Cognitive Theory

 Cognitive theory suggests that the human mind is like a computer that is constantly processing and encoding data. According to cognitive theory, when a person experiences stimuli, his mind will look toward prior schema (or internal frameworks created by memories) to help them understand this information.

Cognitive theory is a psychological theory that explains how peoples’ thought, beliefs and perceptions shape their behavior and emotions. It focuses on the idea that how and what people think leads to their emotions and that certain thoughts and beliefs can lead to healthy or disturbed emotions and behaviors. 

Cognitive theory differs from behaviorist theories, which focus only on observable behavior.

Jean Piaget (1896- 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work or child development. He worked in the early to mid- twentieth century and achieved worldwide fame for his contribution to developmental psychology. According to him, the cognitive theory of first language acquisition postulates that language acquisition is due to the active mental processes and the functioning of intelligence. Human children are by birth intelligent and along with their cognitive development in their environment, they perform systematic function and hence acquire their first language. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called ‘genetic epistemology’.

Jean Piaget studied cognitive theory and argued that the developmental stages of cognitive growth are related to language development. As a child grows, his intelligence and cognitive ability develop. Piaget rejects the behavior view that a newborn child is totally mounded by his environment. He also rejects the mentalists notion that a child curries a complex device within himself which is like a blueprint.

Piaget believes that when a child grows up, he passes through number of stages. Each of these stages is characterized by certain properties of child’s thought, each child must pass through the stages in a fixed order, but it may vary from one child to another.

Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development broke the developmental process into four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational.

1.        The sensorimotor stage: (birth to 18 months)

A child in the first eighteen months takes the first steps in the construction of a model of reality and his own interaction with it. Towards the end of this period, he begins to be able to represent his actions to himself before they occur. This is recognized by the appearance of the’ semiotic function ‘. The semiotic function occurs in several forms:

a.        Behavioral imitation has occurred when a child imitates someone stamping her foot in range.

b.       Symbolic play occurred when a child, seeing a pillow on the floor, pretends to lie down and sleep.

c.         Drawing: children’s first words appear towards the end of the first year and their one-word utterance show awareness of concepts like agent and location early in the second year.

2.        The preparational stage (18 months to 7 years):

In the preparational period the child’s construction of reality and his construction of language to represent that reality continue to develop.

3.        The concrete operation (7-11 years): at the third stage children begin to develop operational thought, i.e. begin to develop a certain capacity for logical thought. In this stage they begin to develop the ability to use necessary terminology to handle concepts like volume, number, weight and quantity independently from other concepts.

4.         The formal operation (11years to over):

At this stage the child starts to use abstract reason and to make a mental distinction between herself and an idea she is considering. They start to deal with abstract philosophy or logic and theoretical concepts found in mathematics.

 

 

Piaget recognizes two types of underlying organization- ‘functional invariants’ determining the general route in which children interact with their environment and ‘schemata’ resulting from that interaction. Assimilation and accommodation are responsible for the functional invariants that help people learn and adapt to new information.

However, cognitive theory rejects the view that language is an autonomous system whose acquisition depends on innate linguistic endowments.