Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development from Childhood into Adulthood01:25

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development from Childhood into Adulthood

1.1K
Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development emphasizes the role of thinking in a child's learning process, suggesting that children are naturally curious about their environment. His approach to development is discontinuous, proposing that cognitive abilities progress through distinct stages, each with unique characteristics. Central to Piaget's theory is schemata—mental structures that allow individuals to understand and interpret the world.
Schemata: Building Blocks of Knowledge
1.1K
Piaget's Stage 3 of Cognitive Development01:17

Piaget's Stage 3 of Cognitive Development

901
During Piaget's concrete operational stage, from ages 7 to 11, children exhibit a marked increase in logical thinking skills, specifically in relation to tangible, real-world events. This stage is characterized by the development of several essential cognitive concepts, including conservation, reversibility, and classification, all of which support the child's evolving capacity for structured thought.
Conservation and Constancy of Quantity
A significant cognitive milestone in the...
901
Revisionist Views of Adolescent and Adult Cognition01:24

Revisionist Views of Adolescent and Adult Cognition

224
A revisionist approach to Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development has brought new insights that challenge and reinterpret his established ideas. Piaget proposed that the formal operational stage, emerging in adolescence, represents the culmination of cognitive maturity. During this stage, individuals are said to develop abstract thinking, engage in systematic problem-solving, and show a form of egocentrism, believing others are as preoccupied with their behavior as they are...
224
Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development01:14

Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development

702
The preoperational stage, the second of Jean Piaget's four stages of cognitive development, spans approximately ages 2 to 7 and is characterized by the emergence of symbolic thinking. During this stage, children use language, images, and symbols to represent objects and concepts, enabling them to engage in imaginative and pretend play. This symbolic thinking supports children's ability to perform make-believe actions, such as imagining a broom as a horse or their hand as a phone, blending...
702
Cognitive Learning01:21

Cognitive Learning

925
Cognitive learning is based on purposive behavior, incidental learning, and insight learning.
E. C. Tolman's theory of purposive behavior emphasizes that much behavior is goal-directed. He argued that to understand behavior, we must look at the entire sequence of actions leading to a goal. For instance, high school students study hard, not just due to past reinforcement but also to achieve the goal of getting into a good college.
Tolman introduced the idea that behavior is influenced by...
925
Purposive Learning01:22

Purposive Learning

381
E. C. Tolman emphasized the purposiveness of behavior — the idea that much of our behavior is goal-directed. For instance, employees who aim for a promotion work diligently to meet their targets. Tolman argued that when classical conditioning and operant conditioning occur, the organism acquires certain expectations. In classical conditioning, a child might fear a dog because they expect it to bite. In operant conditioning, a person might consistently work overtime because they expect a...
381

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Young children understand how social connections affect what people know about each other.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same author

Children's understanding of how noise disrupts verbal communication.

Child development·2026
Same author

Agenda Setting and <i>The Emperor's New Clothes</i>: People Diagnose Information Cascades During Sequential Testimony by Reasoning About Informants' Speaking Order and Social Status.

Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science·2026
Same author

Conducting Developmental Research Online vs. In-Person: A Meta-Analysis.

Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science·2024
Same author

Epistemic language in news headlines shapes readers' perceptions of objectivity.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2024
Same author

A unified approach to demographic data collection for research with young children across diverse cultures.

Developmental psychology·2023

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 27, 2025

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
06:35

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm

Published on: April 28, 2016

34.9K

Children and adults selectively generalize mechanistic knowledge.

Aaron Chuey1, Kristi Lockhart2, Mark Sheskin3

  • 1Stanford University, Psychology Department, United States of America.

Cognition
|February 25, 2020
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Understanding how people judge expertise is key. Mechanistic knowledge, even in young children, signals greater domain knowledge, influencing perceptions of expertise across categories.

Keywords:
Cognitive developmentEpistemic developmentExplanationKnowledgeMechanismMetacognition

More Related Videos

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
05:35

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

Published on: April 19, 2017

7.0K
Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques
08:05

Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques

Published on: June 30, 2020

7.9K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Dec 27, 2025

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
06:35

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm

Published on: April 28, 2016

34.9K
Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
05:35

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

Published on: April 19, 2017

7.0K
Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques
08:05

Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques

Published on: June 30, 2020

7.9K

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Development
  • Psychology
  • Epistemology

Background:

  • Evaluating others' knowledge is crucial for information seeking.
  • Domain-specific knowledge estimation often relies on inferring general expertise from specific examples.
  • The role of mechanistic knowledge in signaling broader expertise is under-explored.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if mechanistic knowledge is perceived as a stronger indicator of overall domain knowledge compared to factual knowledge.
  • To examine developmental trends in this perception from early childhood to adulthood.

Main Methods:

  • Four developmental studies were conducted.
  • Participants (adults and children aged six and older) were presented with scenarios involving individuals demonstrating either mechanistic or factual non-mechanistic knowledge.
  • Judgments of overall domain knowledge were assessed for artifact and biological categories.

Main Results:

  • Both adults and young children (six+) inferred greater domain knowledge from mechanistic knowledge about artifacts (e.g., clocks) compared to factual knowledge.
  • An analogous pattern was observed for biological categories, though it emerged later in development.
  • Children, despite limited personal mechanistic knowledge, demonstrated an understanding of its generalizability.

Conclusions:

  • Mechanistic knowledge is a salient cue for judging expertise, even for young children.
  • This understanding of how mechanistic knowledge signals broader competence develops early.
  • Findings highlight sophisticated reasoning about knowledge and expertise in developing minds.