Question

Part 1

Lev Vygotsky discussed the concept of scaffolding in his cultural-cognitive theory. Please describe the scaffolding process using a real-life example in addition to viewing the video below to aid in your discussion.

video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InzmZtHuZPY

Part 2

Bruner discussed the Theory of Representation (Categorization) and Concept Attainment in your book. Please describe his thoughts on categories as rules, decision making, and coding systems. Please use a real-life example to help facilitate your discussion of these concepts.

PART 3

Piaget discusses his 5 stage theory in your text. In reading over each stage and watching the video below, please discuss in detail at least 2 stages and how you have seen the concepts applied to real life.

video link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRF27F2bn-A

PART 4

Piaget has developed many concepts and theories in terms of developmental and cognitive psychology. The concepts of assimilation and accommodation are mentioned. Please discuss these two concepts and use a real-life example to demonstrate your thoughts.

Please NO copy pasted answers!

Answer 1

Part 1

Vygotsky’s concept of scaffolding is closely related to the concept of the zone of proximal development. Scaffolding refers to the temporary support given to a child by More Knowledgeable Others, usually parents or teachers that enable the child to perform a task until such time that the child can already perform the task independently.

Scaffolding entails changing the quality and quantity of support provided to a child in the course of a teaching session. The more-skilled instructor adjusts the level of guidance needed in order to fit the student’s current level of performance. For novel tasks, the instructor may utilize direct instruction. As the child gains more familiarity with the task and becomes more skilled at it, the instructor may then provide less guidance.

Children who experience more difficulty in task performance are in need of greater assistance and guidance from an adult. When the child has learned to complete the task independently, the scaffolds are removed by the adult, as they are no longer needed.

A major contribution of Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development is the acknowledgement of the social component in both cognitive and psychosocial development. Due to his proffered ideas, research attention has been shifted from the individual onto larger interactional units such as parent and child, teacher and child, or brother and sister.

Vygotsky’s theory likewise called attention to the variability of cultural realities, stating that the development of children who are in one culture or subculture, such as middle class Asian Americans, may be totally different from children who hail from other societies or subcultures. It would not be fitting, therefore, to utilize the developmental experiences of children from one culture as a norm for children from other cultures.

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development has significant ramifications in education and cognitive testing. Vygotsky was a strong advocate of non-standard assessment procedures for the assessment of what and how much a child has learned and in the formulation of approaches that could enhance the child’s learning. His ideas have effected changes in educational systems through the increased importance given to the active role of students in their own learning process and the encouragement of teacher-student collaboration in a reciprocal learning experience.

Part 2

Bruner’s Learning Theory

Evolution of the brain – humans would easily have been dominated had it not been for their intellect; no better solution to one’s environment than the brain.

Evolution of mental representation inventions and mental evolution devices that could amplify their motor capacities, devices that could amplify sensory capacities, devices that could amplify intellectual capacities evolution of representation in children.

• Enactive representation –children represent objects through their own immediate sensations of them.
• Iconic representation –children use mental images that stand for certain objects or events.
• Symbolic representation – completely arbitrary symbols used to represent objects.

Bruner’s Theory of Representation: Categorization

All human cognitive activity involves categories, structures through which inferences can be made.

• Concept – representation of related things
• Percept – physical thing apprehended through senses.
• Categories can be compared to the cell assemblies and phase sequences of Hebb’s theory.
• Categories are based on associations developed largely through frequency or redundancy.
• Categorization is closely tied to similarity; objects tend to be placed in the same categories based on the similarities among them.

Categories as Rules

• A category is defined by criterial attributes.
• A category specifies the attributes that are criterial and indicates the manner in which they are to be combined.
• A category assigns weight to various properties.
• A category sets acceptance limits on attributes.

Decisions are made about identities of stimulus inputs; all input is classified in relation to categories that already exist.

Decision Making

To identify an object is to make a decision about whether it belongs to a given category.

Once an object is placed in a category, there is inherent in the category a decision about how the object should be reacted to.

Coding Systems

Coding systems are related categories on which inferences about new information is based.

Hierarchical arrangements of related categories, such that the topmost category is more general.

Details of a specific instance can be re-created, and the transfer value of coding systems results

Concept Attainment

• Conjunctive concepts: presence of two or more attribute values.
• Disjunctive concepts: the joint presence of two or more attributes or by the presence of any one of the relevant attributes.
• Relational concepts: a specified relationship between attribute values.

Strategies for Concept Attainment

• Simultaneous scanning
• Successive scanning
• Conservative focusing
• Focus gambling

Part 3

The Stages

Through his observations of his children, Piaget developed a stage theory of intellectual development that included four distinct stages:

1. The Sensorimotor Stage

Ages: Birth to 2 Years

The infant knows the world through their movements and sensations.

Children learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking, grasping, looking, and listening.

Infants learn that things continue to exist even though they cannot be seen (object permanence).

They are separate beings from the people and objects around them.

They realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world around them.

During this earliest stage of cognitive development, infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects. A child's entire experience at the earliest period of this stage occurs through basic reflexes, senses, and motor responses.

It is during the sensorimotor stage that children go through a period of dramatic growth and learning. As kids interact with their environment, they are continually making new discoveries about how the world works.

The cognitive development that occurs during this period takes place over a relatively short period of time and involves a great deal of growth. Children not only learn how to perform physical actions such as crawling and walking, they also learn a great deal about language from the people with whom they interact. Piaget also broke this stage down into a number of different sub stages. It is during the final part of the sensorimotor stage that early representational thought emerges.

Piaget believed that developing object permanence or object constancy, the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, was an important element at this point of development. By learning that objects are separate and distinct entities and that they have an existence of their own outside of individual perception, children are then able to begin to attach names and words to objects.

1. The Preoperational Stage

Ages: 2 to 7 Years

Children begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to represent objects.

Children at this stage tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things from the perspective of others.

While they are getting better with language and thinking, they still tend to think about things in very concrete terms.

The foundations of language development may have been laid during the previous stage, but it is the emergence of language that is one of the major hallmarks of the preoperational stage of development. Children become much more skilled at pretend play during this stage of development, yet still think very concretely about the world around them.

At this stage, kids learn through pretend play but still struggle with logic and taking the point of view of other people. They also often struggle with understanding the idea of constancy.

For example, a researcher might take a lump of clay, divide it into two equal pieces, and then give a child the choice between two pieces of clay to play with. One piece of clay is rolled into a compact ball while the other is smashed into a flat pancake shape. Since the flat shape looks larger, the preoperational child will likely choose that piece even though the two pieces are exactly the same size.

1. The Concrete Operational Stage

Ages: 7 to 11 Years

During this stage, children begin to thinking logically about concrete events.

They begin to understand the concept of conservation; that the amount of liquid in a short, wide cup is equal to that in a tall, skinny glass, for example.

Their thinking becomes more logical and organized, but still very concrete.

Children begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific information to a general principle.

While children are still very concrete and literal in their thinking at this point in development, they become much more adept at using logic. The egocentrism of the previous stage begins to disappear as kids become better at thinking about how other people might view a situation.

While thinking becomes much more logical during the concrete operational state, it can also be very rigid. Kids at this point in development tend to struggle with abstract and hypothetical concepts.

During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think and feel. Kids in the concrete operational stage also begin to understand that their thoughts are unique to them and that not everyone else necessarily shares their thoughts, feelings, and opinions.

1. The Formal Operational Stage

Ages: 12 and Up

At this stage, the adolescent or young adult begins to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical problems.

Abstract thought emerges.

Teens begin to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues that require theoretical and abstract reasoning.

Begin to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific information.

The final stage of Piaget's theory involves an increase in logic, the ability to use deductive reasoning, and an understanding of abstract ideas. At this point, people become capable of seeing multiple potential solutions to problems and think more scientifically about the world around them.

The ability to thinking about abstract ideas and situations is the key hallmark of the formal operational stage of cognitive development. The ability to systematically plan for the future and reason about hypothetical situations are also critical abilities that emerge during this stage.

It is important to note that Piaget did not view children's intellectual development as a quantitative process; that is, kids do not just add more information and knowledge to their existing knowledge as they get older. Instead, Piaget suggested that there is a qualitative change in how children think as they gradually process through these four stages. A child at age 7 doesn't just have more information about the world than he did at age 2; there is a fundamental change in how he thinks about the world.

Part 4

Assimilation

The process of taking in new information into our already existing schemas is known as assimilation. The process is somewhat subjective because we tend to modify experiences and information slightly to fit in with our preexisting beliefs. In the example above, seeing a dog and labeling it "dog" is a case of assimilating the animal into the child's dog schema.

Accommodation

Another part of adaptation involves changing or altering our existing schemas in light of new information, a process known as accommodation. Accommodation involves modifying existing schemas, or ideas, as a result of new information or new experiences. New schemas may also be developed during this process.

Examples of Piagetian Assimilation and Accommodation

1.         A child seeing a zebra for the first time and calling it a horse. The child assimilates this information into her schema for a horse. When the child accommodates information, she takes into consideration the different properties of a zebra compared to a horse, perhaps calling a zebra a horse with stripes. When she eventually learns the name of zebra, she has accommodated this information.

2.         A mental representation, or schema of a certain group of people (a racist schema) -- your whole life you grew up with those around you just adding more and more information to that schema that made sense to you (assimilation) -- you only notice information that fits your schema (assimilation) and confirms it -- then you get to college and actually meet people from that group and realize what you have learned from real interactions requires a radical reorganization of your schema regarding that group (accommodation). Your new schema is completely different, not just full of additional information

3.         Assimilation is like adding air into a balloon. You just keep blowing it up. It gets bigger and bigger. For example, a two year old's schema of a tree is "green and big with bark" -- over time the child adds information (some trees lose their leaves, some trees have names, we use a tree at Christmas, etc.) - Your balloon just gets full of more information that fits neatly with what you know and adds onto it.

Accommodation is when you have to turn your round balloon into the shape of a poodle. This new balloon "animal" is a radical shift in your schema (or balloon shape). The tree example works well where we live so I go with that, but you can invent your own. Now that they are in college in the redwood forest, we have conceptualization (schema) of trees as a source of political warfare, a commodity, a source of income for some people, we know that people sit and live in trees to save them; in other words, trees are economic, political, and social vehicles. This complete change in the schema involves a lot of cognitive energy, or accommodation, a shift in our schema.

4.         Most students are very good at working with computers and easily learn to navigate new websites and programs (assimilation). My college is putting heavy emphasis on distance learning and the computer literate students who enroll in my online classes seem to have an early advantage (accommodation) over students who are limited in their computer experiences. Thankfully, this advantage lessens over the weeks, but I, as the instructor, have to keep this gap in mind early in the course.

5.         Young children can go from riding a big wheel to riding a tricycle with no problem--they can assimilate--it is 'sort of the same'; but to go to a bicycle there is much accommodation that must take place.

6.         I've usually got three or four kinds of chairs in my class and I go to each one and sit in it to illustrate assimilation. I then sit on the corner of my desk or one of the kid's desks and use that as a jumping off point to talk about accommodation. I also want to elicit differences in similarly categorized items (such as fact that some desks have drawers and some do not). I usually will have some kind of a roll cart and I ask them why it isn't a desk. They will usually say because of the rollers but then I point out that some desks are moveable. I think it might also be pertinent to let students know that we cannot define something solely by function either since I have just recently been sitting on my desk. I want kids to understand that the categorizations can be a little arbitrary but we nevertheless come to common understandings about them.

Part 1

Vygotsky’s concept of scaffolding is closely related to the concept of the zone of proximal development. Scaffolding refers to the temporary support given to a child by More Knowledgeable Others, usually parents or teachers that enable the child to perform a task until such time that the child can already perform the task independently.

Scaffolding entails changing the quality and quantity of support provided to a child in the course of a teaching session. The more-skilled instructor adjusts the level of guidance needed in order to fit the student’s current level of performance. For novel tasks, the instructor may utilize direct instruction. As the child gains more familiarity with the task and becomes more skilled at it, the instructor may then provide less guidance.

Children who experience more difficulty in task performance are in need of greater assistance and guidance from an adult. When the child has learned to complete the task independently, the scaffolds are removed by the adult, as they are no longer needed.

A major contribution of Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development is the acknowledgement of the social component in both cognitive and psychosocial development. Due to his proffered ideas, research attention has been shifted from the individual onto larger interactional units such as parent and child, teacher and child, or brother and sister.

Vygotsky’s theory likewise called attention to the variability of cultural realities, stating that the development of children who are in one culture or subculture, such as middle class Asian Americans, may be totally different from children who hail from other societies or subcultures. It would not be fitting, therefore, to utilize the developmental experiences of children from one culture as a norm for children from other cultures.

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development has significant ramifications in education and cognitive testing. Vygotsky was a strong advocate of non-standard assessment procedures for the assessment of what and how much a child has learned and in the formulation of approaches that could enhance the child’s learning. His ideas have effected changes in educational systems through the increased importance given to the active role of students in their own learning process and the encouragement of teacher-student collaboration in a reciprocal learning experience.

Part 2

Bruner’s Learning Theory

Evolution of the brain – humans would easily have been dominated had it not been for their intellect; no better solution to one’s environment than the brain.

Evolution of mental representation inventions and mental evolution devices that could amplify their motor capacities, devices that could amplify sensory capacities, devices that could amplify intellectual capacities evolution of representation in children.

• Enactive representation –children represent objects through their own immediate sensations of them.
• Iconic representation –children use mental images that stand for certain objects or events.
• Symbolic representation – completely arbitrary symbols used to represent objects.

Bruner’s Theory of Representation: Categorization

All human cognitive activity involves categories, structures through which inferences can be made.

• Concept – representation of related things
• Percept – physical thing apprehended through senses.
• Categories can be compared to the cell assemblies and phase sequences of Hebb’s theory.
• Categories are based on associations developed largely through frequency or redundancy.
• Categorization is closely tied to similarity; objects tend to be placed in the same categories based on the similarities among them.

Categories as Rules

• A category is defined by criterial attributes.
• A category specifies the attributes that are criterial and indicates the manner in which they are to be combined.
• A category assigns weight to various properties.
• A category sets acceptance limits on attributes.

Decisions are made about identities of stimulus inputs; all input is classified in relation to categories that already exist.

Decision Making

To identify an object is to make a decision about whether it belongs to a given category.

Once an object is placed in a category, there is inherent in the category a decision about how the object should be reacted to.

Coding Systems

Coding systems are related categories on which inferences about new information is based.

Hierarchical arrangements of related categories, such that the topmost category is more general.

Details of a specific instance can be re-created, and the transfer value of coding systems results

Concept Attainment

• Conjunctive concepts: presence of two or more attribute values.
• Disjunctive concepts: the joint presence of two or more attributes or by the presence of any one of the relevant attributes.
• Relational concepts: a specified relationship between attribute values.

Strategies for Concept Attainment

• Simultaneous scanning
• Successive scanning
• Conservative focusing
• Focus gambling

Part 3

The Stages

Through his observations of his children, Piaget developed a stage theory of intellectual development that included four distinct stages:

1. The Sensorimotor Stage

Ages: Birth to 2 Years

The infant knows the world through their movements and sensations.

Children learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking, grasping, looking, and listening.

Infants learn that things continue to exist even though they cannot be seen (object permanence).

They are separate beings from the people and objects around them.

They realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world around them.

During this earliest stage of cognitive development, infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects. A child's entire experience at the earliest period of this stage occurs through basic reflexes, senses, and motor responses.

It is during the sensorimotor stage that children go through a period of dramatic growth and learning. As kids interact with their environment, they are continually making new discoveries about how the world works.

The cognitive development that occurs during this period takes place over a relatively short period of time and involves a great deal of growth. Children not only learn how to perform physical actions such as crawling and walking, they also learn a great deal about language from the people with whom they interact. Piaget also broke this stage down into a number of different sub stages. It is during the final part of the sensorimotor stage that early representational thought emerges.

Piaget believed that developing object permanence or object constancy, the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, was an important element at this point of development. By learning that objects are separate and distinct entities and that they have an existence of their own outside of individual perception, children are then able to begin to attach names and words to objects.

1. The Preoperational Stage

Ages: 2 to 7 Years

Children begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to represent objects.

Children at this stage tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things from the perspective of others.

While they are getting better with language and thinking, they still tend to think about things in very concrete terms.

The foundations of language development may have been laid during the previous stage, but it is the emergence of language that is one of the major hallmarks of the preoperational stage of development. Children become much more skilled at pretend play during this stage of development, yet still think very concretely about the world around them.

At this stage, kids learn through pretend play but still struggle with logic and taking the point of view of other people. They also often struggle with understanding the idea of constancy.

For example, a researcher might take a lump of clay, divide it into two equal pieces, and then give a child the choice between two pieces of clay to play with. One piece of clay is rolled into a compact ball while the other is smashed into a flat pancake shape. Since the flat shape looks larger, the preoperational child will likely choose that piece even though the two pieces are exactly the same size.

1. The Concrete Operational Stage

Ages: 7 to 11 Years

During this stage, children begin to thinking logically about concrete events.

They begin to understand the concept of conservation; that the amount of liquid in a short, wide cup is equal to that in a tall, skinny glass, for example.

Their thinking becomes more logical and organized, but still very concrete.

Children begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific information to a general principle.

While children are still very concrete and literal in their thinking at this point in development, they become much more adept at using logic. The egocentrism of the previous stage begins to disappear as kids become better at thinking about how other people might view a situation.

While thinking becomes much more logical during the concrete operational state, it can also be very rigid. Kids at this point in development tend to struggle with abstract and hypothetical concepts.

During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think and feel. Kids in the concrete operational stage also begin to understand that their thoughts are unique to them and that not everyone else necessarily shares their thoughts, feelings, and opinions.

1. The Formal Operational Stage

Ages: 12 and Up

At this stage, the adolescent or young adult begins to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical problems.

Abstract thought emerges.

Teens begin to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues that require theoretical and abstract reasoning.

Begin to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific information.

The final stage of Piaget's theory involves an increase in logic, the ability to use deductive reasoning, and an understanding of abstract ideas. At this point, people become capable of seeing multiple potential solutions to problems and think more scientifically about the world around them.

The ability to thinking about abstract ideas and situations is the key hallmark of the formal operational stage of cognitive development. The ability to systematically plan for the future and reason about hypothetical situations are also critical abilities that emerge during this stage.

It is important to note that Piaget did not view children's intellectual development as a quantitative process; that is, kids do not just add more information and knowledge to their existing knowledge as they get older. Instead, Piaget suggested that there is a qualitative change in how children think as they gradually process through these four stages. A child at age 7 doesn't just have more information about the world than he did at age 2; there is a fundamental change in how he thinks about the world.

Part 4

Assimilation

The process of taking in new information into our already existing schemas is known as assimilation. The process is somewhat subjective because we tend to modify experiences and information slightly to fit in with our preexisting beliefs. In the example above, seeing a dog and labeling it "dog" is a case of assimilating the animal into the child's dog schema.

Accommodation

Another part of adaptation involves changing or altering our existing schemas in light of new information, a process known as accommodation. Accommodation involves modifying existing schemas, or ideas, as a result of new information or new experiences. New schemas may also be developed during this process.

Examples of Piagetian Assimilation and Accommodation

1.         A child seeing a zebra for the first time and calling it a horse. The child assimilates this information into her schema for a horse. When the child accommodates information, she takes into consideration the different properties of a zebra compared to a horse, perhaps calling a zebra a horse with stripes. When she eventually learns the name of zebra, she has accommodated this information.

2.         A mental representation, or schema of a certain group of people (a racist schema) -- your whole life you grew up with those around you just adding more and more information to that schema that made sense to you (assimilation) -- you only notice information that fits your schema (assimilation) and confirms it -- then you get to college and actually meet people from that group and realize what you have learned from real interactions requires a radical reorganization of your schema regarding that group (accommodation). Your new schema is completely different, not just full of additional information

3.         Assimilation is like adding air into a balloon. You just keep blowing it up. It gets bigger and bigger. For example, a two year old's schema of a tree is "green and big with bark" -- over time the child adds information (some trees lose their leaves, some trees have names, we use a tree at Christmas, etc.) - Your balloon just gets full of more information that fits neatly with what you know and adds onto it.

Accommodation is when you have to turn your round balloon into the shape of a poodle. This new balloon "animal" is a radical shift in your schema (or balloon shape). The tree example works well where we live so I go with that, but you can invent your own. Now that they are in college in the redwood forest, we have conceptualization (schema) of trees as a source of political warfare, a commodity, a source of income for some people, we know that people sit and live in trees to save them; in other words, trees are economic, political, and social vehicles. This complete change in the schema involves a lot of cognitive energy, or accommodation, a shift in our schema.

4.         Most students are very good at working with computers and easily learn to navigate new websites and programs (assimilation). My college is putting heavy emphasis on distance learning and the computer literate students who enroll in my online classes seem to have an early advantage (accommodation) over students who are limited in their computer experiences. Thankfully, this advantage lessens over the weeks, but I, as the instructor, have to keep this gap in mind early in the course.

5.         Young children can go from riding a big wheel to riding a tricycle with no problem--they can assimilate--it is 'sort of the same'; but to go to a bicycle there is much accommodation that must take place.

6.         I've usually got three or four kinds of chairs in my class and I go to each one and sit in it to illustrate assimilation. I then sit on the corner of my desk or one of the kid's desks and use that as a jumping off point to talk about accommodation. I also want to elicit differences in similarly categorized items (such as fact that some desks have drawers and some do not). I usually will have some kind of a roll cart and I ask them why it isn't a desk. They will usually say because of the rollers but then I point out that some desks are moveable. I think it might also be pertinent to let students know that we cannot define something solely by function either since I have just recently been sitting on my desk. I want kids to understand that the categorizations can be a little arbitrary but we nevertheless come to common understandings about them.

Part 1

Vygotsky’s concept of scaffolding is closely related to the concept of the zone of proximal development. Scaffolding refers to the temporary support given to a child by More Knowledgeable Others, usually parents or teachers that enable the child to perform a task until such time that the child can already perform the task independently.

Scaffolding entails changing the quality and quantity of support provided to a child in the course of a teaching session. The more-skilled instructor adjusts the level of guidance needed in order to fit the student’s current level of performance. For novel tasks, the instructor may utilize direct instruction. As the child gains more familiarity with the task and becomes more skilled at it, the instructor may then provide less guidance.

Children who experience more difficulty in task performance are in need of greater assistance and guidance from an adult. When the child has learned to complete the task independently, the scaffolds are removed by the adult, as they are no longer needed.

A major contribution of Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development is the acknowledgement of the social component in both cognitive and psychosocial development. Due to his proffered ideas, research attention has been shifted from the individual onto larger interactional units such as parent and child, teacher and child, or brother and sister.

Vygotsky’s theory likewise called attention to the variability of cultural realities, stating that the development of children who are in one culture or subculture, such as middle class Asian Americans, may be totally different from children who hail from other societies or subcultures. It would not be fitting, therefore, to utilize the developmental experiences of children from one culture as a norm for children from other cultures.

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development has significant ramifications in education and cognitive testing. Vygotsky was a strong advocate of non-standard assessment procedures for the assessment of what and how much a child has learned and in the formulation of approaches that could enhance the child’s learning. His ideas have effected changes in educational systems through the increased importance given to the active role of students in their own learning process and the encouragement of teacher-student collaboration in a reciprocal learning experience.

Part 2

Bruner’s Learning Theory

Evolution of the brain – humans would easily have been dominated had it not been for their intellect; no better solution to one’s environment than the brain.

Evolution of mental representation inventions and mental evolution devices that could amplify their motor capacities, devices that could amplify sensory capacities, devices that could amplify intellectual capacities evolution of representation in children.

• Enactive representation –children represent objects through their own immediate sensations of them.
• Iconic representation –children use mental images that stand for certain objects or events.
• Symbolic representation – completely arbitrary symbols used to represent objects.

Bruner’s Theory of Representation: Categorization

All human cognitive activity involves categories, structures through which inferences can be made.

• Concept – representation of related things
• Percept – physical thing apprehended through senses.
• Categories can be compared to the cell assemblies and phase sequences of Hebb’s theory.
• Categories are based on associations developed largely through frequency or redundancy.
• Categorization is closely tied to similarity; objects tend to be placed in the same categories based on the similarities among them.

Categories as Rules

• A category is defined by criterial attributes.
• A category specifies the attributes that are criterial and indicates the manner in which they are to be combined.
• A category assigns weight to various properties.
• A category sets acceptance limits on attributes.

Decisions are made about identities of stimulus inputs; all input is classified in relation to categories that already exist.

Decision Making

To identify an object is to make a decision about whether it belongs to a given category.

Once an object is placed in a category, there is inherent in the category a decision about how the object should be reacted to.

Coding Systems

Coding systems are related categories on which inferences about new information is based.

Hierarchical arrangements of related categories, such that the topmost category is more general.

Details of a specific instance can be re-created, and the transfer value of coding systems results

Concept Attainment

• Conjunctive concepts: presence of two or more attribute values.
• Disjunctive concepts: the joint presence of two or more attributes or by the presence of any one of the relevant attributes.
• Relational concepts: a specified relationship between attribute values.

Strategies for Concept Attainment

• Simultaneous scanning
• Successive scanning
• Conservative focusing
• Focus gambling

Part 3

The Stages

Through his observations of his children, Piaget developed a stage theory of intellectual development that included four distinct stages:

1. The Sensorimotor Stage

Ages: Birth to 2 Years

The infant knows the world through their movements and sensations.

Children learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking, grasping, looking, and listening.

Infants learn that things continue to exist even though they cannot be seen (object permanence).

They are separate beings from the people and objects around them.

They realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world around them.

During this earliest stage of cognitive development, infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects. A child's entire experience at the earliest period of this stage occurs through basic reflexes, senses, and motor responses.

It is during the sensorimotor stage that children go through a period of dramatic growth and learning. As kids interact with their environment, they are continually making new discoveries about how the world works.

The cognitive development that occurs during this period takes place over a relatively short period of time and involves a great deal of growth. Children not only learn how to perform physical actions such as crawling and walking, they also learn a great deal about language from the people with whom they interact. Piaget also broke this stage down into a number of different sub stages. It is during the final part of the sensorimotor stage that early representational thought emerges.

Piaget believed that developing object permanence or object constancy, the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, was an important element at this point of development. By learning that objects are separate and distinct entities and that they have an existence of their own outside of individual perception, children are then able to begin to attach names and words to objects.

1. The Preoperational Stage

Ages: 2 to 7 Years

Children begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to represent objects.

Children at this stage tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things from the perspective of others.

While they are getting better with language and thinking, they still tend to think about things in very concrete terms.

The foundations of language development may have been laid during the previous stage, but it is the emergence of language that is one of the major hallmarks of the preoperational stage of development. Children become much more skilled at pretend play during this stage of development, yet still think very concretely about the world around them.

At this stage, kids learn through pretend play but still struggle with logic and taking the point of view of other people. They also often struggle with understanding the idea of constancy.

For example, a researcher might take a lump of clay, divide it into two equal pieces, and then give a child the choice between two pieces of clay to play with. One piece of clay is rolled into a compact ball while the other is smashed into a flat pancake shape. Since the flat shape looks larger, the preoperational child will likely choose that piece even though the two pieces are exactly the same size.

1. The Concrete Operational Stage

Ages: 7 to 11 Years

During this stage, children begin to thinking logically about concrete events.

They begin to understand the concept of conservation; that the amount of liquid in a short, wide cup is equal to that in a tall, skinny glass, for example.

Their thinking becomes more logical and organized, but still very concrete.

Children begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific information to a general principle.

While children are still very concrete and literal in their thinking at this point in development, they become much more adept at using logic. The egocentrism of the previous stage begins to disappear as kids become better at thinking about how other people might view a situation.

While thinking becomes much more logical during the concrete operational state, it can also be very rigid. Kids at this point in development tend to struggle with abstract and hypothetical concepts.

During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think and feel. Kids in the concrete operational stage also begin to understand that their thoughts are unique to them and that not everyone else necessarily shares their thoughts, feelings, and opinions.

1. The Formal Operational Stage

Ages: 12 and Up

At this stage, the adolescent or young adult begins to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical problems.

Abstract thought emerges.

Teens begin to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues that require theoretical and abstract reasoning.

Begin to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific information.

The final stage of Piaget's theory involves an increase in logic, the ability to use deductive reasoning, and an understanding of abstract ideas. At this point, people become capable of seeing multiple potential solutions to problems and think more scientifically about the world around them.

The ability to thinking about abstract ideas and situations is the key hallmark of the formal operational stage of cognitive development. The ability to systematically plan for the future and reason about hypothetical situations are also critical abilities that emerge during this stage.

It is important to note that Piaget did not view children's intellectual development as a quantitative process; that is, kids do not just add more information and knowledge to their existing knowledge as they get older. Instead, Piaget suggested that there is a qualitative change in how children think as they gradually process through these four stages. A child at age 7 doesn't just have more information about the world than he did at age 2; there is a fundamental change in how he thinks about the world.

Part 4

Assimilation

The process of taking in new information into our already existing schemas is known as assimilation. The process is somewhat subjective because we tend to modify experiences and information slightly to fit in with our preexisting beliefs. In the example above, seeing a dog and labeling it "dog" is a case of assimilating the animal into the child's dog schema.

Accommodation

Another part of adaptation involves changing or altering our existing schemas in light of new information, a process known as accommodation. Accommodation involves modifying existing schemas, or ideas, as a result of new information or new experiences. New schemas may also be developed during this process.

Examples of Piagetian Assimilation and Accommodation

1.         A child seeing a zebra for the first time and calling it a horse. The child assimilates this information into her schema for a horse. When the child accommodates information, she takes into consideration the different properties of a zebra compared to a horse, perhaps calling a zebra a horse with stripes. When she eventually learns the name of zebra, she has accommodated this information.

2.         A mental representation, or schema of a certain group of people (a racist schema) -- your whole life you grew up with those around you just adding more and more information to that schema that made sense to you (assimilation) -- you only notice information that fits your schema (assimilation) and confirms it -- then you get to college and actually meet people from that group and realize what you have learned from real interactions requires a radical reorganization of your schema regarding that group (accommodation). Your new schema is completely different, not just full of additional information

3.         Assimilation is like adding air into a balloon. You just keep blowing it up. It gets bigger and bigger. For example, a two year old's schema of a tree is "green and big with bark" -- over time the child adds information (some trees lose their leaves, some trees have names, we use a tree at Christmas, etc.) - Your balloon just gets full of more information that fits neatly with what you know and adds onto it.

Accommodation is when you have to turn your round balloon into the shape of a poodle. This new balloon "animal" is a radical shift in your schema (or balloon shape). The tree example works well where we live so I go with that, but you can invent your own. Now that they are in college in the redwood forest, we have conceptualization (schema) of trees as a source of political warfare, a commodity, a source of income for some people, we know that people sit and live in trees to save them; in other words, trees are economic, political, and social vehicles. This complete change in the schema involves a lot of cognitive energy, or accommodation, a shift in our schema.

4.         Most students are very good at working with computers and easily learn to navigate new websites and programs (assimilation). My college is putting heavy emphasis on distance learning and the computer literate students who enroll in my online classes seem to have an early advantage (accommodation) over students who are limited in their computer experiences. Thankfully, this advantage lessens over the weeks, but I, as the instructor, have to keep this gap in mind early in the course.

5.         Young children can go from riding a big wheel to riding a tricycle with no problem--they can assimilate--it is 'sort of the same'; but to go to a bicycle there is much accommodation that must take place.

6.         I've usually got three or four kinds of chairs in my class and I go to each one and sit in it to illustrate assimilation. I then sit on the corner of my desk or one of the kid's desks and use that as a jumping off point to talk about accommodation. I also want to elicit differences in similarly categorized items (such as fact that some desks have drawers and some do not). I usually will have some kind of a roll cart and I ask them why it isn't a desk. They will usually say because of the rollers but then I point out that some desks are moveable. I think it might also be pertinent to let students know that we cannot define something solely by function either since I have just recently been sitting on my desk. I want kids to understand that the categorizations can be a little arbitrary but we nevertheless come to common understandings about them.