Cognition is vitally important to the way we interact with and perceive our world, and also exhibits significant changes across the lifespan. Young children exhibit significant development of their cognitive abilities. We’ll apply Piaget’s theory of cognitive development to cognitive tasks during infancy through adolescence. Piaget described intelligence in infancy as sensorimotor or based on direct, physical contact where infants use senses and motor skills to taste, feel, pound, push, hear, and move in order to experience the world. These basic motor and sensory abilities provide the foundation for the cognitive skills that will emerge during the subsequent stages of cognitive development.

In his theory, Piaget’s stage of formal operations is the last stage of cognitive development. Does that mean that cognitive development stops with adolescence? Couldn’t there be different ways of thinking in adulthood that comes after (or “post”) formal operations? We will also learn about these types of postformal operational thought and consider research done by William Perry related to types of thought and advanced thinking.

In This Section:

• 10.1 Piaget’s Sensorimotor and Preoperational Stages
• 10.2 Piaget’s Concrete Operational and Formal Operational Stages
• 10.3 Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
• 10.4 Cognition in Adolescence and Adulthood