PSYB20H3 Chap.10 Piaget on Schemes and the Sensorimotor Stage
Piaget on Schemes and the Sensorimotor Stage
Piaget's question
Lecture 5 of PSYB20H3 turns to cognitive development, the changes in mental skills and abilities across life. Cognition covers the activity of knowing and the mental processes a person relies on to gain knowledge and work through problems.
Jean Piaget approached it as genetic epistemology, an experimental investigation of where knowledge comes from, and treated intelligence as adaptation to the environment. His child is a constructivist who builds knowledge actively.
This lecture is examined on Term Test #2, not Term Test #1, and again on the final.
Schemes, adaptation and organization
A scheme is an organized pattern of thought or action a child constructs to make sense of experience. Organization rearranges existing schemes into more complex ones.
Adaptation works through assimilation, interpreting a new experience with an existing scheme, and accommodation, modifying a scheme so a new experience fits.
The goal is equilibrium between existing knowledge and fresh experience; when that balance is disrupted, the discomfort of cognitive disequilibrium motivates change.
Four stages and their properties
Piaget proposed four stages: sensorimotor from birth to about two, preoperational from two to seven, concrete operational from seven to eleven and formal operational from eleven onward.
The stages are qualitatively different, occur in an invariant order and are universal, while the ages are approximate.
The six sensorimotor substages
The sensorimotor stage moves the infant from reflexive to symbolic thinking.
Reflex activity runs from birth to one month; primary circular reactions, repeating body-centred events, from one to four months; secondary circular reactions, repeating object-centred events, from four to eight months; coordination of secondary schemes, intentional and goal-directed behaviour, from eight to twelve months; tertiary circular reactions, novelty and trial and error, from twelve to eighteen months; and mental representation, inner experimentation, from eighteen to twenty-four months.
Object permanence and its revision
Object permanence is understanding that objects continue to exist when they cannot be seen or detected.
Piaget claimed infants lack it for about the first eight months because of their errors on the A-not-B task, in which an infant keeps searching where a toy was found before rather than where it was just hidden. Studies with more sensitive methods have since shown that Piaget underestimated what young children can do, a point the study guide connects to Baillargeon's research and the core knowledge approach.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Cognition and genetic epistemology
- 02
Schemes
- 03
Assimilation and accommodation
- 04
Equilibrium and disequilibrium
- 05
Four stages and their properties
- 06
Six sensorimotor substages
- 07
A-not-B errors and object permanence
Worked example · free
Sort Ava's two experiences
- 1The new ball fits the existing scheme, so it is assimilated and equilibrium is kept.
- 1The squishing orange clashes with the scheme, creating disequilibrium.
- 1Ava modifies her scheme to separate toys from food, which is accommodation and restores equilibrium.
Key terms
- Scheme
- A scheme is an organized pattern of action or thought a child builds to make sense of experience.
- Cognitive Disequilibrium
- Cognitive disequilibrium is the discomfort that arises when experience no longer fits what a child knows, motivating change.
- Object Permanence
- Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist when they can no longer be seen or detected.
- Circular Reaction
- A circular reaction is an infant's repetition of an action that produced an interesting event.
- Genetic Epistemology
- Genetic epistemology is Piaget's term for the experimental study of the origin of knowledge.
Piaget on Schemes and the Sensorimotor Stage FAQ
What is the difference between assimilation and accommodation?
Assimilation interprets a new experience using an existing scheme, as when a toddler calls a dolphin a fish. Accommodation modifies an existing scheme so that a new experience can be interpreted, as when the child learns that some animals that swim are not fish. Both are forms of adaptation in Piaget's theory.
What are the six substages of the sensorimotor stage?
In order: reflex activity, primary circular reactions, secondary circular reactions, coordination of secondary schemes, tertiary circular reactions and mental representation. They span birth to about two years and move the infant from exercising reflexes to solving problems mentally instead of by trial and error.
Did Piaget get object permanence right?
Piaget concluded that infants lack object permanence for about the first eight months, based on errors on the A-not-B task. Contemporary research using more sensitive measures confirms that he underestimated young children's abilities, so infants appear to understand more than his reaching tasks revealed.
Exam move
Recite the six substages with their age bands, then invent one infant behaviour for each and swap with a partner to identify. Practise one assimilation and one accommodation example per day until you can produce new ones without hesitation.
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