Jean Piaget

ASSIMILATION

Assimilation means that the acting subject recognises a given situation as the one it associates a certain action or operation with, although an observer sees the situation differently“ (Glasersfeld 1997, p. 168).

„In my interpretation, assimilation must instead be understood as treating new material as an instance of something known” (Glasersfeld 2002, p. 62).

„Assimilation […] is the application of an established invariant pattern or scheme to a present experience regardless of discrepancies” (Glasersfeld 1987, page unknown).
„[…] from the organism's point of view, to assimilate means to modify a present experience so that it fits a hereditary or acquired scheme, i.e., a perceptual or motor pattern that already has, in some sense, the character of an invariant. In other words, invariants create repetition as much as repetition creates invariants. This may not be nearly as paradoxical as it sounds. The linguistic example of names may once more help to illuminate the point. Having established four-leggedness as the invariant critical feature of the complex experience associated with the word dog, the child focuses on four-leggedness and uses the word dog whenever that feature is available among the experiential material. That means that the child will assimilate all sorts of items – many of which he would later call cat, horse, sheep or cow – and in doing so, he will disregard the experiential elements that might distinguish them from the original experience associated with the word dog” (Glasersfeld 1987, page unknown).

 

Quelle/Zitation:
Glasersfeld, Ernst von (1997)
Wege des Wissens. Konstruktivistische Erkundungen durch unser Denken. Heidelberg, Carl Auer Systeme.

Glasersfeld, Ernst von (2002) Radical Constructivism. A Way of Knowing and Learning. London, RoutledgeFalmer.

Glasersfeld, Ernst von (1987) The construction of knowledge - Contributions to conceptual semantics. Salinas CA, Intersystems Publications.

(Philipp Schumacher, translated by Carmen Konzett)

 

 

[print page]