Piaget Theory Analysis

In chapter one, cognitive development was briefly discussed and now in chapter 5 it goes a little deeper. One of the first names that comes to mind when thinking of cognitive development is Piaget. Piaget’s theory is described as constructivist view to cognitive development. A constructivist view is that people create or “construct” their own view and knowledge of the world by the information they already know. They view life through the experiences and knowledge they already obtain. The essential building block to Piaget’s theory is schemes which are patterns of physical or mental action. Throughout life people just build on the schemes when they experience something new they relate it an old experience. An example would be an animal that …show more content…

The person is consciously processing the information. There are two characteristics to working memory that is important: limited capacity and information is lost over time. Working memory begins at the age of six but becomes more effective over the years. It is important to activate the information you want regularly so one does not lose the information. The next term is long-term memory and that is permanent; it can be of knowledge or events and it has unlimited capacity. Even though you want to remember as much as possible, everything you learn won’t go into your long-term memory. There can be a few issues with long-term memory like initial encoding of the information, storage (getting it into the long-term area), trying to find the right information and trying to retrieve the information. Long-term memory grows with age. Then there is reconstructive memory which is when we recall situations we remember pieces of the event but then make up the rest of it based on what we can infer from our memory. It is really hard to recall memory before the age of three or four which is known as infantile amnesia and there are autobiographical memories that have to do with someone of great importance and are vivid