Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com
Procedia
Social and
Behavioral
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000
Sciences
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 30 (2011) 1345 – 1349
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

WCPCG-2011

Basic processes of cognitive development: missing component in

Piaget's Theory
Yury S. Dodonova*, Yulia A. Dodonovaa
a
Moscow City University of Psychology and Education, Russia

Abstract

Problems associated with the emergence of new cognitive structures are primarily addressed by studies on cognitive
development. However, another side of cognitive development is mostly disregarded. Similar to the process of dissimilation in
biological organisms and dissipation in the open systems described in physics, adequate cognitive adaptation to the environment
requires not only development of new schemas, but also exclusion of some non-adaptive components. This paper aims to attract
attention to this issue. Two possible ways of excluding the “wrong” components are discussed. Because these components are
either useless or they function as impediments to the organism’s ability to respond to the demands of the environment, their
exclusion can be described in terms of either extinction or as an active process of dissimilation. Cognitive dissimilation is
specifically discussed with regard to the problem of blocking the activation of the impedimental component. The relationships
between cognitive dissimilation and the processes of assimilation and accommodation conceptualized in Piaget’s theory of
cognitive development are emphasized as another issue requiring further investigation.
©
© 2011 Published
PublishedbybyElsevier
Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the 2nd World Conference
Ltd.
on Psychology, Counselling and Guidance.
Keywords: cognitive dissimilation; cognitive development; Piaget’s theory; adaptation.

1. Introduction

Most of the studies on cognitive development primarily address the problem of emergence of new cognitive
structures, although this problem can be conceptualized in a different manner. For example, Jean Piaget, the author
of the most comprehensive theory of intellectual development, wrote: “For me, the real problem is novelties, how
they are possible and how they are formed’’ (Piaget, 1971). In Piaget’s theory, all mental structures are built,
transformed and connected into functional units in the interplay of two complementary processes, namely
assimilation and accommodation. Cognitive development occurs through a process of equilibration, as humans
assimilate new information about the world into existing cognitive structures or accommodate their cognitive
structures to take the new information into account (see Bringuier, 1980).
Emergence of new structures is a central problem not only in Piaget’s general theory of intellectual development,
but also in some specific theories, such as theories of action (e.g., Adolph & Berger, 2006), theories of learning
(e.g., Jacobs & Michaels, 2007; Lattal & Bernardi, 2007), theories of language acquisition (e.g., Bates & Goodman,
1997; MacWhinney, 1999; Ramscar & Yarlett, 2007), and theories of categorization (e.g., Hummel & Holyoak,
2003; Kalish, Lewandowski, & Davies, 2005).
Recent cognitive studies adopt a concept of self-organization from the theory of nonlinear dynamics to account

* Yury S. Dodonov: Yury S. Dodonov.

E-mail address: ys.dodonov@gmail.com.

1877-0428 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the 2nd World Conference on Psychology,
Counselling and Guidance.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.10.260
1346 Yury Y.Dodonov,
S. Dodonov Y.Dodonova
and Yulia A. Dodonova
/ Procedia /- Procedia - Social
Social and and Behavioral
Behavioral Sciences 00Sciences 30 (2011) 1345 – 1349
(2011) 000–000

for the emergence of new structures. In this framework, self-organization is defined as a tendency of complex
adaptive systems, when pushed far from equilibrium, to generate new organizational forms spontaneously. Similar
to the new structures in fluid (Lorenz, 1963), lasers (Haken, 1983), single-cell organisms (Webster & Goodwin,
1996), and molecular networks (Sardanyes & Sole´, 2006), self-organization is used to explain new structures in
locomotion (Kugler & Turvey, 1987; Swenson & Turvey, 1991), reaching (Mottet & Bootsma, 1999), timing
behavior (Kelso, 1995) and even higher-order cognition (Stephen, Dixon, & Isenhower, 2009; Thelen & Smith,
1994; Van Orden, Holden, & Turvey, 2003).
The question as to whether these advanced dynamic models really explain emergent phenomena remains an area
of philosophical debate (e.g., see Walmsley, 2010), but discussion of this is beyond the scope of this paper The fact
that is important to mention here is that self-organization is a specific process that occurs only in open systems. In
an isolated system, the entropy increases to a maximum level leading to a final state of “heat death”. However, open
systems can dissipate entropy and maintain their ordered state because they are in constant interaction with the
environment. In open systems, the influx of entropy is the process that drives the emergence of new structures as an
open system self-organizes into a state of increased order to dissipate entropy (Prigogine, 1976).
The principle of active interaction between the organism and its environment is central to Piaget’s theory as well.
Piaget conceptualizes cognitive development as an extension of the biological process of adaptation. This principle
is also adopted by recent neutral network models such as Artificial Life simulations that are regarded as a possible
tool for investigating Piaget’s theory of cognitive development (e.g., see Parisi, & Schlesinger, 2002).
Thus, cognitive development is commonly regarded as a process of increasing understanding of the world and
increasing adaptation to the environment. In other words, cognitive structures are described as increasingly adaptive
and flexible. However, although the general principle of increasing adaptability is very plausible at the highest level
of analysis, it is not necessarily true when development of new cognitive structures is analyzed in details. In other
words, developing cognitive schemas apparently can include some components that are impedimental to further
adaptation. These "wrong" parts should be dissimilated to ensure further correct development and application of the
entire mental structure.
However, while the issue of emergence of novelties is commonly emphasized, the problem of dealing with the
non-adaptive units of cognitive schemas is mostly disregarded. As this deficiency obviously needs to be
compensated for, this paper is aimed primarily at attracting attention to cognitive dissimilation as another basic
process that is essential for cognitive development and adaptation to the environment.

2. Can the process of development of cognitive structures be unidirectional?

We started this paper by recalling some basic principles of Piaget’s theory. Piaget adopted biological concepts of
assimilation and accommodation to describe cognitive development as the process occurring in active interactions
between the organism and the environment. The fact that seems to be disregarded up to this point is that these
interactions necessarily require biological dissimilation as a process opposite to assimilation. Indeed, a number of
dissimilation processes such as respiration, fermentation, and glycolysis play an important role in the metabolism of
biological organisms. The analogy between cognitive structures and open systems in physics mentioned above
requires a very similar property of the cognitive schemas as well. Open systems exchange energy and matter during
their interactions with the environment, thus dissipating entropy.
However, the story gets interesting here. No component of cognitive schema once integrated to a cognitive
structure can be simply dissimilated beyond the bounds of mental structures. An assumption that every new
component of the cognitive system is functionally useful and improves the adaptability of the organism would help
to overcome this problem and avoid any need for the concept of dissimilation with reference to cognitive
development. But this is not true in the case of developing mental structures. “Wrong” components can obviously
occur in acquisition of new skills; the examples can easily be found for motor skills (throwing a ball in a basketball
game, manner of typing, holding a hammer or any other tool, to name just a few areas) and for more complex formal
operations such as the use of algorithms for solving a mathematical problem.
In all these examples, etiology of the “wrong” non-adaptive components can be different. For example, new
objects can be mistakenly assimilated to an existing cognitive structure. Conditions of the environment can change
so that an existing schema becomes inappropriate or at least partly incorrect. Another possibility is a kind of
redundancy of the developing schema. Some “extra” components may at first guarantee robustness of the
 Yury S. Dodonov and Yulia
Y.Dodonov, A. Dodonova
Y.Dodonova / Procedia
/ Procedia - Social
- Social and Behavioral
and Behavioral Sciences
Sciences 30 (2011)
00 (2011) 1345 – 1349
000–000 1347

developing schema but later become superfluous for further adaptation because of their comparative inefficiency.
Whatever were the origins of these non-adaptive components of a cognitive schema, they should be somehow
excluded to ensure further correct development and adaptation. Possible ways of excluding them are discussed in the
next section.

3. What happens with the non-adaptive components of the cognitive schemas?

As soon as cognitive development is conceptualized in terms of adaptation to the environment, all components of
a schema that were denoted above as “non-adaptive” can be classified in two main groups. With regard to further
adaptation, they can be either neutral or impedimental. We suggest that the process of exclusion of the “wrong”
component depends primarily on its potential role in the further development of the adaptive cognitive structure.
Thus, when a component of the cognitive schema is just useless but remains neutral with regard to the efficiency
of the interactions between the organism and the environment, there is no objective need in any active process for its
exclusion from the entire schema. We suggest that existence of such a component of the schema can be best
described in terms of extinction. Although these components are not completely removed, they are never activated
in response to events in the environment. As time goes by, these superfluous components become extinct. The
problem of exclusion of these elements is very close to the more frequently investigated problem of forgetting in
general, and thus remains outside the focus of this paper.
However, some of the components of the developing cognitive schemas are not as harmless to adaptation.
Holding a hammer incorrectly, thus leading to an injury, provides a good example of this type of non-adaptability of
the developing schema. In such a case an impedimental component is activated in response to some event in the
environment (event A); the organism fails to react adequately. Thus, the main precondition for further successful
adaptation is to prevent the activation of this harmful component in response to the event A. From the perspective of
adaptation, the most secure way would be simply to exclude the “wrong” part of the schema from the cognitive
structure. However, this simple possibility does not exist for the human cognitive system. Therefore, the process of
exclusion of the impedimental component is rather complicated and requires active “cognitive dissimilation”. A
general framework for an explanation of this process is proposed in the next section.

4. How does the active process of cognitive dissimilation occur?

As discussed above, activation of the harmful component in response to the event A should be blocked so that the
organism could meet the demands of the environment. In other words, this “wrong” component should be
dissimilated from the cognitive schema activated by the event A. However, it cannot be dissimilated “to nowhere”.
Moreover, it is not plausible that this component can be simply transferred to some other cognitive schema. In our
opinion, a model of cognitive dissimilation should conceptualize it as a process including several steps.
First, the isolation of the impedimental component requires a very specific “buildup” of an existing schema. This
additional part of the schema plays the role of an “internal policeman”. It is activated in response to the event A,
together with the entire cognitive schema. However, the function of this new structure is to block an activation of
the “wrong” component and to prevent a harmful (or just unnecessary) reaction of the organism. In this step of
dissimilation, total loading on the cognitive system becomes much higher in response to the event A. The higher the
probability of activation of the “wrong” component was, the more loaded would be the process of its active
blocking.
As a result of active isolation, activation of the impedimental component in response to the event A decreases as
time goes by. Finally the whole “built up” structure transforms to a separate declarative schema outside the entire
schema. As a result, the cognitive system includes a correct cognitive schema (the “wrong” component is
dissimilated) and an additional declarative schema is created based on the dissimilated component. This means the
organism has knowledge of what is wrong. When the event A occurs, only the correct schema is activated. However,
the declarative schema described above can also be activated in response to some other event (event B). Continuing
the example of holding a hammer incorrectly, the event A is the necessity to actually use this tool, while the event B
could be a situation that requires teaching another person how to use the hammer on a nail.
1348 Yury Y.Dodonov,
S. Dodonov Y.Dodonova
and Yulia A. Dodonova
/ Procedia /- Procedia - Social
Social and and Behavioral
Behavioral Sciences 00Sciences 30 (2011) 1345 – 1349
(2011) 000–000

5. Concluding remarks

The problems associated with emergence of new cognitive structures have been the most commonly investigated
issue in the psychology of cognitive development. However, the problem of dissimilation of the components that
were once included in the cognitive system seems to be even more intriguing, from the perspective of our
understanding of human cognitive development.
The developing cognitive schemas can apparently include components that are useless or even impedimental to
the adequate response of the organism to the demands of the environment. When a component is just superfluous, its
exclusion can be described in terms of extinction. However, when a component of a cognitive schema leads to a
non-adaptive reaction from the organism, this component should necessarily be blocked and actively dissimilated
from the active schema in order to ensure the organism’s adaptability.
The process of cognitive dissimilation was underestimated in Piaget’s theory. In the framework proposed by
Piaget, any transformation of the existing cognitive structures had to be regarded as accommodation. However, a
process of exclusion of the “wrong” units of the cognitive schemas is too specific by its function and its occurrence
to be simply classified as a particular case of accommodation. Moreover, conceptualization of cognitive
dissimilation as a third basic process of cognitive development that is to some extent, opposite to assimilation is in
line with Piaget’s view of cognitive development as an extension of biological adaptation.
This paper did not aim to propose any detailed model of cognitive dissimilation. Some aspects of this problem
were mentioned here, although this discussion was necessarily too concise to allow for expansion. The main purpose
of this paper was to emphasize the importance of this aspect of cognitive development and to encourage systematic
studies of cognitive development as a process that is characterized by both emergence of the new structures and
active dissimilation of the non-adaptive components.

References:

Adolph, K. E., & Berger, S. A. (2006). Motor development. In W. Damon & R. Lerner (Series Eds.), & D. Kuhn & R. S. Siegler (Vol. Eds.),
Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 2: Cognition, perception, and language (6th ed., pp. 161–213). New York: Wiley.
Bates, E., & Goodman, J. C. (1997). On the inseparability of grammar and the lexicon: Evidence from acquisition, aphasia and real-time
processing. In G.Altmann (Ed.), (Special issue on the lexicon), Language and Cognitive Processes, 12, 507–586.
Bringuier, J. C. (1980). Conversations with Jean Piaget. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Haken, H. (1983). Synergetics. Berlin: Springer Verlag.
Hummel, J. E., & Holyoak, K. J. (2003). A symbolic-connectionist theory of relational inference and generalization. Psychological Review,
110, 220–264.
Jacobs, D. M., & Michaels, C. F. (2007). Direct learning. Ecological Psychology, 19, 321–349.
Kalish, M. L., Lewandowsky, S., & Davies, M. (2005). Error-driven knowledge restructuring in categorization. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31, 846–861.
Kelso, J. A. S. (1995). Dynamic patterns: The self-organization of brain and behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kugler, P. N., & Turvey, M. T. (1987). Information, natural law, and the self-assembly of rhythmic movement. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lattal, K. M., & Bernardi, R. E. (2007). Cellular learning theory: Theoretical comment on Cole and McNally (2007). Behavioral
Neuroscience, 121, 1140–1143.
Lorenz, E. N. (1963). Deterministic nonperiodic flow. Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, 20, 130–141.
MacWhinney, B. (Ed.) (1999). The emergence of language. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Mottet, D., & Bootsma, R. J. (1999). The dynamics of goal-directed rhythmical aiming. Biological Cybernetics, 80, 235–245.
Piaget, J. (1971). Developmental stages and developmental processes. In D. R. Green, M.P. Ford, & G. B. Flamer (Eds.), Measurement and
Piaget (pp. 172–188). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Prigogine, I. (1976). Order through fluctuations: Self-organization and social system. In E. Jantsch, & C. H. Waddington (Eds.), Evolution of
consciousness: Human systems in transition (pp. 93–133). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Ramscar, M., & Yarlett, D. (2007). Linguistic self-correction in the absence of feedback: A new approach to the logical problem of language
acquisition. Cognitive Science, 31, 927–960.
Sardanyes, J., & Sole, R. V. (2006). Bifurcations and phase transitions in spatially extended two-member hypercycles. Journal of Theoretical
Biology, 243, 468–482.
 Yury S. Dodonov and Yulia
Y.Dodonov, A. Dodonova
Y.Dodonova / Procedia
/ Procedia - Social
- Social and Behavioral
and Behavioral Sciences
Sciences 30 (2011)
00 (2011) 1345 – 1349
000–000 1349

Stephen, D. G., Dixon, G. A. & Isenhower, R. W. (2009). Dynamics of Representational Change: Entropy, Action, and Cognition. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 35, 1811-1832.
Swenson, R., & Turvey, M. T. (1991). Thermodynamic reasons for perception-action cycles. Ecological Psychology, 3, 317–348.
Thelen, E., & Smith, L. B. (1994). A dynamic systems approach to the development of cognition and action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Van Orden, G. C., Holden, J. G., & Turvey, M. T. (2003). Self-organization of cognitive performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
General, 132, 331–350.
Walmsley, J. (2010). Emergence and reduction in dynamical cognitive science. New Ideas in Psychology, 28, 274-282.
Webster, G., & Goodwin, B. (1996). Form and transformation: Generative and relational principles in biology. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press.