jean piaget biography 

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What Is Cognition? Definition: Cognition is a term referring to the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension, including thinking, knowing, remembering, judging and problem-solving . These are higher-level functions of the brain and encompass language, imagination, perception and planning. Jean Piaget Biography (1896-1980) "The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done. --Jean Piaget Best Known For: Theory of cognitive development Genetic epistemology Birth and Death: Jean Piaget was born August 9, 1896 Died September 16, 1980 Jean Piaget's Career: By age 11, Jean Piaget had already begun his career as a researcher, writing a short paper on an albino sparrow. He continued to study the natural sciences and received his Ph.D. in Zoology from University of Neuchâtel. Piaget later developed an interest in psychoanalysis, and spent a year working at a boys' institution created by Alfred Binet . Best known for his research on children's cognitive development, Piaget studied the intellectual development of his own three children. Piaget's theory described stages that children pass through in the development of intelligence and formal thought processes. The theory describes four stages; (1)the sensorimotor stage , (2)the

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Page 1: Jean Piaget Biography 

What Is Cognition?

Definition:

Cognition is a term referring to the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension, including thinking, knowing, remembering, judging and problem-solving. These are higher-level functions of the brain and encompass language, imagination, perception and planning.

Jean Piaget Biography (1896-1980)

"The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done.--Jean Piaget

Best Known For:

Theory of cognitive development Genetic epistemology

Birth and Death:

Jean Piaget was born August 9, 1896 Died September 16, 1980

Jean Piaget's Career:

By age 11, Jean Piaget had already begun his career as a researcher, writing a short paper on an albino sparrow. He continued to study the natural sciences and received his Ph.D. in Zoology from University of Neuchâtel. Piaget later developed an interest in psychoanalysis, and spent a year working at a boys' institution created by Alfred Binet.

Best known for his research on children's cognitive development, Piaget studied the intellectual development of his own three children. Piaget's theory described stages that children pass through in the development of intelligence and formal thought processes. The theory describes four stages; (1)the sensorimotor stage, (2)the preoperational stage, (3)the concrete operational stage, and (4) the formal operation stage.

Contributions to Psychology:

Jean Piaget provided support for the idea that children think differently than adults. His research identified several important milestones in the mental development of children. His work also generated interest in cognitive and developmental psychology. Piaget's theories are widely accepted and studied today by students of both psychology and education.

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Piaget held many chair positions throughout his career and conducted research in psychology and genetics. He created the International Center for Genetic Epistemology in 1955 and served as director until his death.

Influence on Psychology:

Piaget's theories continue to be studied in the areas of psychology, sociology, education, and genetics. His work contributed to our understanding of the cognitive development of children.

Biographies of Jean Piaget:

Bringuier, J.C. (1980). Conversations with Jean Piaget. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Evans, R. (1973). Jean Piaget, the man and his ideas. New York: Dutton.

Piaget, J. (1952). Autobiography. In E. Boring (ed) History of psychology in autobiography. Vol. 4. Worcester, MA: Clark University Press.

Selected Publications by Jean Piaget:

Piaget, J. (1936) Origins of intelligence in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Piaget, J. (1945) Play, dreams and imitation in childhood. London: Heinemann.

Piaget, J. (1970) Main trends in psychology, London: George Allen & Unwin.

Jean Piaget's Background

Jean Piaget was born in Switzerland in 1896. After receiving his doctoral degree at age 22, Piaget formally began a career that would have a profound impact on both psychology and education. After working with Alfred Binet, Piaget developed an interest in the intellectual development of children. Based upon his observations, he concluded that children were not less intelligent than adults, they simply think differently. Albert Einstein called Piaget's discovery "so simple only a genius could have thought of it."

Piaget's stage theory describes the cognitive development of children. Cognitive development involves changes in cognitive process and abilities. In Piaget's view, early cognitive development involves processes based upon actions and later progresses into changes in mental operations.

Key Concepts

Schemas - A schema describes both the mental and physical actions involved in understanding and knowing. Schemas are categories of knowledge that help us to interpret and understand the world.

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In Piaget's view, a schema includes both a category of knowledge and the process of obtaining that knowledge. As experiences happen, this new information is used to modify, add to, or change previously existing schemas.

For example, a child may have a schema about a type of animal, such as a dog. If the child's sole experience has been with small dogs, a child might believe that all dogs are small, furry, and have four legs. Suppose then that the child encounters a very large dog. The child will take in this new information, modifying the previously existing schema to include this new information.

Assimilation - The process of taking in new information into our previously existing schema's is known as assimilation. The process is somewhat subjective, because we tend to modify experience or information somewhat to fit in with our preexisting beliefs. In the example above, seeing a dog and labeling it "dog" is an example of assimilating the animal into the child's dog schema.

Accommodation - Another part of adaptation involves changing or altering our existing schemas in light of new information, a process known as accommodation. Accommodation involves altering existing schemas, or ideas, as a result of new information or new experiences. New schemas may also be developed during this process.

Equilibration - Piaget believed that all children try to strike a balance between assimilation and accommodation, which is achieved through a mechanism Piaget called equilibration. As children progress through the stages of cognitive development, it is important to maintain a balance between applying previous knowledge (assimilation) and changing behavior to account for new knowledge (accommodation). Equilibration helps explain how children are able to move from one stage of thought into the next.

More About Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

The Sensorimotor Stage The Preoperational Stage

The Concrete Operational Stage

Characteristics of the Sensorimotor Stage:

The first stage of Piaget’s theory lasts from birth to approximately age two and is centered on the infant trying to make sense of the world. During the sensorimotor stage, an infant’s knowledge of the world is limited to their sensory perceptions and motor activities. Behaviors are limited to simple motor responses caused by sensory stimuli. Children utilize skills and abilities they were born with, such as looking, sucking, grasping, and listening, to learn more about the environment.

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Object Permanence:

According to Piaget, the development of object permanence is one of the most important accomplishments at the sensorimotor stage of development. Object permanence is a child's understanding that objects continue to exist even though they cannot be seen or heard.

Substages of the Sensorimotor Stage:

The sensorimotor stage can be divided into six separate substages that are characterized by the development of a new skill.

Reflexes (0-1 month):

During this substage, the child understands the environment purely through inborn reflexes such as sucking and looking.

Primary Circular Reactions (1-4 months):

This substage involves coordinating sensation and new schemas. For example, a child may such his or her thumb by accident and then later intentionally repeat the action. These actions are repeated because the infant finds them pleasurable.

Secondary Circular Reactions (4-8 months):

During this substage, the child becomes more focused on the world and begins to intentionally repeat an action in order to trigger a response in the environment. For example, a child will purposefully pick up a toy in order to put it in his or her mouth.

Coordination of Reactions (8-12 months):

During this substage, the child starts to show clearly intentional actions. The child may also combine schemas in order to achieve a desired effect. Children begin exploring the environment around them and will often imitate the observed behavior of others. The understanding of objects also begins during this time and children begin to recognize certain objects as having specific qualities. For example, a child might realize that a rattle will make a sound when shaken.

Tertiary Circular Reactions (12-18 months):

Children begin a period of trial-and-error experimentation during the fifth substage. For example, a child may try out different sounds or actions as a way of getting attention from a caregiver.

Early Representational Thought (18-24 months):

Children begin to develop symbols to represent events or objects in the world in the final sensorimotor substage. During this time, children begin to move towards understanding the world through mental operations rather than purely through actions.

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Characteristics of the Preoperational Stage:

The preoperational stage occurs between ages two and six. Language development is one of the hallmarks of this period. Piaget noted that children in this stage do not yet understand concrete logic, cannot mentally manipulate information, and are unable to take the point of view of other people, which he termed egocentrism.

During the preoperational stage, children also become increasingly adept at using symbols, as evidenced by the increase in playing and pretending. For example, a child is able to use an object to represent something else, such as pretending a broom is a horse. Role playing also becomes important during the preoperational stage. Children often play the roles of "mommy," "daddy," "doctor" and many others.

Egocentrism:

Piaget used a number of creative and clever techniques to study the mental abilities of children. One of the famous techniques egocentrism involved using a three-dimensional display of a mountain scene. Children are asked to choose a picture that showed the scene they had observed. Most children are able to do this with little difficulty. Next, children are asked to select a picture showing what someone else would have observed when looking at the mountain from a different viewpoint.

Invariably, children almost always choose the scene showing their own view of the mountain scene. According to Piaget, children experience this difficulty because they are unable to take on another person's perspective.

Conservation:

Another well-known experiment involves demonstrating a child's understanding of conservation. In one conservation experiment, equal amounts of liquid are poured into two identical containers. The liquid in one container is then poured into a different shaped cup, such as a tall and thin cup, or a short and wide cup. Children are then asked which cup holds the most liquid. Despite seeing that the liquid amounts were equal, children almost always choose the cup that appears fuller.

Piaget conducted a number of similar experiments on conservation of number, length, mass, weight, volume, and quantity. Piaget found that few children showed any understanding of conservation prior to the age of five.

Characteristics of Concrete Operations:

The concrete operational stage begins around age seven and continues until approximately age eleven. During this time, children gain a better understanding of mental operations. Children begin thinking logically about concrete events, but have difficulty understanding abstract or hypothetical concepts.

Logic:

Piaget determined that children in the concrete operational stage were fairly good at the use of inductive logic. Inductive logic involves going from a specific experience to a

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general principle. On the other hand, children at this age have difficulty using deductive logic, which involves using a general principle to determine the outcome of a specific event.

Reversibility:

One of the most important developments in this stage is an understanding of reversibility, or awareness that actions can be reversed. An example of this is being able to reverse the order of relationships between mental categories. For example, a child might be able to recognize that his or her dog is a Labrador, that a Labrador is a dog, and that a dog is an animal.

Characteristics of the Formal Operational Stage:

The formal operational stage begins at approximately age twelve to and lasts into adulthood. During this time, people develop the ability to think about abstract concepts. Skills such as logical thought, deductive reasoning, and systematic planning also emerge during this stage.

Logic:

Piaget believed that deductive logic becomes important during the formal operational stage. Deductive logic requires the ability to use a general principle to determine a specific outcome. This type of thinking involves hypothetical situations and is often required in science and mathematics.

Abstract Thought:

While children tend to think very concretely and specifically in earlier stages, the ability to think about abstract concepts emerges during the formal operational stage. Instead of relying solely on previous experiences, children begin to consider possible outcomes and consequences of actions. This type of thinking is important in long-term planning.

Problem-Solving:

In earlier stages, children used trial-and-error to solve problems. During the formal operational stage, the ability to systematically solve a problem in a logical and methodical way emerges. Children at the formal operational stage of cognitive development are often able to quickly plan an organized approach to solving a problem.

Support for Piaget’s Theory:

Piaget's Impact on Education Piaget's focus on qualitative development had an important impact on education. While Piaget did not specifically apply his theory to education, many educational programs are built upon the belief that children should be taught at the level for which they are developmentally prepared.

In addition to this, a number of instructional strategies have been derived from Piaget's work. These strategies include providing a supportive environment, utilizing social

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interactions and peer teaching, and helping children see fallacies and inconsistencies in their thinking (Driscoll, 1994).

Criticisms of Piaget:

Problems With Research Methods

Much of the criticism of Piaget's work is in regards to his research methods. A major source of inspiration for the theory was Piaget's observations of his own three children. In addition to this, the other children in Piaget's small research sample were all from well-educated professionals of high socio-economic status. Because of this unrepresentative sample, it is difficult to generalize his findings to a larger population.

Problems With Formal Operations

Research has disputed Piaget's argument that all children will automatically move to the next stage of development as they mature. Some data suggests that environmental factors may play a role in the development of formal operations.

Underestimates Children's Abilities

Most researchers agree that children posses many of the abilities at an earlier age than Piaget suspected. Recent research on theory of mind has found that children of 4- or 5-years old have a rather sophisticated understanding of their own mental processes as well as those of other people. For example, children of this age have some ability to take the perspective of another person, meaning they are far less egocentric than Piaget believed.

Piaget’s Legacy:

While there are few strict Piagetians, most can appreciate Piaget's influence and legacy. His work generated interest in child development and had an enormous impact on the future of education and developmental psychology.

Sensorimotor rhythm

Description

The Sensory Motor Rhythm (SMR) is brain wave rhythm. It is an oscillatory idle rhythm of synchronized electromagnetic brain activity. It appears in spindles in recordings of EEG, MEG, and ECoG over the sensorimotor cortex. For most individuals, the frequency of the SMR is in the range of 8 to 12 Hz[1]. The feline SMR has been noted as being analogous to the human mu rhythm.[2]

Meaning

The meaning of SMR is not fully understood. Phenomenologically, a person is producing a stronger SMR amplitude when the corresponding sensory-motor areas are idle, e.g. during states of immobility. SMR typically decrease in amplitude when the

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corresponding sensory or motor areas are activated, e.g. during motor tasks and even during motor imagery.[3]

Conceptually, SMR is sometimes mixed up with alpha waves of occipital origin, the strongest source of neural signals in the EEG. One reason might be, that without appropriate spatial filtering the SMR is very difficult to detect as it is usually superimposed by the stronger occipital alpha waves.

Relevance in research

Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback training can be used to gain control over the SMR activity. Neurofeedback practitioners believe—and have produced experimental evidence to back up their claims[4] - that this feedback enables the subject to learn the regulation of their own SMR. People with learning difficulties,[5] ADHD,[6] epilepsy,[7] and autism [8] may benefit from an increase in SMR activity via neurofeedback. In the field of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI), the deliberate modification of the SMR amplitude during motor imagery can be used to control external applications [9].

Noun1.inborn reflex - an automatic instinctive unlearned reaction to a stimulus

Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. This a fundamental understanding in the field of developmental psychology the significant subfield of psychology that pertains to the social and mental development of children. There are four findings to account for in infant cognition. These include developmental change, task dissociation, generalization of the effects in terms of recovery, and emotional reactions.[1] It is acquired by human infants between eight and twelve months of age via the process of logical induction to help them develop secondary schemes in their sensori-motor coordination. This step is the essential foundation of the memory and the memorization process.

Jean Piaget argued that object permanence is one of an infant's most important accomplishments, as without this concept, objects would have no separate, permanent existence. In Piaget's theory of cognitive development infants develop this understanding by the end of the "sensorimotor stage," which lasts from birth to about 2 years of age.[2] Piaget thought that an infant's perception and understanding of the world depended on their motor development, which was required for the infant to link visual, tactile and motor representations of objects. According to this view, it is through touching and handling objects that infants develop object permanence.[3]

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Early research

Child development expert Jean Piaget conducted experiments that collected behavioral tests on infants. Piaget studied object permanence by observing infants' reactions when a favorite object or toy was presented and then was covered with a blanket or removed from sight. Object permanence is considered to be one of the earliest method for evaluating working memory.[4] An infant that has started to develop object permanence might reach for the toy or try and grab the blanket off the toy. Infants that have not yet developed this might appeared confused.[5] Piaget interpreted these behavioral signs as evidence of a belief that the object had ceased to exist. Reactions of most infants that had already started developing object permanence were of frustration because they knew it existed, but didn't know where it was. However, the reaction of infants that had not yet started developing object permanence was more oblivious. If an infant searched for the object, it was assumed that they believed it continued to exist.[2]

Piaget concluded that some infants are too young to understand object permanence, which explains why they do not cry when their mothers are gone ("out of sight, out of mind"). A lack of object permanence can lead to A-not-B errors, where children reach for a thing at a place where it should not be. Older infants are less likely to make the A-not-B error because they are able to understand the concept of object permanence more than younger infants. However, researchers have found that A-not-B errors do not always show up consistently.[6] They concluded that this type of error might be due to a failure in memory or the fact that infants usually tend to repeat a previous motor behavior.[2]

Stages

Peek-a-boo is a prime example of an object permanence test.[7]

There are six stages of object permanence.[8] These are:

1. 0–1 months: Reflex Schema Stage – Babies learn how the body can move and work. Vision is blurred and attention spans remain short through infancy. They aren't particularly aware of objects to know they have disappeared from sight. However, babies as young as 7 minutes old prefer to look at faces. The three primary achievements of this stage are: sucking, visual tracking, and hand closure.[9]

2. 1-4 months: Primary Circular Reactions – Babies notice objects and start following their movements. They continue to look where an object was, but for only a few moments. They 'discover' their eyes, arms, hands and feet in the course of acting on objects. This stage is marked by responses to familiar images and sounds (including mother's face) and anticipatory responses to familiar events (such as opening the mouth for a spoon). The infant's actions become less reflexive and intentionality emerges.[9]

3. 4-8 months: Secondary Circular Reactions – Babies will reach for an object that is partially hidden, indicating knowledge that the whole object is still there. If an

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object is completely hidden however the baby makes no attempt to retrieve it. The infant learns to coordinate vision and comprehension. Actions are intentional but the child tends to repeat similar actions on the same object. Novel behaviors are not yet imitated.[9]

4. 8-12 months: Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions – This is deemed the most important for the cognitive development of the child. At this stage the child understands causality and is goal directed. The very earliest understanding of object permanence emerges, as the child is now able to retrieve an object when its concealment is observed. This stage is associated with the classic A-not-B error. After successfully retrieving a hidden object at one location (A), the child fails to retrieve it at a second location (B).[9]

5. 12–18 months: Tertiary Circular Reaction – The child gains means-end knowledge and is able to solve new problems. The child is now able to retrieve an object when it is hidden several times within his or her view, but cannot locate it when it is outside their perceptual field.[9]

6. 18–24 months: Invention of New Means Through Mental Combination – the child fully understands object permanence. They will not fall for A-not-B errors. Also, baby is able to understand the concept of items that are hidden in containers. If a toy is hidden in a matchbox then the matchbox put under a pillow and then, without the child seeing, the toy is slipped out of the matchbox and the matchbox then given to the child, the child will look under the pillow upon discovery that it is not in the matchbox. The child is able to develop a mental image, hold it in mind, and manipulate it to solve problems, including object permanence problems that are not based solely on perception. The child can now reason about where the object may be when invisible displacement occurs.[9]

Contradicting evidence

In more recent years, the original Piagetian object permanence account has been challenged by a series of infant studies suggesting that much younger infants do have a clear sense that objects exist even when out of sight. Bower demonstrated object permanence in 3-month-olds.[10][11] This goes against Piaget's coordination of secondary circular reactions stage because infants aren't supposed to understand that a completely hidden object until they are eight to twelve months old. The two studies below demonstrate this idea.

The first study showed infants a toy car that moved down an inclined track, disappeared behind a screen, and then reemerged at the other end, still on the track. The researchers created a "possible event" where a toy mouse was placed behind the tracks but was hidden by the screen as the car rolled by. Then, researchers created an "impossible event." In this situation, the toy mouse was placed on the tracks but was secretly removed after the screen was lowered so that the car seemed to go through the mouse. Also in the 1991 study the researchers used an experiment involving two differently sized carrots (one tall and one short) in order to test the infants response when the carrots would be

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moved behind a short wall.[11] The wall was specifically designed to make the short carrot disappear (possible event), as well as tested the infants for habituation patterns on the disappearance of the tall carrot behind the wall (impossible event).[11] Infants as young as 3½ months displayed greater stimulation toward the impossible event and much more habituation at the possible event. This indicated that they may have been surprised by the impossible event, which suggested they remembered not only that the toy mouse still existed (object permanence) but also its location. The same was true of the tall carrot in the second experiment. This research suggests that infants understand more about objects earlier than Piaget proposed.[2]

There are primarily four challenges to Piaget's framework:

1. Whether or not infants without disabilities actually demonstrate object permanence earlier than Piaget claimed.[12]

2. There is disagreement about the relative levels of difficulty posed by the use of various types of covers and by different object positions.[13]

3. Controversy concerns whether or not object permanence can be achieved or measured without the motor acts that Piaget regarded as essential.[1]

4. The nature of inferences that can be made about the A-not-B error has been challenged. Studies that have contributed to this discussion have examined the contribution of memory limitations, difficulty with spatial localisation,and difficulty in inhibiting the motor act of reaching to location A on the A-not-B error.[11]

One criticism of Piaget's theory is that culture and education exert stronger influences on a child's development than Piaget maintained. These factors depend on how much practice their culture provides in developmental processes, such as conversational skills.[2]

Object permanence in animals

Experiments in non-human primates suggest that monkeys can track the displacement of invisible targets,[14][15] that invisible displacement is represented in the prefrontal cortex,[16]

[17][18] and that development of the frontal cortex is linked to the acquisition of object permanence.[19] Various evidence from human infants is consistent with this. For example, formation of synapses in the frontal cortex peaks during human infancy,[20] and recent experiments using near infrared spectroscopy to gather neuroimaging data from infants suggests that activity in the frontal cortex is associated with successful completion of object permanence tasks.[21]

However, many other types of animals have been shown to have the ability for object permanence. These include dogs, cats, and a few species of birds such as the carrion crow and food-storing magpies. Dogs are able to reach a level of object permanence that allows them to find food after it has been hidden beneath one of two cups and rotated 90°.[22] Similarly, cats are able to understand object permanence but not to the same extent that dogs can. Cats fail to understand that if they see something go into an apparatus in

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one direction that it will still be there if the cat tries to enter from another direction.[23] A longitudinal study found that carrion crows were able to reach the same level of object permanence as humans. There was only one task, task 15, that the crows were not able to master.[24] Another study tested the comparison of how long it took food-storing magpies to develop the object permanence necessary for them to be able to live independently.[25] The research suggests that these magpies followed the a very similar pattern as human infants while they were developing.

Recent studies

One of the areas of focus on object permanence has been how physical disabilities (blindness and deafness) and intellectual disabilities (Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, etc.) effect the development of object permanence. In a study that was performed in 1975-76, the results showed that the only area where children with intellectual disabilities performed more weakly than children without disabilities was along the lines of social interaction. Other tasks, such as imitation and causality tasks, were performed more weakly by the children with disabilities. However, object permanence was still acquired similarly because it was not related to social interaction.

Some psychologists believe that 'while object permanence alone may not predict communicative achievement, object permanence along with several other sensorimotor milestones, plays a critical role in, and interacts with, the communicative development of children with severe disabilities'.[26] This was observed in 2006, in a study recognizing where the full mastery of object permanence is one of the milestones that ties into a child's ability to engage in mental representation. Along with the relationship with language acquisition, object permanence is also related to the achievement of self-recognition. This same study also focused specifically on the effects that Down syndrome has on object permanence. They found that the reason why the children that participated were so successful in acquiring object permanence, was due to their social strength in imitation. Along with imitation being a potential factor in the success, another factor that could impact children with Down syndrome could also be the willingness of the child to cooperate.[27]

The visual cliff apparatus was created by psychologists Eleanor J. Gibson and R.D. Walk to investigate depth perception in human and animal species. This apparatus allowed them to experimentally adjust the optical and tactical stimuli associated with a simulated cliff while protecting the subjects from injury.[1] The visual cliff consists of a sheet of Plexiglas that covers a cloth with a high-contrast checkerboard pattern. On one side the cloth is placed immediately beneath the Plexiglas, and on the other, it is dropped about 4 feet below. Since the Plexiglas supports the weight of the infant this is a visual cliff rather than a drop off.[1] Using a visual cliff apparatus, Gibson and Walk examined possible perceptual differences at crawling age between human infants born preterm and human infants born at term without documented visual or motor impairments.[2]

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The Original Visual Cliff Study

Dr. Gibson and Dr. Walk (1960) hypothesized that depth perception is inherent as opposed to a learned process. To test this, they placed 36 infants, 6 to 8 months of age, on the shallow side of the visual cliff apparatus. The researchers found that 27 of the infants crawled over to their mother on the “deep” side without any problems. [3] A few of the infants crawled but were extremely hesitant. Some infants refused to crawl because they were confused about the perceived drop between them and their mothers. The infants knew the glass was solid by patting it, but still did not cross. In this experiment, all of the babies relied on their vision in order to navigate across the apparatus. This shows that when healthy infants are able to crawl, they can perceive depth. [4]

Human Infants Studies

Preterm Infants

Sixteen infants born at term and 16 born preterm were encouraged to crawl to their caregivers on a modified visual cliff. Successful trials, crossing time, duration of visual attention, duration of tactile exploration, motor strategies, and avoidance behaviors were analyzed. A significant surface effect was found, with longer crossing times and longer durations of visual attention and tactile exploration in the condition with the visual appearance of a deep cliff. Although the two groups of infants did not differ on any of the timed measurements, infants born at term demonstrated a larger number of motor strategies and avoidance behaviors by simple tally. This study indicates that infants born at term and those born preterm can perceive a visual cliff and change their responses accordingly.[2]

Prelocomotor Infants

Another study measured the cardiac responses of human infants younger than crawling age on the visual cliff. This study found that the infants exhibited distress less frequently when they were placed on the deep side of the apparatus in contrast to when they were placed on the shallow side. This means that prelocomotor infants can discriminate between the two sides of the cliff.[5]

Maternal Signaling

James F Sorce et al. tested to see how maternal emotional signaling affected the behaviors of 1-year-olds on the visual cliff. To do this they placed the infants on the shallow side of the visual cliff apparatus and had their mothers on the other side of the visual cliff eliciting different emotional facial expressions. When the mothers posed joy or interest most of the babies crossed the deep side but if the mothers posed fear or anger, most of the babies did not cross the apparatus. In the absence of depth, most of the babies crossed regardless of the mother’s facial expressions. This suggests that babies look to their mother’s emotional expressions for advice most often when they are uncertain about a situation.[6]

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The study in different species

The visual cliff was not only tested on human infants, it was applied to other species as well. A few of these species included rats, cats, turtles, cows, and chickens.

Rats

Rats do not depend upon visual cues like some of the other species tested. Their nocturnal habits lead them to seek food largely by smell. When moving about in the dark, they respond to tactual cues from their stiff whiskers (vibrissae) located on the snout. Hooded rats tested on the visual cliff show little preference for either side of the visual cliff apparatus as long as they could feel the glass with their

Cats/Kittens

Cats, like rats, are nocturnal animals, sensitive to tactual cues from their vibrissae. But the cat, as a predator, must rely more on its sight. Kittens proved to have excellent depth-discrimination. At four weeks, the earliest age that a kitten can skillfully move about, they preferred the shallow side of the cliff. When placed on the glass over the deep side, they either freeze or circle backward until they reach the shallow side of the cliff.[7]

Turtles

The late Robert M. Yerkes of Harvard University found in 1904 that aquatic turtles have somewhat worse depth-discrimination than land turtles. On the visual cliff one might expect an aquatic turtle to respond to the reflections from the glass as it might to water and prefer the deep side for this reason. They showed no such preference, 76 percent of the aquatic turtles crawled onto the shallow side. The large percentage that choose the deep side suggests either that this turtle has worse depth-discrimination than other animals, or that its natural habitat gives it less occasions to "fear" a fall.[7]

Cows

The ability for cows to perceive a visual cliff was tested by NA Arnold et al. Twelve dairy heifers were exposed to a visual cliff in the form of a milking pit while walking through a milking facility. Over this five day experiment the heifers’ heart rates were measured along with the number of times they stopped throughout the milking facility. Dairy heifers in the experimental group were exposed to a visual cliff while dairy heifers in the control group were not. The experimental group was found to have significantly higher heart rates and stop more frequently than the heifers in the control group. Depth exposure did not have any effect on cortisol levels or the ease of handling of the animals. These findings provide evidence of both depth perception and acute fear of heights in cows. This may lead to a reorganization of the way milking factories function.[8]

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Chicks

Two-day-old chicks responded to the visual cliff when tested by PR Green et al. As the depth of the visual cliff below the chicks was increased, the latency for the chick to move towards the incentive, another chick on the far side of the apparatus, was increased while the speed at which they moved decreased. On the other hand, chicks that were given the same incentive to jump over a visible edge, onto the deep side of the apparatus, were less inclined to move at all depths. This illustrates that the absolute depth of a surface and the relative depth of an edge affect behavior differently in chicks.

Symbolism is the applied use of symbols. It is a representation that carries a particular meaning. It is a device in literature where an object represents an idea. A symbol is an object, action, or idea that represents something other than itself.

Egocentrism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Egocentrism is a personality trait which has the characteristic of regarding oneself and one's own opinions or interests as most important or valid. It also generates the inability to fully understand or to cope with other people's opinions and the fact that reality can be different from what they are ready to accept despite any change in their personal belief.

Definition

In psychology, Egocentrism is defined as:

the incomplete differentiation of the self and the world, including other people, the tendency to perceive, understand and interpret the world in terms of the self,

and

being over preoccupied with one's own internal world. [1]

Etymology

The term derives from the Greek and Latin ἑγώ / ego, meaning "I", "me", and "self". An egocentric person cannot fully empathize, or "put himself in other peoples' shoes". Egocentrics believe everyone should see what they see, or that what they see in some way exceeds what most other people can see. They might believe that "how I see the world now is how the world is". To them, any different perception than their own is either considered false or nonexistent.[2]

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) claimed that young children are egocentric. This does not mean that they are selfish, but that they do not have the mental ability to understand that other people may have different opinions and beliefs from themselves. [3]

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While there are certainly multiple scale levels of egocentrism, mostly it is found in children and then adolescents. Adults are also susceptible to be egocentric or to have reactions or behaviors that can be categorized as egocentric.

Eventually a mentally healthy individual evolves out of most of his or her egocentric habits. Adults unable to do so, if forced to face the issue, will often argue of having changed and widened their perception of the world and of having learned from their past mistakes. Unfortunately, despite a new mindset and a confession, they will still practice the habits of regarding oneself and one's own opinions or interests as most important or valid. They will probably remain unable to cope properly with different frames of reference, opinions or points of view other than their own. [4]In younger children

It appears that this egocentric stance towards the world is present mostly in younger children. They are unable to separate their own beliefs, thoughts and ideas from others. For example, if a child sees that there is candy in a box, he assumes that someone else walking into the room also knows that there is candy in that box. He implicitly reasons that "since I know it, you know it too". As stated previously this may be rooted in the limitations in the child's theory of mind skills. However, it does not mean that children are unable to put themselves in someone else's shoes. As far as feelings are concerned, it is shown that children exhibit empathy early on and are able to cooperate with others and be aware of their needs and wants. With his colleague Barbel Inhelder, Piaget did a test to investigate egocentrism called the mountains study. He put children in front of a simple plaster mountain range and then asked them to pick from four pictures the view that he, Piaget, would see.

Younger children before age seven, during the so-called pre-operational stage, picked the picture of the view they themselves saw and were therefore found to lack the ability to appreciate a viewpoint different from their own. In other words, their way of reasoning was egocentric. Only when entering the so-called concrete-operational stage at age 7–12, children became capable of de-centering and could appreciate viewpoints other than their own. In other words, they were capable of cognitive perspective-taking.

However, the mountains test has been criticized for judging only the child's visuo-spatial awareness, rather than egocentrism. A follow up study involving police dolls showed that even young children were able to correctly say what the interviewer would see. It is thought that Piaget overestimated the levels of egocentrism in children.

Egocentrism is thus the child's inability to see other people's viewpoints. The child at this stage of cognitive development assumes that their view of the world is the same as other people's, e.g. a little girl does not understand that taking another child's ball is wrong because she views the ball as hers.

In adolescence

Although most of the research completed on the topic of egocentrism is primarily focused on early childhood development; where in later years of development egocentrism should

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be declining, there are certainly other views to be had. Another view often discussed on the topic of egocentrism is the egocentrism in the adolescent population. Throughout the development of adolescence the body goes through many mental and physical changes. David Elkind was one of the first to really discover the presence of egocentrism in adolescence and late adolescence. David Elkind argues that "the young adolescent, because of physiological metamorphosis he is undergoing, is primarily concerned with himself. Accordingly, since he fails to differentiate between what others are thinking about and his own mental preoccupations, he assumes that other people are obsessed with his behavior and appearance as he is himself." [5] This shows that the adolescent is exhibiting egocentrism because he cannot clearly identify another person's perception. Elkind also created terms to help describe the egocentric behaviors exhibited by the adolescent population such as, what he calls an imaginary audience and personal fable. Imaginary audience refers to the idea that most adolescents believe that there is some audience that is constantly present that is overly interested in what the individual has to say or do. Personal fable refers to the idea that many teenagers believe that they are the only ones who are capable of feeling the way that they do.[6] Egocentrism in adolescence is often viewed as a negative aspect of their thinking ability because adolescents become consumed with themselves and are unable to effectively function in society due to their skewed version of reality.

A study was completed on 163 undergraduate students to examine the adolescent egocentrism in college students. Students were asked to complete a self-report questionnaire to determine the level of egocentrism present. The questions simply asked for the reactions that students had to seemingly embarrassing situations. It was found that adolescent egocentrism was more prevalent in the female population than the male.[7] This again exemplifies the idea that egocentrism is present in even late adolescence.

Results from other studies have come to the conclusion that egocentrism does not present itself in some of the same patterns as it was found originally. More recent studies have found that egocentrism is prevalent in later years of development unlike Piaget's original findings that suggested that egocentrism is only present in early childhood development.[8] Recent studies[citation needed] have also implied that egocentrism is not universally present in all late adolescence. It greatly depends on the environment in which you were raised or are presently in. It is suggested that in stressful situations for example school that egocentrism can be higher. Also the sort of family life one was raised in could determine the amount of egocentric behaviors present. For example an only child is more likely to exhibit personal fable like behavior because they are constantly focused on, and often believe they are the only ones that matter. Overall this suggests that there are some inconsistencies, or at the very least qualifications, to Piaget's model of human cognitive development.

Animism (from Latin anima "soul, life")[1][2] refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle.[3]

Animism encompasses the beliefs that there is no separation between the spiritual and physical[disambiguation needed  ] (or material) worlds, and souls or spirits exist, not only in

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humans, but also in all other animals, plants, rocks, natural phenomena such as thunder, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment.[4] Animism may further attribute souls to abstract concepts such as words, true names, or metaphors in mythology. Animism is particularly widely found in the religions of indigenous peoples,[5] including Shinto, and some forms of Hinduism, Buddhism, Pantheism, and Neopaganism.

Throughout European history, philosophers such as Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, among others, contemplated the possibility that souls exist in animals, plants, and people; however, the currently accepted definition of animism was only developed in the 19th century by Sir Edward Tylor, who created it as "one of anthropology's earliest concepts, if not the first".[5]

According to the anthropologist Tim Ingold, animism shares similarities to totemism but differs in its focus on individual spirit beings which help to perpetuate life, whereas totemism more typically holds that there is a primary source, such as the land itself or the ancestors, who provide the basis to life. Certain indigenous religious groups such as the Australian Aborigines are more typically totemic, whereas others like the Inuit are more typically animistic in their worldview.[6]

Reversibility: In Piaget's theory of cognitive development, the third stage is called the Concrete Operational stage. During this stage, which occurs from age 7-12, the child shows increased use of logical thinking. One of the important processes that develops is that of Reversibility, which refers to the ability to recognize that numbers or objects can be changed and returned to their original condition. For example, during this stage, a child understands that a favorite ball that deflates is not gone but can be filled with air again and put back into play.

Conservation

Conservation: Conservation is one of Piaget's developmental accomplishments, in which the child understands that changing the form of a substance or object does not change its amount, overall volume, or mass. This accomplishment occurs during the operational stage of development between ages 7 and 11. You can often see the lack of conservation in children when there are, for example, several different sizes of juice on a table, and they chose the glass that is the tallest because they perceive the taller glass as having more juice inside of it (even though the tallest glass may also be the thinnest). All the glasses may have the same amount of juice in them, but children who haven't accomplished conservation will perceive the tall glass as being most full.

The Three Mountain Problem 

On Piaget's view, thought in the preoperation period is egocentric: children tend to be captured by their immediate concrete perceptions and find it difficult to adopt alternative viewpoints.  The three mountain problem illustrates this tendency.  Children are asked to draw how the mountains would look from the doll's point of view.  Typically, 3- and 4-

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year-olds simply draw how the mountains look from their own viewpoint.  The problem is not that young children don't know that the mountains ought to look different from the other side.  In experiments where the mountains were surreptitiously shifted while children were led around the display, children were surprised to see that the mountains looked just the same from the opposite side.  

Piaget's Key Ideas

Adaptation  What it says: adapting to the world through assimilation and accommodation 

Assimilation  The process by which a person takes material into their mind from the environment, which may mean changing the evidence of their senses to make it fit. 

Accommodation  The difference made to one's mind or concepts by the process of assimilation.  Note that assimilation and accommodation go together: you can't have one without the other. 

Classification  The ability to group objects together on the basis of common features. 

Class Inclusion  The understanding, more advanced than simple classification, that some classes or sets of objects are also sub-sets of a larger class. (E.g. there is a class of objects called dogs. There is also a class called animals. But all dogs are also animals, so the class of animals includes that of dogs) 

Conservation  The realisation that objects or sets of objects stay the same even when they are changed about or made to look different. 

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Decentration The ability to move away from one system of classification to another one as appropriate.

Egocentrism  The belief that you are the centre of the universe and everything revolves around you: the corresponding inability to see the world as someone else does and adapt to it. Not moral "selfishness", just an early stage of psychological development. 

Operation  The process of working something out in your head. Young children (in the sensorimotor and pre-operational stages) have to act, and try things out in the real world, to work things out (like count on fingers): older children and adults can do more in their heads. 

Schema (or scheme) 

The representation in the mind of a set of perceptions, ideas, and/or actions, which go together. 

Stage  A period in a child's development in which he or she is capable of understanding some things but not others 

Stage  Characterised by 

Sensori-motor  (Birth-2 yrs) 

Differentiates self from objects 

Recognises self as agent of action and begins to act intentionally: e.g. pulls a string to set mobile in motion or shakes a rattle to make a noise 

Achieves object permanence: realises that things continue to exist even when no longer present to the sense (pace Bishop Berkeley) 

Pre-operational  (2-7 years) 

Learns to use language and to represent objects by images and words 

Thinking is still egocentric: has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others 

Classifies objects by a single feature: e.g. groups together all the red blocks regardless of shape or all the square blocks

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regardless of colour 

Concrete operational  (7-11 years) 

Can think logically about objects and events 

Achieves conservation of number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9) 

Classifies objects according to several features and can order them in series along a single dimension such as size. 

Formal operational  (11 years and up) 

Can think logically about abstract propositions and test hypotheses systemtically 

Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems 

The accumulating evidence is that this scheme is too rigid: many children manage concrete operations earlier than he thought, and some people never attain formal operations (or at least are not called upon to use them).

Piaget's approach is central to the school of cognitive theory known as "cognitive constructivism": other scholars, known as "social constructivists", such as Vygotsky and Bruner, have laid more emphasis on the part played by language and other people in enabling children to learn.

Assimilation and Accommodation

Assimilation and Accommodation are the two complementary processes of Adaptation described by Piaget, through which awareness of the outside world is internalised. Although one may predominate at any one moment, they are inseparable and exist in a dialectical relationship.  The terms are also used to describe forms of knowledge in Kolb’s elaboration of the cycle of experiential learning.

In Assimilation, what is perceived in the outside world is incorporated into the internal world (note that I am not using Piagetian terminology), without changing the structure of that internal world, but potentially at the cost of "squeezing" the external perceptions to fit — hence pigeon-holing and stereotyping. 

 If you are familiar with databases, you can think of it this way: your mind has its database already built, with its fields and categories already defined. If it comes across new information which fits into those fields, it can assimilate it without any trouble.

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In Accommodation, the internal world has to accommodate itself to the evidence with which it is confronted and thus adapt to it, which can be a more difficult and painful process.  In the database analogy, it is like what happens when you try to put in information which does not fit the pre-existent fields and categories. You have to develop new ones to accommodate the new information.

 

In reality, both are going on at the same time, so that—just as the mower blade cuts the grass, the grass gradually blunts the blade—although most of the time we are assimilating familiar material in the world around us, nevertheless, our minds are also having to adjust to accommodate it. 

Piaget was mainly concerned with children's developing understanding of the world, so for him (and for children) accommodation is no more problematic than assimilation. That does not necessarily hold as we grow older. We have ways of understanding our world which work for us, as relatively successful (i.e. surviving) adults. There is no problem in assimilating new information and ideas which fit with this world-view, but we find it increasingly difficult to accommodate to new stuff. One cognitive problem of ageing has been well labelled "hardening of the categories"!

 Resistance to Learning

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A fuller account of this topic is available here

Behaviourists seem to believe that people learn only when it's worth their while. Humanists seem to believe everyone wants to learn. But learning is a form of personal change, and that can be resisted as often as it is embraced.

Generally speaking, when people fail to learn something which they have been taught, the failure is attributed to one or more of three factors:

lack of motivation  lack of ability or aptitude  

poor teaching.

Experience, however, suggests a fourth factor which is often neglected:

the cost of learning.

See also this note

The economic cost of undertaking higher education is a real factor for many students in much of the UK at the moment, but "cost" is here used psychologically. It implies the loss involved for the (superficially) competent and experienced adult in "changing their ways". This change may be termed "supplantive learning", to be contrasted with simple "additive learning" in that instead of just adding new knowlege or skills to an existing repertoire, supplantive learning calls into question previous ways of acting or prior knowledge and replaces them (Atherton, 1999).

Supplantive learning is difficult enough when it is entirely under the learner's control, but when it is required, demanded or forced, or creeps up out of awareness, or there is significant emotional investment in previous beliefs or ways of acting, it becomes problematic. 

 

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Simple, unproblematic supplantive learning entails a drop in morale which comes from temporarily diminished competence in the skill or understanding. Problematic supplantive learning overlays this with an experience analogous to crisis.

The natural course of such learning follows three stages: Recent work on "Threshold Concepts" suggests that engaging with them can entail a similar process, which is described as an experience of "liminality". Click here to go a suite of pages about this.

De-stabilisation: in which the previous way of thinking or acting is upset  Disorientation: the "trough" in which loss of competence and morale combine to

make the learning difficult, and there is a considerable temptation to return to the "old way".  

Re-orientation: the gradual climb out of the trough, which follows a similar pattern to the curve of "normal" additive learning. 

It can be precipitated in three ways:

By external crisis, which forces the change   By "hitting bottom", in which there is no way but up, from the bottom of the

trough (as in the recovery programme of Alcoholics Anonymous)  

By a "facilitating environment", which provides a safe opportunity to change, but does not force it.

Clearly, only the third is acceptable in educational terms.  

Note: There is another quite different usage of the phrase "supplantive learning" particularly in US literature on the curriculum. There it is used to refer to teacher-centred or "reception", rather than "discovery" or learner-centred stategies, which are known as "generative" learning. (Sorry, no very informative links available) [Back]

 Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or

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interpretation. It therefore occurs when there is a need to accommodate new ideas, and it may be necessary for it to develop so that we become "open" to them. Neighbour (1992) makes the generation of appropriate dissonance into a major feature of tutorial (and other) teaching: he shows how to drive this kind of intellectual wedge between learners' current beliefs and "reality".

Beyond this benign if uncomfortable aspect, however, dissonance can go "over the top", leading to two interesting side-effects for learning:

if someone is called upon to learn something which contradicts what they already think they know — particularly if they are committed to that prior knowledge — they are likely to resist the new learning. Even Carl Rogers recognised this. Accommodation is more difficult than Assimilation, in Piaget's terms.             

and—counter-intuitively, perhaps—if learning something has been difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating enough, people are less likely to concede that the content of what has been learned is useless, pointless or valueless. To do so would be to admit that one has been "had", or "conned".

On cognitive dissonance and sour grapes

On application of the theory to Aids

Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger and associates, arising out of a participant observation study of a cult which believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood, and what happened to its members — particularly the really committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs to work for the cult — when the flood did not happen. While fringe members were more inclined to recognise that they had made fools of themselves and to "put it down to experience", committed members were more likely to re-interpret the evidence to show that they were right all along (the earth was not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult members).

The sense, the idea, the experience that I am a separately self-existent being in the universe, and the forming of consciousness and force of being into the mould of that experience are the root of all suffering, ignorance and evil. And it is so because that falsifies both in practice and in cognition the whole real truth of things; it limits the being, limits the consciousness, limits the power of our being, limits the bliss of being; this limitation again produces a wrong way of existence, wrong way of consciousness, wrong way of using the power of our being and consciousness, and wrong, perverse and contrary forms of the delight of existence. The soul limited in being and self-isolated in its environment feels itself no longer in unity and harmony with its Self, with God, with the universe, with all around it; but rather it finds itself at odds with the universe, in conflict and disaccord with other beings who are its other selves, but whom it treats as not-self; and so long as this disaccord and disagreement last, it cannot possess its world and it cannot enjoy the universal life, but is full of unease, fear, afflictions of all kinds, in a painful struggle to preserve and increase itself and possess its surroundings, —for to possess its world is the nature of infinite spirit and the necessary urge in all being. The

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satisfactions it gets from this labour and effort are of a stinted, perverse and unsatisfying kind: for the one real satisfaction it has is that of growth, of an increasing return towards itself, of some realisation of accord and harmony, of successful self-creation and self-realisation, but the little of these things that it can achieve on the basis of ego-consciousness is always limited, insecure, imperfect, transitory. It is at war too with its own self, —first because, since it is no longer in possession of the central harmonising truth of its own being, it cannot properly control its natural members or accord their tendencies, powers and demands; it has not the secret of harmony, because it has not the secret of its own unity and self-possession; and, secondly, not being in possession of its highest self, it has to struggle towards that, is not allowed to be at peace till it is in possession of its own true highest being. All this means that it is not at one with God; for to be at one with God is to be at one with oneself, at one with the universe and at one with all beings. This oneness is the secret of a right and a divine existence. But the ego cannot have it, because it is in its very nature separative and because even with regard to ourselves, to our own psychological existence it is a false centre of unity; for it tries to find the unity of our being in an identification with a shifting mental, vital, physical personality, not with the eternal self of our total existence. Only in the spiritual self can we possess the true unity; for there the individual enlarges to his own total being and finds himself one with universal existence and with the transcending Divinity.