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| Higher-order mental processes, such as reasoning and problem solving, through which humans attempt to understand the world. |
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| Skilled and generalizable action patterns by which infants act on and understant the world. In Piaget’s theory, the cognitive structures of infancy. |
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| In Piaget’s theory, behaviour in which the goal exists prior to the action selected to achieve it; make possible by the ability to separate means and ends. |
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| The use of symbols to picture and act on the world internally. |
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| The knowledge that objects have a permanent existence that is independent of our perceptual contact with them. In Piaget’s theory, a major achievement of the sensorimotor period. |
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| Infants’ tendency to search in the original location in which an object was found, rather than in its most recent hiding place. A characteristic of stage 4 object permanence. |
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| Piaget’s term for the gradual decline in egocentrism that occurs across development. |
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a) In infancy, an inability to distinguish the self (eg., one’s actions or perceptions) from the outer world.
b) In later childhood, an inability to distinguish one’s own perspective (eg, visual experience, thoughts, feelings0 from that of others. |
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| Aspects of the world that remain the same, even though other aspects have changed. In Piaget’s theory, different forms of invariants are understood at different stages of development. |
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| The ability to use one thing (such as a mental image or word) as a symbol to represent something else. |
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| Imitation of a model observed some time in the past. |
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| Form of play in which the child uses one thing in deliberate pretence to stand for something else. |
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| The knowledge that the qualitative nature of something is not changed by a change in its appearance. In Piaget’s theory, this is a preoperational achievement. |
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| In Piaget’s theory, the tendency for preoperational children to assume that listeners know everything that they know, revealing difficulty with perspective taking. |
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| Piaget’s term for the young child’s tendency to focus on only one aspect of a problem at a time, a perceptually biased form of responding that often results in incorrect judgments. |
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| The knowledge that the quantitative properties of an object or collection of objects are not changed by a change in appearance. In Piaget’s theory, this is a concrete operational achievement. |
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| The knowledge that a subclass cannot be larger than the superordinate class that includes it. In Piaget’s theory, a concrete operational achievement. |
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| The ability to order stimuli along some quantitative dimension, such as length. In Piaget’s theory, this is a concrete operational achievement. |
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| The ability to combine relations logically to deduce necessary conclusions—for example, if A>B and B>C, then A>C. In Piaget’s theory, this is a concrete operational achievement. |
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| Piaget’s term for the various forms of mental action through which older children solve problems and reason logically. |
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| The ability to keep in mind multiple aspects of a situation, all at the same time. For Piaget, this is a feature of concrete operational thought. |
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| (1) Piaget’s term for the power of operations to correct for potential disturbances and thus arrive at correct solutions to problems; including compensation and inversion. (Inversion: the child can reason that a disturbance can be undone and equilibrium reestablished as part of a new understanding of the larger concept that can resolve the problem posed by the disturbance.) |
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| The realization that an object can be represented in two ways simultaneously. |
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| Hypothetical-deductive reasoning |
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| A form of problem solving characterized by the ability to generate the test hypotheses and draw logical conclusions from the results of the tests. In Piaget’s theory, this is a formal operational achievement. |
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| Piaget’s term for the biological process of self-regulation that propels the cognitive system to higher forms of equilibrium. |
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| A characteristic of a cognitive system in which assimilation and accommodation are in balance, thus permitting adaptive, non-distorted responses to the world. |
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| A mental grouping of different items into a single category on the basis of some unifying similarity or set of similarities. |
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| Piaget’s term for the young child’s tendency to attribute properties of life to non-living things. |
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| Thoughts and beliefs, concerning the mental world. |
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| The realization that people can hold beliefs that are not true. Such understanding, which is typically acquired during the preoperational period, provides evidence of the ability to distinguish the mental from non-mental. |
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| Appearance-reality distinction |
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| Distinction between how objects appear and what they really are. Understanding the distinction implies an ability to judge both appearance and reality correctly when the two diverge. |
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| 2) Piaget's term for a property of operational structures that allows the cognitive system to correct, or reverse, potential disturbances and thus arrive at an adaptive, non-distorted understanding of the world. |
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| the study of the nature of knowledge in young children and how it changes as they grow older |
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| involved a loosely structured interview in which he asked a question or posed a problem and then, depending on the child’s response, followed up with other Qs that might reveal child’s reasoning or problem solving approach. |
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Functions
(essential to Piaget's view of human development) |
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| Inborn, biological processes (Organization & Adaptation), which are the same for everyone and remain unchanged through life. |
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Cognitive structures
(essential in Piaget's view of human development) |
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| the internal structures that the biological functions construct, which, in contrast, change repeatedly as the child grows. |
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| Piaget’s term for the cognitive structures of infancy, consisting of a set of skilled, flexible action patterns through which the child understands the world. |
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| The tendency to integrate knowledge into interrelated cognitive structures. One of the 2 biologically based functions stressed in Piaget’s theory. |
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| The tendency to fit with the environment in ways that promote survival (comprised of Assimilation and Accommodation). One of the 2 functions stressed in Piaget’s theory. |
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| Interpreting new experiences in terms of existing cognitive structures. One of the 2 components of adaptation in Piaget’s theory. |
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| Changing existing cognitive structures to fit with new experiences. One of the 2 components of adaptation in Piaget’s theory. |
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| Piaget’s belief that children actively create knowledge, rather than passively receive it from the environment. |
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| Piaget’s term for the four general stages into which his theory divides development. Each period is a qualitatively distinct form of functioning that characterizes a wide range of cognitive activities. |
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Form of intelligence in which knowledge is based on physical interactions with people and objects.
The 1st of Piaget’s periods, extending from birth to about 2 years. |
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Form of intelligence in which symbols and mental actions begin to replace objects and overt behaviours.
The 2nd of Piaget’s periods, extending from about 2 to about 6 years of age. |
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Form of intelligence in which mental operations make logical problem solving with concrete objects possible.
The 3rd of Piaget’s periods, extending from about 6 to about 11 years of age. |
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Form of intelligence in which higher level mental operations make possible logical reasoning with respect to abstract and hypothetical events and not merely concrete objects.
The 4th of Piaget’s periods, beginning at about 12 years of age. |
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