget stated for cognitive milestones have come under attack Has spawned an entire cottage industry of ripping on Piaget and the ages he gave Part of why this is stems from a “mental logic” view and misunderstanding what Piaget meant by “stage”…we’ll get to that shortly…
Preoperational Thought Can represent absent objects; not tied to here and now Onset of semiotic functioning (use of symbols) • Practical knowledge of sensorimotor development is reconstructed on new representational level Fail conservation tasks • Perception bound i.e. mislead by appearances Concrete Operational Thought “Operation”: An interiorized action that is reversible • Actions, e.g. putting together, taking apart, adding, subtracting, grouping • Interiorized: Don’t have to be performed Restricted to reasoning about actual objects Conservation: • Understanding that certain properties of an object can remain the same while others change • Logical Truth: Not given empirically • Centration: Tendency to focus on one property or change while ignoring the others • Reversibility: Changes can be undone Conversation of: • Liquid, number, substance, length, weight Criticism of Piaget Horizontal Decalage • Inconsistency in stage of reasoning • E.g. conservation of substance (78 years), weight (910 years), volume (1112 years) A problem for Piaget’s theory, or for the “received view” of his theory Piaget Expects Inconsistency For Piaget, thought develops through action If operations are internalized actions, they would be content specific Same Structure: Two possible meanings • Formal v. Functional • Coordinated actions v. Mental logic • E.g. transitivity of length v. weight
PSYC 354 Summer 2014 A > B and B C “Procedural Decalages” Inconsistency in reasoning on different versions of a task Simplified tasks • Critics said Piaget’s tasks were too difficult for preschoolers thus he’s underestimating their abilities Competency v. Performance Competency + performance factors = Observed performance Research Strategy • Eliminate performance factors to measure competence more accurately • E.g. simplified threemountain task, simplified conservation of number task Problem Is this simplified task measuring the same competence? • Modified conservation of number task is no longer an evaluation of coordinating relations and logic • Can subsidize instead (i.e. “counting at a glance”) Piaget’s tasks are meant to assess children’s ability to overcome misleading clues. The tasks are meant to be difficult Stages Formal v. Functionalist Piaget describing forms of thinking not describing children Implications for: Ages and Stages and inconsistency in stages (Decalage) Formal Operational Thought Concrete Operations: Restricted to reasoning about actual objects E.g. Experimenter hides chip in hand • “Either the chip in my hand is green or not green” • Or: “the chip in my hand is green and it is not green” • True, False or Can’t Tell? • Concrete Operational Answer: “Can’t Tell” Reasoning based on form; separate form from content; relations amount statements • If…then statements: If the bears are white in the far North And Novvolisk is in the far North Then what colour are the bears in Novvolisk? Can think about logical possibilities Hypothetical Deductive Thought: Generate hypotheses and test • E.g. Pendulum task, which factor (length of string, weight of object, height of dropping, or force of push) determined frequency of oscillation Are Formal Operations Universal? Not found in all individuals or perhaps all cultures
PSYC 354 Summer 2014 Three possible explanations: 1) Different rates of development Depends on the quality and frequency of intellectual stimulation 2) Diversification of aptitudes Only some adolescents are talented in logic, math 3) Language capacities? Linguistic capacity Summary To understand the criticism facing Piaget, best to start with his actual position • Legitimate to criticize him, but not when you are criticizing a cartoon i.e. “received” view in textbooks (and the view of many current researchers) Important to know his interests, epistemology, his model of development, what he meant by stages, why he made his tasks “difficult”, the role “age” played in his stage theory, etc.
