Question 1

Three-year-olds Artie and Kurt had identical boxes of raisins at snack time. When Kurt poured his raisins out onto the table, Artie was sure that Kurt had more raisins. This demonstrates that Artie lacks

Accepted Answer

Artie's perception that Kurt had more raisins despite the boxes being identical shows a lack of conservation, the understanding that the amount of a substance remains the same even when its appearance or arrangement changes.

Question 2

According to Piaget, young children's thinking often is illogical because they are not capable of

Accepted Answer

According to Piaget, young children's thinking is often illogical because they are not capable of mental actions that obey logical rules. They cannot reason abstractly, and they struggle with concepts like conservation and reversibility. As a result, their thinking is often influenced by perceptual appearances rather than by logical principles.

Question 3

Piaget acknowledged that ___________ is our most flexible means of mental representation.

Accepted Answer

According to Piaget, language is the most flexible means of mental representation because it allows us to create and manipulate abstract concepts and ideas. Through language, we can communicate not only about concrete objects and events but also about hypothetical, future, or past situations. Language also enables us to think about things that are not present or visible and to understand complex relationships between different elements. While imagery, intentional behavior, and deferred imitation are also important mental representations, they are thought to be more restricted in their flexibility and applicability.

Question 4

Four-year-old Marly is playing with her toy cars. She favors the blue car, but plays with the green car for at least a few minutes. She says, "I don't want the green one to get lonely." This is an example of

Accepted Answer

This is an example of animistic thinking, where a child may attribute human-like qualities to inanimate objects. In this case, Marly is concerned about the green car feeling lonely. Dual representation refers to seeing an object in two ways at once (as a symbol and as a real object), egocentrism refers to the inability to take another person's perspective, and centration refers to the tendency to focus on one aspect of a situation while ignoring others. None of those concepts apply to this situation.

Question 5

Children's creation of _________________ was once viewed as a sign of maladjustment, but current research challenges this assumption.

Accepted Answer

Imaginary companions were often seen as a sign of maladjustment in the past, but current research has shown that they can have positive effects on children's social and emotional development.

Question 6

According to Piaget, the most obvious change during the preoperational stage is the increase in

Accepted Answer

Piaget believed that the most obvious change during the preoperational stage is the increase in representational activity, which refers to the ability to mentally represent objects and events that are not physically present. This includes the ability to use symbols, such as words and pictures, to represent objects and ideas. While language ability does increase during this stage, it is not the most significant change according to Piaget. Problem-solving skills and logical thought also develop during this stage, but they are not seen as the primary focus of the preoperational stage.

Question 7

Tripp pretends to drink from a toy cup. Tripp's sister, Anna, takes the same cup and tells Tripp, "This is a hat." Tripp refuses to place the cup on his head to pretend that it is a hat. Tripp is probably

Accepted Answer

Young children, typically those under 2 years of age, have difficulty understanding symbols and may not be able to pretend with objects in the same way that older children or adults can. Tripp's refusal to put the cup on his head suggests that he may not understand Anna's symbolic use of the cup.

Question 8

During a ________ task, 4-year-old Marissa is asked whether there are more oranges or fruits in a group of two apples, one banana, and three oranges. She will most likely say ________.

Accepted Answer

This is an example of a class inclusion task, as the question is asking Marissa to determine whether the oranges belong to a larger group (fruits) or a smaller group (oranges). Marissa is likely to focus on the more salient feature (number of oranges) and therefore say that there are more oranges, despite the fact that there are more fruits overall. This is due to her limited ability to understand hierarchical relationships between groups at this age. Conservation-of-number tasks, on the other hand, involve determining whether the quantity of a substance remains the same despite changes in its appearance or distribution.

Question 9

Four-year-old Martha uses shorter, simpler expressions when interacting with her 2-year-old brother. This example suggests that Piaget may have

Accepted Answer

Piaget's theory includes the concept of egocentrism in which young children primarily focus on their own perspectives and struggle to consider the perspectives of others. Martha's use of simpler language when interacting with her younger brother suggests that she is able to adjust her language to meet his level of understanding, indicating that she is beginning to recognize and consider someone else's perspective, which is contrary to Piaget's theory of egocentrism. Therefore, Piaget may have overestimated preschoolers' egocentrism.

Question 10

In early pretending, toddlers

Accepted Answer

The answer of In early pretending, toddlers
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Question 11

The most important illogical feature of preoperational thought is its

Accepted Answer

Preoperational thought is characterized by the inability of children to understand that reversing a process might undo the effects of the original process. This is referred to as irreversibility. For instance, a child who is given a lump of clay and asked to make it into the shape of a ball can only see it as a ball and cannot reverse the process to get the original lump of clay.

Question 12

Three-year-old Rachael could not solve a conservation-of-liquid task because she focused on the height of the water. Rachael's thinking is characterized by

Accepted Answer

Rachael's thinking is characterized by centration because she solely focused on the height of the water and did not take into account the fact that the water was moved to a different container and its volume remained the same. Centration is the tendency to focus on only one aspect of a situation and not consider other aspects.

Question 13

During a conservation-of-liquid task, when asked why he thinks there is more water in the taller glass, 5-year-old Gus points out that the water level is higher in the taller glass than in the shorter glass but neglects to mention that this change in height is compensated by changes in width. This example demonstrates a limitation of preoperational thought known as

Accepted Answer

Gus is focusing only on one aspect of the situation, the height of the water level, and neglecting the fact that the width of the glasses also affects the amount of water they hold. This is an example of centration, which is a limitation of preoperational thought in which children focus on only one aspect of a situation and ignore other relevant aspects.

Question 14

Make-believe ________ as children realize that agents and recipients of pretend actions can be independent of themselves.

Accepted Answer

As children engage in make-believe play, they begin to realize that other people can also have their own independent agents and recipients of actions, which means that they become less self-centered as they begin to consider the perspectives of others. Choices A, C, and D are not related to the developmental aspect described in the question.

Question 15

In a conservation-of-liquid problem, young children ignore the dynamic transformation of the liquid when they

Accepted Answer

Young children tend to treat the initial and final stages of the water as unrelated events, failing to understand that the amount of liquid remains the same despite changes in its appearance. They often focus on the static properties of the container, such as its shape or height, rather than the dynamic transformations of the liquid inside. This indicates a lack of conservation, which is the ability to understand that an object's quantity remains the same even when its appearance or arrangement changes.

Question 16

Piaget believed that through __________, young children practice and strengthen newly acquired representational schemes.

Accepted Answer

Piaget believed that when children engage in pretend play, they have the opportunity to practice and reinforce their newly acquired cognitive schemes. This helps children to develop better mental representations of objects and their functions. Therefore, pretending is a crucial part of cognitive development in young children.

Question 17

Five-year-old Matthew and 6-year-old Jessica like to pretend that they live or work in a zoo. Often, Matthew will pretend to be an animal, such as an elephant and Jessica will pretend to be the zookeeper. This is an example of __________ play.

Accepted Answer

Sociodramatic play involves children engaging in role-playing and acting out various scenarios, such as pretending to be animals and zookeepers, as seen with Matthew and Jessica.

Question 18

Twenty-month-old Hyrum attempts to sit in a tiny doll chair. Difficulty with _________ may contribute to Hyrum's scale error.

Accepted Answer

Dual representation refers to the ability to understand that an object can be both a symbol and an object itself. Hyrum's difficulty in recognizing the doll chair as a symbol for a real chair, rather than a chair he can actually sit in, is related to dual representation.

Question 19

Preschoolers who spend more time in sociodramatic play are seen as ___________ by their teachers.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Preschoolers who spend more time in sociodramatic...

Question 20

For Piaget, the most fundamental deficiency of preoperational thinking is

Accepted Answer

Egocentrism is considered the most fundamental deficiency of preoperational thinking according to Piaget. It refers to the inability of children in the preoperational stage to see things from perspectives other than their own.

Quiz 9: Cognitive Development in Early Childhood