What is the process by which experiences are incorporated into existing schemas?

Cognitive development is an area of study in neuroscience and cognitive psychology that focuses on conceptual resources and other aspects of brain function development. The term cognitive development refers to developing mental skills such as information processing, reasoning, language usage, and memory, beginning in childhood and continuing into adulthood. It compares early childhood skills with adolescent and adult cognitive skills, measuring the ability to think and understand. Children begin to actively learn at birth and immediately they become aware of their surroundings and gain some understanding of their world. By evaluating cognitive development, psychologists can begin to understand the world as viewed by an individual or a particular age group. Although the factors that contribute to cognitive development have been debated and various theories proposed, the overwhelming consensus in biological and behavioral sciences is that cognitive development is influenced by gene activity in conjunction with life events and experiences within an individual's environment.

The most influential and enduring theory of cognitive development was proposed by French psychologist, Jean Piaget (1896–1980), in 1952. After decades of observation of his own and other children in their natural environments as opposed to the laboratory experiments of the behaviorists, Piaget proposed a more active role for the children themselves than the environmental influences suggested by learning theory. Piaget believed that a child's knowledge was composed of schemas, basic units of knowledge used to organize past experiences and serve as a basis for understanding new ones. Schemas are continually being modified by two complementary processes, assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation refers to the process of taking in new information by incorporating it into an existing schema, that is, relating new experiences to what is already known. In contrast, accommodation is what happens when the schema itself changes to accommodate new knowledge. According to Piaget theory, cognitive development involves an ongoing attempt to achieve a balance between assimilation and accommodation, a process termed equilibration.

At the center of Piaget's theory is the principle that cognitive development occurs in a series of four distinct, universal stages, each characterized by increasingly sophisticated and abstract levels of thought. These stages always occur in the same order, and each builds on what was learned in the previous stage.

• Stage I: During the first, or sensorimotor, stage (birth to 24 months), knowledge is gained primarily through sensory impressions and motor activity. These two modes of learning are experienced both separately and in combination, allowing infants to learn gradually how to control their own bodies and objects in the external world. The ultimate task at this stage is to achieve a sense of object constancy, or permanence, the sense that objects go on existing even when they cannot be seen.
• Stage II: The preoperational stage (ages 2 to 6 years) involves the manipulation of images and symbols. One object can represent another, such as turning a broom into a horse that can be ridden around the room. A child's play can then expand to include make-believe games. Language acquisition is another way of manipulating symbols. Key concepts involved in the logical organization of thoughts such as causality, time, and perspective are still absent, as is an awareness that substances retain the same volume even when shifted into containers of different sizes and shapes. The child's focus remains egocentric throughout both the preoperational and sensorimotor stages.
• Stage III: During the third or concrete operational stage (7 to 11 years of age), children can perform logical operations, but only in relation to concrete external objects rather than ideas. They can add, subtract, count, and measure, and they learn about the conservation of length, mass, area, weight, time, and volume. At this stage, children can sort items into categories, reverse the direction of their thinking, and think about two concepts, such as length and width, simultaneously. They also begin to lose their egocentric focus, becoming able to understand a situation from the viewpoint of another person.
• Stage IV: The fourth, or formal operations, stage begins in early adolescence (age 11 or 12) with developing the ability to think logically about abstractions, including speculations about what might happen in the future. Adolescents are capable of formulating and testing hypotheses, understanding causality, and dealing with abstract concepts such as probability, ratio, proportion, and analogies. They become able to reason scientifically and speculate about philosophical issues. Abstract concepts and moral values become as important as concrete objects.

In the decades since Piaget's theory of cognitive development became widely known, other researchers contested some of its principles, claiming that children's progress through the four stages of development is less consistent than Piaget described. Children do not always reach the different stages at the age levels he specified, and their entry into some of the stages is more gradual than was first thought. However, Piaget remained the most influential figure in modern child development research, and many of his ideas continued to be considered accurate, including the basic notion of qualitative shifts in children's thinking over time, the trend toward greater logic and less egocentrism as they get older, the concepts of assimilation and accommodation, and the importance of active learning by questioning and exploring.

A child's intellectual ability is believed to be determined through a combination of heredity and environment. Thus, although a child's genetic inheritance is unchangeable, parents can enhance their children's intellectual development through environmental factors, including providing stimulating learning materials and experiences from an early age, reading to and talking with their children and helping them explore the world around them. As children mature, parents can both challenge and support each child's talents. Unlike early disruptions in physical development, which are often irreversible, it is possible to compensate for early delays or losses in cognitive development if a supportive environment is provided at a later time.

Is the process by which new experiences are incorporated into existing schemas?

What are the processes involved in developing schemas?

What is schema assimilation and accommodation?

What is this process of including a new stimulus into an existing schema called?