Question 1

Which of the following represents the concept of class inclusion?

Accepted Answer

Class inclusion refers to the understanding that a broad category (e.g., "animal") can encompass more specific subcategories (e.g., "dogs" and "cats"). This concept is fundamental in cognitive development, allowing individuals to organize information hierarchically.

Question 2

To most 4-year-olds, dreams are like

Accepted Answer

Most 4-year-olds perceive dreams as movies because they often see them as vivid, visual experiences similar to watching a film.

Question 3

Pouring water from a short wide glass into a tall thin glass is a test used to assess children's

Accepted Answer

This test assesses children's understanding of conservation, which is the concept that quantity remains the same despite changes in shape or appearance. It's a key stage in cognitive development according to Piaget's theory.

Question 4

Five-year-old Nathan pours juice from a tall glass into a shorter one. He then gives the short glass to Vince. Three- year-old Vince is upset because he now believes he has less juice than when it was in the tall glass. This aspect of preoperational thought is called

Accepted Answer

This scenario illustrates the concept of irreversibility, which is the inability to understand that an action can be done and then undone to return to the original state. Vince does not realize that the amount of juice remains the same regardless of the shape of the container.

Question 5

Which of the following is TRUE?

Accepted Answer

Lack of centration, which means focusing on a single aspect of an object or situation, enables the development of conservation. Conservation is the understanding that certain properties of objects remain the same despite changes in their form or arrangement. This cognitive ability typically develops when children start to overcome centration, allowing them to understand that quantity or amount does not change just because the appearance of an object changes.

Question 6

Four-year-old Jenna is looking at a drawing of her family tree. Her father tells her she has three aunts and two grandmothers. Her father then asks her if she has more grandmothers or more relatives. What will she say?

Accepted Answer

At four years old, Jenna may not fully understand the concept of relatives and might focus on the specific numbers given, leading her to say she has more grandmothers since she was told she has two grandmothers and might not grasp that aunts are also relatives.

Question 7

What is scaffolding?

Accepted Answer

Scaffolding refers to the temporary support given to a child by a more knowledgeable other (such as a teacher, parent, or peer) to help the child learn to perform a task independently. This support is gradually removed as the child becomes more competent.

Question 8

A 4-year-old child is shown pictures of four cats and six dogs. When asked if there are more dogs or more animals, she will most likely say that

Accepted Answer

This is due to a cognitive limitation in young children known as centration, where they focus on one aspect of a situation, neglecting other relevant aspects. In this case, the child focuses on the comparison between dogs and cats, not understanding that both are included in the category of animals.

Question 9

Children who lack conservation skills would assume that a sandwich cut into twohalves would result in

Accepted Answer

Children who lack conservation skills do not understand that quantity remains the same despite changes in shape or appearance. Therefore, they might think cutting a sandwich into halves creates "more" sandwich because there are more pieces.

Question 10

What is centration?

Accepted Answer

Centration is a term used in psychology to describe a kind of thought process in children, where they can only focus on one aspect or dimension of a problem or situation at a time. This concept is part of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, particularly in the preoperational stage.

Question 11

Miller (2010) indicated that children's difficulty with the three-mountain task may be due more to than to ____.

Accepted Answer

Miller (2010) suggested that the difficulty children have with the three-mountain task is more due to the demands of the task itself rather than egocentrism.

Question 12

A preoperational child would assume

Accepted Answer

A preoperational child, according to Piaget's stages of cognitive development, is in the stage from approximately 2 to 7 years old and tends to focus on the appearance of objects rather than logical reasoning. They might assume that a taller glass holds more liquid than a shorter one because they cannot yet perform operations (mental actions that are reversible) such as understanding that the volume of liquid remains the same regardless of the shape of the container. This is an example of centration, where the child focuses on one aspect of a situation, neglecting other important features.

Question 13

Caleb is 4 years old. He is likely to believe that

Accepted Answer

At the age of 4, children are in the preoperational stage of cognitive development, according to Piaget. They often believe their subjective experiences, like dreams, are shared or observable by others, showing egocentrism. They have not yet fully grasped that others have separate thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

Question 14

Preoperational children fail to show conservation skills because of a characteristic known as

Accepted Answer

Irreversibility refers to the preoperational child's inability to understand that an action can be done and then undone, restoring the original state. This concept is crucial for understanding conservation, where the child must recognize that quantity remains the same even after its appearance changes.

Question 15

Recent research evaluating Piaget's theory suggests that

Accepted Answer

Recent research indicates that children can understand others' perspectives earlier than Piaget proposed, suggesting that his age estimates were conservative.

Question 16

In the conservation task, asking children whether both beakers have the same amount of water and to watch the pouring carefully may result in

Accepted Answer

Asking children to watch the pouring carefully may lead them to expect a change in the amounts, as they might assume that the action of pouring is meant to demonstrate a difference.

Question 17

Why might class inclusion tasks be difficult for the preoperational child?

Accepted Answer

Class inclusion tasks are challenging for preoperational children because they demand the ability to consider multiple aspects of a situation at once. Preoperational children, according to Piaget's stages of cognitive development, typically focus on one aspect of a situation at a time, which makes it difficult for them to understand that a subclass can be part of a larger class simultaneously.

Question 18

Recent studies indicate that children's understanding of causality is more sophisticated than Piaget believed. However, this depends upon

Accepted Answer

The sophistication of a child's understanding of causality can be significantly influenced by how the task is presented, aligning with recent studies that challenge Piaget's views on cognitive development stages.

Question 19

Conservation requires

Accepted Answer

Conservation requires the ability to understand that certain properties of objects or substances do not change when their appearance is altered in some superficial way. This ability often involves reversing one's thinking to understand that if a change is made (e.g., spreading out clay to make it look longer), the change can be undone (e.g., squishing the clay back into its original shape), indicating that the amount of clay remains the same.

Question 20

Conservation requires an understanding that

Accepted Answer

Conservation, in a psychological context, refers to the understanding that certain properties of objects, such as volume, mass, and number, remain the same despite changes in the forms or arrangements of the objects. This concept is fundamental in cognitive development theories, particularly those of Jean Piaget.

Quiz 9: Early-Childhood-Cognitive-Development