C98HD

Developmental
Psychology
Lecture 5: Cognitive
Theorists
Lecture 5 Learning Objectives
• Discuss Piaget’s Stage Theory of development
• Consider evidence for and against Piaget’s key critical stages
• Critically analyse the role of context in Piagetian tasks and its
implication
• Discuss key features of Vygotskian theory in cognitive
development
• Evaluate evidence supporting scaffolding in Vygotskian theory
• Discuss the information-processing view of cognitive
development
Required Reading
• Berk, L. E. (2023) Development through the lifespan. 7th Edition. Sage.
• Chapter 1 (pages: 17-20 & 22-23)
• Chapter 5 (whole chapter)
• Chapter 7 (pages: 227-236)
• Chapter 9 (pages 303-307)
Additional (optional)
• Wertsch, J. V., McNamee, G. D., McLane, J. B., & Budwig, N. A. (1980). The adult-child
dyad as a problem-solving system. Child Development, 1215-1221.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.2307/1129563
• Conner, D. B., Knight, D. K., & Cross, D. R. (1997). Mothers' and fathers' scaffolding of
their 2-year-olds during problem-solving and literacy interactions. British Journal of
Developmental Psychology, 15(3), 323–338. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-
835X.1997.tb00524.x
Cognitive Development
• Includes changes in attention,
academic achievement,
memory, problem solving,
imagination, language,
creativity, and everyday
knowledge
• Children are not passive
perceivers of the world, they
make meaningful
interpretations.
Theoretical Perspectives
Cognitive- Sociocultural
Information
Developmental Theory
processing
Theory (Piaget) (Vygotsky)

Children actively Children acquire new Information is

want to achieve ways of thinking and actively coded,
equilibrium or behaving through transformed, and
balance. social interaction organised
Piaget: Cognitive- Developmental Theory
• Born with a cognitive structure
(‘architecture’) that determines how
interactions are experienced and what
knowledge is acquired via those interactions
• Mind is ‘organized’ into ‘schemes’ or ‘schema’
• Schema – mental representation that guides your
behaviour
• Through interacting with the world, schema
become differentiated (i.e., change is the product
of experience) How would you order food in
• Assimilation and accommodation (more on following McDonalds? What is your schema?
slides)
Two Core Processes
• Another crucial aspect to
Piaget’s theory
Adaptation – we adapt to the
world
Adaptation = assimilation -
accommodation
• Two core processes that
modify schema
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYbCE1udazw
Achieving equilibration
Organization + Adaptation > Equilibrium
• If reality appears to fit with what’s known. Cognitive system is in a state of
equilibrium
• E.g., Baby in equilibrium if everything can be grasped in the same way (i.e., every
grasping action and result fits with schema for grasping)
• Development = triggered by disequilibrium
• Baby is thrown into disequilibrium if grasping action doesn’t produce the desired result
• The human infant is a self-correcting organism: disequilibrium= bad
• Adjustment – via accommodation in this case – puts the baby back into a
state of cognitive equilibrium

• The process may look like:

Equilibrium>disequilibrium>Equilibrium>disequilibrium…
How do they learn?
• Through the resolution of disequilibrium
• Via self-discovery (i.e., via adaptation)
• Via ‘active’ participation
• Via peer interaction - ‘Socio-cognitive conflict’
• Explicit adult instruction? Not effective because ‘negotiation’ less
likely to take place...
Piaget’s Cognitive-Structural Theory
Stage Period of Description
development From Berk, 2023
Sensorimotor Birth- 2 years Infants “think” by acting on the world with their eyes, ears, hands, and
mouth. They invent ways of solving sensorimotor problems.

Preoperational 2-7 years Preschool children use symbols to represent their earlier sensorimotor
discoveries. The development of language and make-believe happens
here. Thinking lacks logic.
Concrete operational 7-11 years Children’s reasoning becomes logical and better organised when dealing
with concrete information they can perceive directly. School-aged children
understand conservation and organise objects into hierarchies of classes
and subclasses.
Formal operational 11 years on Abstract and systematic thinking allows adolescents to start with a
hypothesis and deduce testable inferences and combine variables to see
which inferences are supported. Evaluation of logic of verbal statements
without referring to real-world circumstances.
 Measuring Egocentrism:
Three Mountains Task

Q. Are children able to identify

which of the photographs -
from a selection - represents
the view of someone on
another side of the table?
(i.e., do they appreciate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4oYOjVDgo0 another’s perspective?)
 Everyday example of egocentrism
Measuring Hide & seek
Egocentrism:
> child hides own eyes/turns away in
Hide & Seek the apparent belief that others cannot
see him/her
Measuring Conservation
• Volume, Number, Weight
• Specific properties remain constant despite perceptual change...
e.g., Volume in Beaker ‘A’ = Volume in Beaker ‘B’
A B

Q: Same amount?
A: Yes!
Measuring Conservation
• Volume, Number, Weight
• Specific properties remain constant despite perceptual change...
e.g., Volume from Beaker ‘A’ into Beaker ‘C’ equals???
A B C
Q: Same amount?
A: No!
A child example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnArvcWaH6I
Critically evaluate Piaget’s approach
Defining Context
• Do children fail tests or is there a problem with
the way we ask them questions?
• Responding to question depends on
interpretation

• Context is a matrix of physical, social, mental, &

historical conditions. Every time a question is
asked, there is a context:
• Who is asking the question?
• What is the relationship between them?
• What happened to the child before the
question was asked?
Not having context could lead
to wrong interpretation!
An alternative approach
Q. Is cognitive ability situation-specific?
manipulate context > reveal/hide cognition?
emphasis on context-specificity of thought
(Cole, 1992)
Contextualizing conservation
Traditional view – Piaget (1952)
• Child has not “conserved‟ the numerical properties of the array.

McGarrigle & Donaldson 1974 Naughty Teddy

• Some children can conserve
Contextualizing conservation
• ‘Naughty Teddy’ expt. with 6-year-olds
(McGarrigle & Donaldson 1974)
• Teddy appears and ‘messes up’ (i.e.,
spatially transforms) the two sets >
accidentally
• Ask: “I know he has messed the blocks
around, but do we still have the same
now?‟
• Piagetian task = 40% children conserving
• Naughty Teddy = 70% children conserving.

Children can give the correct answer when the question was contextualized.
Critically evaluate Piaget’s approach:
Asking the same question twice
• Could asking the same question twice be misleading? (Rose & Blank, 1974)
Standard version
• Experimenter asks: “Are they the same (do they have the same amount?)”
• watch as the Experimenter transforms row
• Experimenter asks again: “Are they still the same?”
The child would think: “What does the Experimenter want me to figure out?”
One-judgment version
• If you only ask the question once
e.g., child questioned only after transformation - number of conservation
errors is halved!
Key message: asking the same question twice that leads children to changing
their answer
The Three Mountain Task
• On standard Piagetian task - children unable to pick out which
photograph represents another’s view of the mountain
• inability to ‘decentre’
• Hughes Policeman Doll Study (1975)

Similar context - where should robber hide?

A B
Police
C D
Summary of Piaget
• Children are not passive perceivers.
• Adapt to the world through assimilation and accommodation,&
creating schemas
• Classic Piaget’s tasks:
• Perspective taking (3 mountain task)
• Conservation tasks (volume, number, & weight).
• Context and phrasing the question plays a key role in these tasks.
 LSvygotsky

Vygotsky: Socio-Cultural Theory

• Emphasized the social nature of development
• Believed human development and culture were
interwoven
• Crucial role of language (social dialogue) and
social interaction
• Adults (and more experienced peers) act as
experts help children through scaffolding
• Help children to master culturally meaningful
activities and skills
• For Vygotsky: cognitive development is a
socially mediated process
Comparing Piaget & Vygotsky

Cognitive development
results from internalisation Agrees with
of experience Piaget

Piaget: Physical Vygotsky: Social environment

environment
Social interaction (with parents,
Children as little scientists siblings, teachers etc.
The importance of a
rich environment
• Vygotsky – cultural focus, social
interaction, role of adults (providing
support)

• Socio-cultural approach to cognitive

development see these routine,
everyday interactions as being crucial
to pushing development forward.
Three levels of human development
1.Cultural aspects- intellectual, material, scientific and artistic,
language
• Receives this from past generation
2.Interpersonal aspects- role of others, zone of proximal development
• Cognition is a result of interaction
3.Individual aspects- constructive nature
• Children construct their own knowledge, contributes to their own
development (similar to Piaget)
Vygotsky’s main ideas
• Knowledge originated in socially meaningful activity
• The ability to think and reason by and for ourselves
(language) is the result of a fundamentally social process
• At birth, we are social beings, capable of interacting with
others- social and cultural factors make an important
contribution to human intelligence.
• The role of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and
Intersubjectivity
Intersubjectivity
Shared understanding or perception between two people

Speaker
(e.g., child)
Shared
understanding

Speaker –
Cats
(e.g. a parent)
 The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
Vygotsky claimed that all developing
individuals have both an actual
developmental level and a ZPD
Key messages:
1. Children learn through ZPD
2. Emphasis on social (teachers, parents),
culture (art, language, songs) and
learning from others (peers) in
development With the help
of adult
3. Rejected Piaget’s idea that development through
unfolds according to own timetable Actual scaffolding
without influence from school learning development
4. ZPD – where children could be, not
where they actually are
 Scaffolding (temporary structure)

• Scaffolding = the role played by parents,

teachers and others by which children
acquire their knowledge and skills (Wood
et al, 1976)
• As a task becomes more familiar to the
child and more within its competence, so
those who provide the scaffold leave
more and more for the child to do until it
can perform the task successfully
• The developing thinker does not have to
create cognition ‘from scratch’: there are
others available who have already
‘served’ their apprenticeship (providing
temporary framework to support less
experienced individual)
 Scaffolding example: Freund (1990)
• 3- and 5-year-olds furniture sorting task
• one group completed task on their own
• one group completed the task with their mother
• both groups completed post-test (do another puzzle on
their own) 0707

• Result: Mother group more advanced on the post-test

• Both the 3- and 5-year-old children who had the benefit of
interacting with their mother performed much better than
children who had had no scaffolding. It appears that it is
beneficial to complete a task with your parent than individually.
Scaffolding example Conner, Knight & Cross
(1997)
• The effect of scaffolding on 2 year olds for
problem solving tasks (complete puzzle (nest of
cups), read ‘Hungry Bear’ story); quality of
scaffolding behaviour were coded (specific
comment or general verbal one)
• The quality of scaffolding predicted child’s
performance on various tasks – follow up study
showed effects continued well into future.
• Mothers and fathers were equally effective at
scaffolding; quality matters
The importance of language for Vygotsky
• Language is key part of Vygotsky’s ideas because:
• 1) Language makes thinking possible (Piaget didn’t consider
this)
• 2) Language regulates behaviour (self-regulation, see next
slide)
• 3) Language is the basis of culture

• Vygotsky said that language itself goes through stages and

has different functions within in each stage
Three Stages in the Development of Function of Speech
(Vygotsky, 1962)
Social Speech- from parents and caregivers to
the child-also used to regulate behavior

Private Speech – private speech defined as overt,

audible speech that is not addressed to another person,
mainly occurring between the ages of 3-7. Children talk
to themselves in order to guide own behaviour

Inner Speech –internal silent verbal thought (language is

first used socially then turned inwardly)
Private speech and its importance in
guiding own behaviour
The role of private speech
1) Language as a tool of thought

2) It enables the development of executive functions (exert more self-

control on their thoughts)

3) Speech enables task completion- but up to a certain point (ZPD) –

the harder the task, the more use of private speech
Private Speech Example (Berk 1994)
• Found that 6 year olds spend on average, 60% of the time talking to
themselves whilst solving problems in maths
• Quality of speech was important – those asking questions about
what needed to be done did better at maths over following year >
Self- guiding speech seems to make it easier to focus attention on the
task in hand
• Also found that speech became more and more internalised when 4-5
year olds made Lego models

Why do you think private speech becomes internalised?

Egocentric speech vs Private speech
Piaget and Vygotsky differed on why they though children did this early
type of speech.

Piaget argued that speech was initially Vygotsky suggested that speech was
‘egocentric’ travelling in the other direction
• Talk for self • Language helps children think about
• Children express thoughts in their mental activities and behaviour
whatever form they happen to • Gives foundation for higher
occur cognitive processes (planning,
• As egocentrism decline, so does problem solving etc.)
egocentric speech • Find task easier, internalized speech
Vygotsky Evaluated- Strengths
▪ The importance of social context was under-estimated by Piaget.
Vygotsky acknowledges the social
▪ There are clearly cultural differences in development

In relation to education, the major significance of the ZPD is that it

suggests the upper and lower limits, or the ‘zone’, within which new
learning will occur. If the instruction is too difficult, or pitched too high,
the learner is likely either to be frustrated or to tune out. If it is too low,
the learner is presented with no challenge and simply does not learn
anything.
Vygotsky Evaluated- Weaknesses
• There might be other reasons why people learn better in the
presence of others (age, comparative ability level of partners,
motivation, confidence, gender and the task)
• There is no systematic analysis of the child’s internal developmental
processes – no real account of the type of social interaction that
promotes cognitive development (little empirical evidence of his
theories)
Summary of Vygotsky
• Focus on the importance of rich environment in development and
parents in guiding children
• Zone of Proximal Development – evidence of scaffolding and its
implication (advantage) on children’s learning
• Language (private speech) plays an important role in guiding
children’s behaviour
Information Processing
• Information processing approach to describe the development
of cognitive abilities
• Breaking down thinking into the sub-components
• Emphasises the flow of information through different
components (coded, transformed, & organized)
• Looking at the precise steps individuals take to problem solve and
complete tasks.
• Role of available knowledge &memory capacity is important in
influencing performance.
The Information Processing Approach
Model of Information Processing
Atkinson & Shriffin (1968)
Described cognitive processing in terms of 3 memory stores and the control
processes that operate on them
1. Sensory register
• Sights and sounds represented and stored briefly. Attending to that information
increases the chances that it will transfer to the next stage in the model
2. Short term memory
• Limited capacity compared to sensory register
• Working space to hold and manipulate information
3. Long term memory
• Permanent knowledge base
The model emphasised the flow of information through or between the
different components
Model of Information Processing
- Information flows
through each stage
- We use different
mental strategies
to retain the
information

ISBN: 9781118772980 © Copyright 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Information Processing: Strengths &
Weaknesses
Strengths:
• Allows for rigorous research methods – tackles how individuals
tackle cognitive tasks across ontogeny
• Breaks down thinking into smaller components
Weaknesses:
• Difficult to combine smaller components into a comprehensive
theory
• Hard to apply to non-logical thinking like creativity & imagination
Summary of Information Processing
• The human mind acts as a system in which information flows
from a stimulus to a behavioural response
• Information is coded, transformed, and organised.
• Can be a whole cognitive system approach or for mastering
one or more tasks
• Individuals actively make sense of their own thinking through
continuous change as they age
Summary
We discussed:
• Piaget’s Stage Theory of cognitive development
• The evidence for and against Piaget’s key critical stages and
the role of context in Piagetian tasks
• Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development
• The evidence supporting scaffolding in Vygotsky’s theory
• The information-processing view of cognitive development
• The strengths and weaknesses of the information processing
approach.
Critical Evaluation
• How well do Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories hold up against contemporary research? What aspects are
still useful, and which have been revised or replaced?
• Were these theories developed in ways that reflect Western norms? How might culture, language, and
environment change the applicability of these ideas?
• Strengths & Limitations:
•Piaget – clear stage framework but underestimated young children’s abilities?
•Vygotsky – powerful focus on social interaction but less precise about stages/mechanisms?
• Are these theories mutually exclusive, or can they complement each other (e.g., social interaction within
stages)?
• How do concepts like scaffolding and the ZPD shape current classroom practice? Are these ideas still
relevant in diverse learning environments?
• Does the information processing approach offer a more flexible or realistic model than stage theories? In
what ways does it succeed or fall short?
• Big Picture: What do these theories leave out about development (e.g., emotions, motivation,
neurodiversity)?
Thank you
Any comments or
feedback?
Next week
Stay in Unit 3:
Executive
Functions and
Theory of Mind