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Related Concept Videos

Piaget's Stage 3 of Cognitive Development01:17

Piaget's Stage 3 of Cognitive Development

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 concrete...
Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development01:14

Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development

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...
Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development01:14

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

The sensorimotor stage, the initial phase of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, spans the first two years of a child's life. During this period, infants actively engage with their surroundings, building cognitive awareness through direct interaction with the world. This interaction is primarily based on sensory perception and motor actions, allowing infants to gradually understand basic physical properties and predict how objects interact within their environment.
Exploration...
Piaget's Stage 4 of Cognitive Development01:19

Piaget's Stage 4 of Cognitive Development

The formal operational stage, as described in Piaget's cognitive development theory, begins around age 11 and extends into adulthood. It marks the emergence of advanced cognitive abilities that differentiate adolescent and adult thinking from those of younger children. This stage is characterized by abstract reasoning, hypothetical-deductive reasoning, and a more complex understanding of self and others.
Abstract Reasoning and Hypothetical-Deductive Thinking
Unlike the concrete operational...
Revisionist Views of Adolescent and Adult Cognition01:24

Revisionist Views of Adolescent and Adult Cognition

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

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development from Childhood into Adulthood

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
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 28, 2026

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

Preschoolers' Sensitivity to Abstract Relations Among Sets.

Nicole H Coates1, Madeline C Pelz1, Laura E Schulz1

  • 1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Topics in Cognitive Science
|May 26, 2026
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Preschoolers can compare abstract relationships in visual patterns and sets, including size and proportions. This suggests early childhood development of foundational scientific reasoning skills.

Keywords:
AbstractionPreschoolersProperties of setsRelational‐reasoningTheory‐theory

More Related Videos

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm
06:07

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Published on: May 15, 2019

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 28, 2026

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

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm
06:07

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Published on: May 15, 2019

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Development
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Early Childhood Education

Background:

  • Preschoolers' cognitive abilities are crucial for understanding complex concepts.
  • Investigating the origins of abstract reasoning in early childhood is key to cognitive science.
  • Early development of epistemic practices informs scientific inquiry.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To examine preschoolers' capacity for comparing abstract relationships across different sets.
  • To determine if age influences the ability to match monotonic and symmetric relationships.
  • To assess the understanding of more complex relational concepts like proportions and means in young children.

Main Methods:

  • Two studies were conducted involving preschoolers aged 3 to 6 years.
  • Experiments 1a-1d tested the matching of monotonic and symmetric relationships in visual patterns.
  • Experiment 2 assessed the comparison of abstract relationships including relative set size, proportions, means, and modes.

Main Results:

  • Preschoolers successfully matched both monotonic and symmetric relationships in visual patterns.
  • Children succeeded in both direct and inverted relational matches.
  • Older preschoolers (4-6 years) demonstrated the ability to compare complex abstract relationships among sets.

Conclusions:

  • Early childhood involves the emergence of foundational abstract reasoning skills.
  • These findings support the view that simple forms of scientific inquiry practices appear in early development.
  • Preschoolers possess a greater capacity for abstract relational understanding than previously thought.