Sensorimotor stage: what it is and how it is expressed according to Piaget

A summary of the first stage of development according to Jean Piaget.

Piaget's theory of cognitive development has been one of the great breakthroughs in the history of psychology, especially the branch focused on child development.

His first stage, the sensorimotor stage, is one of fundamental importance in the cognitive growth of infants, in addition to being the stage in which the cognitive development of children appears.It is also the stage in which an important aspect of the human mind appears: object permanence.

Next we will see more in depth the characteristics of the sensorimotor stage, in which substages it is divided and criticisms that have been made to Piaget with respect to some affirmations that he said on the cognitive development in the first 24 months of life.

What is the sensorimotor stage?

The sensorimotor stage is the first of the four stages of the theory of cognitive development, elaborated by Jean Piaget (1954, 1964). (1954, 1964). This stage extends from birth to 24 months of age, and is characterized as a period in which the infant's cognitive abilities are developing very rapidly.

The child is acquiring a greater understanding of the world through trial and error, through his or her senses and actions. At the beginning of the stage, infants are characterized by extreme egocentrism, i.e., they have no understanding of the world apart from their own current point of view. In a manner of speaking, it is as if they do not know where the world is going when they close their eyes.

The main achievement of this stage proposed by Piaget is to break with this egocentrism, understanding that the objects and events of the world are not the same.understanding that objects and events exist independently of whether they are perceived or not. This is known as object permanence, that is, knowing that an object continues to exist no matter how hidden it may be. To achieve this, it is necessary that the infant has the ability to form a mental representation or schema of the object or event.

Piagetian methodology

Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist and epistemologist who greatly influenced developmental psychology.. His research was instrumental in changing the scientific view of childhood. Before this Swiss psychologist broke through with his theories, it was believed that children were passive receptacles that were molded by their environment, without the capacity to discover it for themselves.

Piaget did not focus on what children know but on their ability to cope with the world, going stage by stage of growth.from stage to stage of growth. This psychologist firmly believed that babies constructed knowledge by analyzing every object or expression they saw in other people. Based on what he found in his research Piaget divided cognitive development into four stages.

• Sensorimotor stage
• Preoperational stage
• Concrete operations stage
• Formal operations stage

Each of these stages presents different characteristics, and the Piagetian description of each of these stages allows us to have a deep knowledge of how children's behavior and thinking is..

In the following we will see in more depth in which sub-stages the sensorimotor stage is divided, and what achievements are obtained in each of its subdivisions.

Substages of the sensorimotor stage

Jean Piaget elaborated his well-known theory of cognitive development from his findings by carefully observing the behavior of his own children Jacqueline, Lucienne and Laurent. In 1952 he would begin to lay the foundations of the theory, although his research in the 1960s would give it its final shape. Based on what he observed, Piaget subdivided the sensorimotor stage into 6 substages.

1. Sub-stage of reflexes (from 0 to 1 month)

The first substage, which is that of reflexes, corresponds to the first month of life. The newborn responds to external stimulation by means of innate reflex actions.. For example, if someone places an object or a finger near the baby, the newborn will most likely instinctively try to suck on it as if it were a bottle.

2. Primary circular reactions substage (1 to 4 months)

The sub-stage of primary circular reactions goes from the first to the fourth month of life. In this phase the infant looks for the best way to stimulate himself/herself, either by moving the feetThe infant will look for the best way to stimulate himself by moving his feet, moving his hands and even sucking his thumb. These are not reflex movements, but they are involuntary and accidental at first.

Once he has discovered them, he repeats them again, because he discovers that some of them give him pleasure, such as sucking his thumbs, kicking with his legs or wiggling his fingers. He repeats them over and over again, seeking to generate pleasurable stimulation and putting them into practice. and putting them into practice.

3. Secondary circular reactions substage (4 to 10 months)

In the sub-stage of secondary circular reactions, the babies are able to perform movements that are pleasurable and interesting to them, both with their own body and with the body.both with their own body and with objects.

An example of this would be when the child shakes his or her rattle for the pleasure of hearing its sound, struggles with the crib to try to see if he or she can escape, or picks up a doll and throws it to see how far it goes.

It is at the end of this sub-stage, specifically at 8 months that, according to Piaget's model, the baby begins to acquire the idea of the object's permanence.. That is, he learns that, even if he does not see, touch or feel it, a certain object continues to exist, it has not disappeared as if by magic.

4. Secondary schema coordination sub-stage (10 to 12 months)

In the secondary schema sub-stage, the baby shows signs of skills that he/she had never shown before, as well as understanding that there are objects that can be touched and moved from one place to another.

Now the little one will not only shake the rattle with the intention of making it ring, but can also detect or imagine where it is when he/she is not finding it, and move whatever is necessary to find it.

5. Tertiary Circular Reactions Substage (12 to 18 months)

The main achievement during this substage is the growth of motor and motor skills. have a better ability to elaborate mental schemas of a certain object. Tertiary circular reactions differ from secondary circular reactions in the sense that tertiary reactions are intentional adaptations to specific situations.

For example, if the baby was playing with his toy car, he knows how to get it the next time he plays with it, and where to put it away when he is done playing. Or, for example, if he was playing with toy pieces and has been taking them apart to see what they look like separately, he can put them back together again to put them back as they were..

6. Beginning of thinking (18 to 24 months)

This last sub-stage of the sensorimotor stage is the beginning of symbolic thinking. It is a transitional phase towards the next stage of development within the Piagetian modelthe preoperational stage of cognitive development.

In the substage of the thinking principle, according to the Piagetian model, children have the idea of object permanence fully established, being the main and greatest achievement of the sensorimotor stage.

Although it was already a capacity that began to settle at 8 months, at the end of the sub-stage of secondary circular reactions, it is at this stage that infants are able to have complete mental representations of objects.. They can even guess where an object has gone without having to see it, just by guessing aspects such as its trajectory, behavior or alternative place to look.

Blanket and ball experiment

As we have already mentioned, it is during the sensorimotor stage, specifically in the third sub-stage of this stage, that the idea of object permanence develops. Babies begin to understand that objects continue to exist.even if they cannot see, touch or hear them at that moment.

In fact, it is the absence of object permanence in the first months that makes it possible to play with babies the game of "Where is it...? Here it is!". For a baby who does not yet know where the world goes when he closes his eyes, having an adult cover his face is like a magic trick: it disappears and suddenly reappears. However, babies who are a little older will understand that the object or the person will understand that the object or person still exists, no matter how much they close their eyes or the person covers their face..

Piaget ascertained this ability by means of a simple experiment, carried out in 1963. In it he had a blanket and a ball, which he showed to the baby. The objective was to investigate at what age babies acquired the idea of object permanence by hiding the ball under the blanket while the child was watching. When the baby looked for the ball it was a demonstration that he had a mental representation of it.

As a result of all this Piaget found that babies started looking for the hidden toy when they were about 8 months old.. His conclusion was that it was from that age that infants began to manifest object permanence, because they are able to form a mental representation of the object.

Criticisms of Piaget

Although Piaget's model is undoubtedly a breakthrough in the developmental psychology of the last century, it is not without its critics. Subsequent experiments have cast doubt on his claim that it is as early as 8 months that infants begin to show the idea of object permanence. In fact, it has it has been suggested that it could be earlier and that even the capacity for symbolic representation would be highly developed in the first months of life..

Piaget must have made a mistake in thinking that if the infant showed no interest in looking for an object it automatically meant that he had no representation of it. It could have been the case that he actually had subjects who had no interest in the ball, but who did know that it was under the blanket, or that the infants did not have sufficient psychomotor ability to go in search of it, but knowing that the ball had not gone anywhere.

Studies by Bower and Wishart

An example of this is the experiment by T. G. Bower and Jennifer G. Wishart in 1972. These researchers, instead of using Piaget's technique with the blanket and ball, what they did was to wait for their experimental subject to reach for an object in a room..

Then, when the child had become familiar with the object, they put it in the same place where they had found it and turned off the lights. Once in the dark, the researchers filmed the child with an infrared camera and watched what happened. They saw that for at least a minute and a half the children would look for the object in the dark, going to where they thought it might be.

But like everything in science, Bower and Wishart's studies also had criticisms. One of them had to do with the time the children were given to complete the task, which was 3 minutes. Within that time period it could have happened that the children managed to reach the object by accident, by chance and randomly.. Another criticism is that, being in the dark, it could have happened that the children were desperate to find something to hold on to, and found the object completely by chance, being something that gave them security.

Studies by Renée Baillargeon

Another study that called into question Piaget's findings comes from the studies of Renée Baillargeon. This professor of psychology used a technique that has come to be known as the the paradigm of the transgression of expectationwhich explores how infants tend to search longer for objects they have not previously encountered.

In an expectancy transgression experiment, infants are introduced to a novel situation. They are repeatedly shown a stimulus until it no longer seems striking or new to them. To know whether they have become familiar with the stimulus, it is enough to see when the infants turn their heads away, indicating that it is no longer novel or attention-getting.

In Baillargeon's study a 5-month-old infant was taken and presented with a scenario. Among its elements there was a ramp, a road along which a toy truck would go, a colorful box and a screen that covered the box. These elements would represent two situations.

One was a possible event, i.e., one that could physically occur, while the other was an impossible event, i.e., one that could not logically occur. The child was presented with a scenario in which there was the path for the toy truck to go and a box that either could be behind the path or could get in the way.

The possible event consisted of, first, showing the baby that the box was not obstructing the path, then the screen was lowered so that he would no longer see the box, and the truck was released down the ramp to go along the path. Thus, since there was no obstacle, the truck would continue on its way.

The impossible event consisted of showing the baby that the box was in the way, lowering the screen so that he would no longer see it, releasing the truck and, although logically he should not follow the path because the box would be in the way, the experimenter would have removed it without the child's knowledge. Thus, on the left side of the screen, the child would see the truck leaving. This surprised him and, in fact, Baillargeon noticed that babies spent much more time looking at this impossible event than the possible one..

On this basis Renee Baillargeon concluded that the surprise manifested by infants indicated that they had expectations about the behavior of objects. they had expectations about the behavior of physical objects. Seeing the truck "go through" the box they thought was in the way and being surprised meant that, even though the screen had been lowered and the box could not be seen, the infant still thought it was there. Esto era una demostración de permanencia del objeto a los 5 meses, y no a los 8 como había dicho Piaget.

Referencias bibliográficas:

• Baillargeon, R., Spelke, E.S. & Wasserman, S. (1985). Object Permanence in Five-Month-Old Infants. Cognition, 20, 191-208.
• Bower, T. G. R., & Wishart, J. G. (1972). The effects of motor skill on object permanence. Cognition, 1, 165–172.
• Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children. New York: International Universities Press.
• Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of reality in the child (M. Cook, Trans.).
• Piaget, J. (1964). Part I: Cognitive development in children: Piaget development and learning. Journal of research in science teaching, 2(3), 176-186.
• Piaget, J. (1963). The Psychology of Intelligence. Totowa, New Jersey: Littlefield Adams.