Discuss the main criticisms of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development.
What will be an ideal response?
- Researchers have questioned the stage conception of Piaget's theory because they contend that development proceeds in a continuous fashion.
- Critics dispute Piaget's notion that cognitive development is grounded in motor activities because it overlooks the importance of sensory and perceptual systems present from infancy.
- Recent studies cast doubt on Piaget's view that infants are incapable of mastering the concept of object permanence until they are one year of age, due to the fact that the techniques used to test infants' abilities were not sensitive enough. An infant's inability to demonstrate object permanence may be attributed to memory deficits rather than to an inability to master object permanence.
- Piaget's work has been criticized for being based upon Western cultural experience with an omission of a non-Western point of view.
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Which of the following statements is true of language?
A) Humans are known to have no semanticity or displacement in their language. B) Language makes it possible for one person to communicate knowledge to another. C) With language, sounds or signs are not symbols for objects and actions. D) Language takes away all the units of thinking.
Are actual members of a category that a person has encountered in the past
a. Icons b. Prototypes c. Units d. Exemplars
. Which of these is a measure of central tendency?
a) mean b) scatterplot c) standard deviation d) correlation coefficient
Which of the following is one of the components of successful aging outlined in your text?
A) Rehabilitation B) Stasis C) Coping with disappointment D) Mental activity