THE ORIGINS OF INTELLIGENCE IN CHILDREN JEAN PIAGET $6.00 THE ORIGINS OF INTELLIGENCE IN CHILDREN JEAN PIAGET Translated by MARGARET COOK This book deals with the origins of intelligence in children and contains original observations on young children, novel experiments, brilliant in their simplicity, which the author describes in detail. Piaget divides the growth of intel- ligence into six sequential stages: the use o reflexes; the first ac- quired adaptations and primary circular reaction; secondary circular reactions and the child's procedures for prolonging spectacles interest- ing to him; the co-ordination of secondary schemata and their ap- plication to new situations; tertiary circular reaction and the discovery of new meauB through active ex- and finally, the in- of new means by mental combination. Particular attention is given to the formation of the sen- sotimotor schemata and the mech- anism! of mental assimilation. Pia- get emphasizes the importance of ' which Jit ' on back 3 1148 003274107 IAP 21 Wl APR 2? 19?? JUN 7 1980 18 1981 1 198J 136*72 Piaget The origins of intelligence in children - r . A T r Tfce- lni;elligence in Children THE ORIGINS OF INTELLIGENCE IN CHILDREN JEAN PIAGET Translated by MARGARET COOK INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITIES PRESS, INC. New York New York Copyright 1952, by International Universities Press, Inc. Second Printing, October, 1956 Third Printing, March, 1965 Manufactured in the United States of America CONTENTS Foreword ......... ix Introduction THE BIOLOGICAL PROBLEM OF INTELLIGENCE 1 1. The Functional Invariants of Intelligence and Bio- logical Organization ...... 3 2. Functional Invariants and the Categories of Reason 8 3. Hereditary Structures and Theories of Adaptation 13 Part 1 ELEMENTARY SENSORIMOTOR ADAPTATIONS 21 I. THE FIRST STAGE: THE USE OF REFLEXES . 23 1. Sucking Reflexes ...... 25 2. The Use of Reflexes 29 3. Assimilation: Basic Fact of Psychic Life . 42 II. THE SECOND STAGE: THE FIRST ACQUIRED ADAPTA- TIONS AND THE PRIMARY CIRCULAR REACTION . 47 1. Acquired Sucking Habits .... 49 2. Vision 62 . o o a00&34 vi CONTENTS 76 3. Phonation and Hearing ... 4. Prehension 88 Conclu- 5. The First Acquired Adaptations: sions Part II THE INTENTIONAL SENSORIMOTOR ADAPTATIONS 145 III. THE THIRD STAGE: THE "SECONDARY CIRCULAR REACTIONS" AND THE PROCEDURES DESTINED TO MAKE INTERESTING SIGHTS LAST . .153 1. The "Secondary Circular Reactions" LThe Facts and Reproductive Assimilations . .157 2. The Secondary Circular Reactions II. Ac- commodation and Organization of the Sche- mata 174 3. Recognitory Assimilation and the System of Meanings . - .185 4. Generalizing Assimilation and the Constitu- tion of "Procedures to Make Interesting Spec- tacles Last" .196 IV. THE FOURTH STAGE: THE COORDINATION OF THE SECONDARY SCHEMATA AND THEIR APPLICATION TO NEW SITUATIONS 210 1. The "Application of Familiar Schemata to New Situations" I. The Facts . .212 2. The "Application of Familiar Schemata to Situations" II. New Commentary . 225 3. Assimilation, Accommodation and Organiza- tion Peculiar to the Mobile Schemata . 236 CONTENTS vii 4. The Recognition of Signs and Their Utili- zation in Prevision ..... 247 5. The Exploration of New Objects and Phe- nomena and the "Derived" Secondary Reac- tions 253 V. THE FIFTH STAGE: THE "TERTIARY CIRCULAR RE- ACTION" AND THE "DISCOVERY OF NEW MEANS THROUGH ACTIVE EXPERIMENTATION" . 263 1. The Tertiary Circular Reaction . .265 2. The Discovery of New Means by Experimen- tation I. The "Sting" and the "Stick" . 279 3. The Discovery of New Means Through Ac- tive Experimentation II. Other Examples . 305 4. The Discovery of New Means Through Ac- tive Experimentation III. Conclusions . 320 VI. THE SIXTH STAGE: THE INVENTION OF NEW MEANS THROUGH MENTAL COMBINATIONS . .331 1. The Facts 333 2. Invention and Representation . .341 Conclusions "SENSORIMOTOR" OR "PRACTICAL" IN- TELLIGENCE AND THE THEORIES OF INTELLIGENCE 357 1. Associationist Empiricism ..... 359 2. Vitalistic Intellectualism . 369 3. Apriority and the Psychology of Form . 376 4. The Theory of Groping 395 5. The Theory of Assimilation ..... 407 FOREWORD TO THE SECOND EDITION This work, a second edition of which has very kindly been requested, was followed by La Construction du reel chez Fenfant and was to have been completed by a study of the genesis of imitation in the child. The latter piece of research, whose publi- cation we have postponed because it is so closely connected with the analysis of play and representational symbolism, appeared in 1945, inserted in a third work, La formation du symbole chez I'enfant. Together these three works form one entity dedicated to the beginnings of intelligence, that is to say, to the various manifestations of sensorimotor intelligence and to the most ele- mentary forms of expression. The theses developed in this volume, which concern in par- ticular the formation of the sensorimotor schemata and the mechanism of mental assimilation, have given rise to much dis- cussion which pleases us and prompts us to thank both our op- ponents and our sympathizers for their kind interest in our work. It is impossible to name here all the authors on whose observa- tions we would like to comment, but we should single out for mention the remarkable studies made by H. Wallon and P. Guillaume. In his fine work De I'acte a la pensee, HL Wallon did us the honor of discussing our work at length; we have already com- mented on this in La formation du symbole chez I'enfant. Wal- lon's main idea is the distinction which he makes between the realm of the sensorimotor (characterized by the "understanding of situations") and that of expression (verbal intelligence). His remarkable study on Les origines de la pensde chez I'enfant^ pub- lished since, places the origins of thought at the age of four, as if nothing essential transpired between the attainments of the sensorimotor intelligence and the beginnings of conceptual ex- pression. It is apparent how antithetical to everything we main- ix x FOREWORD tain in this book this radical thesis is, and we can answer it today by invoking two kinds of arguments. of a definite that of In the first place, meticulous study area, has led us with B. Inhelder development of spatial perceptions, to discover an even greater correlation than there seemed to be between the sensorimotor and the perceptual. Doubtless nothing these to the and is directly transmitted from one of planes other, all that the sensorimotor intelligence has constructed must first be reconstructed by the growing perceptual intelligence before this overruns the boundaries of that which constitutes its sub- structure. But the function of this substructure is no less ap- in coordi- parent. It is because the baby begins by constructing, nating his actions, schemata such as those of the unchanging three trans- object, the fitting in of two or dimensions, rotations, succeeds in positions, and superpositions that he finally organiz- ing his "mental space" and, between preverbal intelligence and the beginnings of Euclidean spatial intuition, a series of "topo- as in logical" intuitions are intercalated manifested drawing, of stereognosis, the construction and assembling objects, etc.; that is to say, in the areas of transition between the sensorimotor and the perceptual. In the second place, it is primarily preverbal sensorimotor activity that is responsible for the construction of a series of perceptual schemata the importance of which in the subsequent structuring of thought cannot, without oversimplification, be denied. Thus the perceptual constants of form and size are con- nected with the sensorimotor construction of the permanent ob- child ject: For how could the four-year-old think without having reference to objects having form and invariable dimensions, and how would he adapt his belief without a long preliminary de- velopment by the sensorimotor? Probably the sensorimotor schemata are not concepts, and the functional relationship which we stress in this book does not exclude the structural opposition of these extremes, despite the continuity of the transitions. But, without preliminary schemata, nascent thought would be reduced to mere verbalism, which would make one suspicious of many of the acts mentioned by Wallon in his latest work. But it is precisely on the concrete FOREWORD xi of action that plane infancy makes its intelligence most manifest until the of age seven or eight, when coordinated actions are converted into operations, admitting of the logical construction of verbal thought and its application to a coherent structure. In short, Wallon's thesis disregards the progressive con- struction of performance and that is why it goes to extremes in stressing the verbal at the expense of the sensorimotor whereas the sensorimotor substructure is necessary to the conceptual for the formation of the operational schemata which are destined to function finally in a formal manner and thus to make language consistent with thought. 1 As far as P. Guillaume's very interesting study is concerned, it, on the other hand, agrees in the main with our conclusions, except in one essential point. In accordance with his interpreta- tions influenced by "the theory of form," P. Guillaume presents a fundamental distinction between the perceptual mechanisms and the intellectual processes which explains the second in terms of the first (the reverse of Wallon). This controversy is too lengthy to consider in detail in a preface. Let us limit ourselves to answering that the systematic study of the child's perceptions, in which we have since collaborated with Lambertier2 has, on the contrary, led us to doubt the permanence of perceptual constants in which P. Guillaume believes (the invariability of size, etc.) and to introduce a distinction between instantaneous perceptions which are always passive and a "perceptual activity" connecting them with each other in space and time, according to certain remarkable laws (in particular a mobility and reversibility in- creasing with age). This perceptual activity, which the theory of form partially disregards, is but one manifestation of the sensori- motor activities of which preverbal intelligence is the expres- sion.