A Level Psychology OCR Practice Exam

In Piaget's sensorimotor stage, which spans from birth to approximately 2 years of age, children are primarily engaged in learning about the world through their movement and sensory experiences. This stage is characterized by the development of motor skills and the exploration of their environment through physical interaction. Infants learn about objects and their properties by touching, manipulating, and moving them, as well as by observing the effects of their actions, such as reaching for a toy or dropping it to see what happens.

This hands-on exploration is crucial for cognitive development, as it lays the foundation for more complex thinking that will emerge in later stages. The sensorimotor stage also includes significant milestones such as the development of object permanence, where children begin to understand that objects continue to exist even when they are not perceived. This understanding is a key cognitive achievement that arises from their active exploration of the world through movement and sensations.

In contrast, the other options reflect cognitive skills that develop in later stages, such as abstract reasoning, which emerges in the formal operational stage, or the use of language and symbols, which becomes more prominent in the preoperational stage. Social interactions also play a crucial role in development later on but are not the primary means of learning during the sensor