A Piagetian Model of Early Sensorimotor Development

We are interested in developing a computational model of Piaget’s theory of sensorimotor intelligence. The main difficulty is that Piaget’s theory is quite vague. We analyse existing approaches and find that they model some of the major features of his theory, but that these are not adequate to account for the stage transitions which Piaget described. Instead of copying features of his theory we advocate developing a cognitive model to account for the infant development paths which he described. As a first step in this direction we present a computational model of Piagetian development in the early sensorimotor stages. In order to extend our computational model to later sensorimotor stages, we believe that further psychological studies are required to clarify issues left open in Piaget’s account.