Notes: Cognition & Emotions | Child Development and Pedagogy for CTET Preparation - CTET & State TET PDF Download

Cognition encompasses processes like memory, attention, language, problem-solving, and planning. Many of these cognitive functions are believed to involve complex abilities unique to primates. It is argued that cognition not only influences the emergence and response to emotions but also plays a crucial role during emotional experiences. Both cognition and emotion contribute significantly to students' learning processes. Therefore, emotion is an essential and fundamental component of the teaching-learning process.

Cognition

Cognition refers to the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and understanding. These processes include thinking, knowing, remembering, judging, and problem-solving. Cognition encompasses higher-level brain functions such as language, imagination, perception, and planning.

Components of Cognition

• Perception: This cognitive function allows us to organize and understand the world through stimuli received from our senses, including sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.
• Attention: Attention is the cognitive process that enables us to focus on a specific stimulus or activity, allowing for more thorough processing later. It is fundamental for understanding daily situations.
• Memory: Memory allows us to encode, store, and retrieve information from the past. It is essential for learning and creating a sense of identity.
• Thought: Thought is central to all cognitive processes. It enables us to integrate information, establish relationships between events, and expand our knowledge.
• Language: Language is the ability to express thoughts and feelings through spoken and written words. Language and thought develop together, influencing each other mutually.
• Learning: Learning is the cognitive process of incorporating new information into existing knowledge. It encompasses diverse elements such as behaviors, habits, and knowledge acquired through socialization.

Cognitive Development in Children

Cognitive development focuses on a child’s progression in information processing, conceptual understanding, perceptual skills, language learning, and other aspects of brain development and cognitive psychology. Essentially, it is the emergence of the ability to think and understand.

Jean Piaget's theory outlines four stages of cognitive development in children:

1. Sensorimotor Stage

• Children learn about the world through their senses and object manipulation.
• Intelligence is demonstrated through motor activity without using symbols.
• Knowledge is based on physical interactions and experiences.
• Object permanence is acquired around seven months of age, and mobility aids intellectual development.
• Some symbolic abilities, like language, develop by the end of this stage.

2. Pre-operational Stage

• Children develop memory and imagination, understanding things symbolically and grasping past and future concepts.
• Intelligence is shown through the use of symbols, maturing language, and developed memory and imagination.
• Thinking is egocentric, non-logical, and non-reversible.

3. Concrete Operational Stage

• Children become more aware of external events and others' feelings, moving beyond egocentric thought.
• Intelligence is demonstrated through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects.
• Operational thinking develops, enabling mental actions that are reversible.
• Egocentric thought diminishes.

4. Formal Operational Stage

• Children use logic to solve problems, view the world, and plan for the future.
• Intelligence is demonstrated through logical use of symbols related to abstract concepts.
• Early in this stage, there is a temporary return to egocentric thought.
• Only about 35% of high school graduates in industrialized countries achieve formal operations, and many do not think formally even in adulthood.

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Emotion

Emotion is a type of affective state, alongside mood, temperament, and sensation. Emotions can be understood as either states or processes. As a state, emotions are mental conditions that interact with other mental states and prompt certain behaviors. Essentially, emotions are the body's reactions to external or internal events, based on the interpretation of these events.

Psychologist Paul Ekman identified six basic emotions that are universal across human cultures: fear, disgust, anger, surprise, happiness, and sadness. Robert Plutchik introduced the 'wheel of emotions,' which illustrates how different emotions can combine or mix, similar to how primary colors create other colors.

Nature of Emotion

• Emotions are conscious and subjective mental reactions to specific events, accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes.
• Emotions are subjective experiences.
• Emotions are essential for adaptation and survival, influencing how a person perceives the world.
• Many distracting emotions stem from being uninformed or misinformed.

Types of Emotion

Emotions play a crucial role in both daily life and structured settings like dramatic sequences. Various instincts and corresponding emotions include:

Features of Emotions

• Emotions have a wide range.
• Emotions reference specific objects, not general situations.
• Emotions arise from direct perception and ideas (indirect perception). Situations provoke emotions directly, while ideas and memories can also evoke emotions.
• Emotions are closely related to biological needs; satisfaction leads to pleasant emotions, while non-satisfaction can lead to unpleasant emotions.
• Emotions and thinking are inversely related.
• Emotions are accompanied by internal changes known only to the individual experiencing them.
• Emotions also bring about external changes, observable through facial expressions and behavior.

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Components/Factors of Emotions

Expressive Behaviour

Expressive behaviour is the outward sign of an experienced emotion. This can manifest through fainting, a flushed face, muscle tensing, specific facial expressions, tone of voice, rapid breathing, restlessness, or other body language. These outward expressions provide clues to others about what someone is experiencing and help regulate social interactions.

Physical Changes

• American scientist William James and Danish scientist Carl Lange studied the relationship between emotion and physical changes in the body.
• They proposed that emotions depend on two factors: physical changes that occur in the body and the person’s interpretation of these changes after the emotional event.
• According to their theory, physical changes occur first, followed by the brain's interpretation, creating the emotion.
• For example, in a threatening situation like almost being hit by a car, the body releases chemical messengers like adrenaline, causing increased breathing and a faster heart rate.
• The brain then interprets these changes as the emotion of fear.

Changes in Behaviour and Emotional Expressions

The Schacter-Singer model of emotion states that both physical changes and conscious mental processing are required to fully experience an emotion. The emotional label (such as fear) depends on one's experience with dangerous objects. This model explains why the same physical responses can produce different emotions, as the brain decides whether fear, anger, or surprise is the appropriate emotion based on the mental processing of physical information. Thus, interpretation of environmental information, bodily feelings, and experience play a significant role in this model.

Emotional Feelings

• Emotions, often referred to as feelings, include experiences such as love, hate, anger, trust, joy, panic, fear, or grief.
• Emotions are specific reactions to particular events and are usually of short duration, whereas moods are more general feelings like happiness, sadness, frustration, contentment, or anxiety that last longer.
• Emotions are complex, with both physical and mental components.
• Researchers generally agree that emotions comprise subjective feelings, physiological responses, and expressive behaviour.
• The subjective feelings component is the most challenging to describe or measure, as it refers to how each individual experiences emotions.
• Subjective feelings cannot be observed; the person experiencing the emotion must describe it, and each description and interpretation may vary slightly.
• For example, two people falling in love will not experience or describe their feelings in exactly the same ways.

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Importance of Emotions in Education

• Educational institutions often focus on cognition, with less attention paid to emotions. However, emotions play a crucial role in learning and can influence a child's academic commitment and success. Positive emotions foster interest and self-motivation, which are critical for acquiring knowledge, while negative emotions like depression have the opposite effect. Positive emotions and motivation enhance attention to tasks. Education relies on emotions for learning motivation and personal development.
• Learning in classrooms is more effective when students practice with satisfaction and when their efforts are rewarded with success. Effective learning requires conditions that are satisfying. The pleasure in learning has additional value, although intense emotions, whether pleasurable or annoying, can inhibit learning. Learning is more effective when pupils are not emotionally disturbed. Emotion is essential in education as it drives attention, which in turn drives learning and memory.