Define the concepts of adaptation, assimilation, and accommodation. Explain how the balance between assimilation and accommodation varies over time with regard to cognitive equilibrium and disequilibrium
What will be an ideal response?
Answer: Adaptation involves building schemes through direct interaction with the environment. It consists of two complementary activities: assimilation and accommodation. During assimilation, we use our current schemes to interpret the external world. In accommodation, we create new schemes or adjust old ones after noticing that our current ways of thinking do not capture the environment completely.
According to Piaget, the balance between assimilation and accommodation varies over time. When children are not changing much, they assimilate more than they accommodate—a steady, comfortable state that Piaget called cognitive equilibrium. During times of rapid cognitive change, children are in a state of disequilibrium, or cognitive discomfort. Realizing that new information does not match their current schemes, they shift from assimilation to accommodation. After modifying their schemes, they move back toward assimilation, exercising their newly changed structures until they are ready to be modified again. Each time this back-and-forth movement between equilibrium and disequilibrium occurs, more effective schemes are produced.
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a. Anger and fear show distinct patterns of eye and lip movements within the first month of life b. Anger and fear show distinct patterns of vocal responses within the first month of life c. At first, infants' smiles tend to be caused by internal factors and are not social d. Early negative emotions are more predictive of later school success than early positive emotions
Your nephew has now mastered object permanence and as you watch him you remember that in class you discussed that object permanence is also a good measure of ____
a. short-term memory b. long-term memory c. episodic memory d. semantic memory