SENSORIMOTOR STAGE

The sensorimotor stage is the first of the four stages Piaget uses to definecognitive development.
Piaget designated the first two years of an infant’s lifeas the sensorimotor stage.

During this period, infants are busy discovering relationships betweentheir bodies and the
environment. Researchers have discovered that infants haverelatively well developed sensory
abilities. The child relies on seeing,touching, sucking, feeling, and using their senses to learn
things aboutthemselves and the environment. Piaget calls this the sensorimotor stagebecause the
early manifestations of intelligence appear from sensory perceptionsand motor activities.

Through countless informal experiments, infants develop the concept ofseperate selves, that is,
the infant realizes that the external world is not anextension of themselves.

Infants realize that an object can be moved by a hand (concept ofcausality), and develop notions
of displacement and events. An importantdiscovery during the latter part of the sensorimotor
stage is the concept of "objectpermanence".

Object permanence is the

awareness that an object continues to existeven when it is not in view. In young infants, when a
toy is covered by a pieceof paper, the infant immediately stops and appears to lose interest in the
toy(see figure above).This child has not yet mastered the concept of objectpermanence. In older
infants, when a toy is covered the child will activelysearch for the object, realizing that the object
continues to exist.

After a child has mastered the concept of object permanence, the emergenceof "directed
groping" begins to take place. With directedgroping, the child begins to perform motor
experiments in order to see what willhappen. During directed groping, a child will vary his
movements to observe howthe results will differ. The child learns to use new means to achieve
an end. The child discovers he can pull objects toward himself with the aid of a stickor string, or
tilt objects to get them through the bars of his playpen.
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Information Processing Model

The Information Processing Model is a framework used by cognitive psychologists to explain

and describe mental processes. The model likens the thinking process to how a computer works.

Just like a computer, the human mind takes in information, organizes and stores it to be retrieved
at a later time. Just as the computer has an input device, a processing unit, a storage unit, and an
output device, so does the human mind have equivalent structures. 

In a computer, information is entered by means of input devices like a keyboard or scanner. In

the human mind, the input device is called the Sensory Register, composed of sensory organs
like the eyes and the ears through which we receive information about our surroundings.

As information is received by a computer, it is processed in the Central Processing Unit, which is

equivalent to the Working Memory or Short-Term Memory. In the human mind, this is where
information is temporarily held so that it may be used, discarded, or transferred into long-term
memory.

In a computer, information is stored in a hard disk, which is equivalent to the long-term memory.

This is where we keep information that is not currently being used. Information stored in the
Long-Term Memory may be kept for an indefinite period of time.

When a computer processes information, it displays the results by means of an output device like
a computer screen or a printout. In humans, the result of information processing is exhibited
through behavior or actions - a facial expression, a reply to a question, or body movement.

The Information Processing Model is often used by educators and trainers to guide their teaching
methodologies.

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