Child Psych Exam 2.5

Gibsonian perspective on Molyneaux question

senses might be integrated near birth in some ways: Infants might be able to unite, for example, sight and sound, by differentiating the relevant amodal invariant

What are the disadvantages of experience expectant effects?

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What percent of pregnant women are alcoholics?

4.7%

Tonic neck reflex

-when an infant's head turns or is turned to one side, the arm on that side of the body extends, while the arm and knee on the other side flex -no known benefit of this -thought it involves an effort by the baby to get up and keep its hand in view

When can infants track moving objects smoothly?

2-3 months

When is pattern vision established by?

3 months

Example of affordances

A twig affords support for bird, but not a human. Thus a bird will sit on a twig and a human will not

How does FASD occur?

Alcohol crosses placental barrier, fetus cannot metabolize alcohol

How do we distinguish between psychological (familiarity) vs fatigue explanations?

Dishabituation phase after habituation •Introduce new stimulus, if response recovers then prior habituation not due to fatigue but familiarity

Eleanor and James Gibson

Eleanor studied development James studied perception •Perception is ecological •Environment is rich in perceptual information •Our perceptual systems are adapted to register this information, some near birth

Greenough

Experience expectant vs experience dependent effects (neural mechanisms associated with critical/sensitive period

Who asked for more testing on Thalidomide in the US?

FDA official, Frances Oldham Kelsey

Contingent Sucking Paradigm

In DeCasper and Fifer (1980) Newborn Learning Experiment, Infant sucking enabled the passages to continue

How common is FASD?

In U.S., estimates as high as 9 in 1000 births, higher in some other countries

How do we see?

Light enters eye and is focused by lens, the particles strike the retina, who's rods and cones convert it into neural impulses which, after being processed by bipolar and ganglion cells, travels through optic nerve to the brain. •Light cornea lens retina (fovea) optic nerve brain Lauren Caroline Lilly Rachel F*ck Other Bitches

Neonatal behavioral assessment scale (NBAS)

NBAS assesses newborn capabilities: •reflexes •behavioral items (responses to social, physical stimuli) •state regulation (ex. Sleep → wake) •responsiveness to physical and social world •developed by brazelton

How did the consequences of thalidomide impact drug testing standards?

New drug testing standards for safety instituted by U.S.

The Competent Newborn (new View)

Newborn possesses behaviors and capacities that will help it interact with the physical and social world

Moro Reflex

Reflex in which a newborn stretches out the arms and legs and cries in response to a loud noise or an abrupt change in the environment •startle, righting reflex, may promote survival: if carried and about to fall, this is a way to alert the caregiver, stop the fall

Developmental conclusions about infant acuity

Research on visual acuity supports the idea that the "what" function of vision begins to become more functional between 2 to 3 months, suggests cortical involvement

Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)

Some estimates are on average 4 drinks a day during pregnancy

Sleeper Effects

Some teratogens cause problems only late in development (functional deficit, reproductive cancers, attention problems)

Adolph: Gap Study

Specificity of affordance learning -Done with crawling and with sitting/reaching -Have to re-learn affordances each time the gap increases -Look for more alternatives instead of falling in the gap -How do babies learn about height and depth? -Baby avoided gap sitting, but doesn't avoid it when crawling -Each posture requires baby to learn about new affordances associated with that posture → specificity -Gesell: distinct milestones -Adolph: motor milestones exist but there was a blurred line - you can refer back to a milestone throughout life

Gibsons' contributions to perception and perception-action development

Visual cliff Intermodal perception Affordances

Dose response relation

a relation in which the effect of exposure to an element increases with the extent of exposure (prenatally, the more exposure a fetus has to a potential teratogen, the more severe its effect is likely to be)

How is the rooting reflex adaptive?

aids in localizing source of food/milk

Teratogen

any external agent from the environment that can cause harm or an abnormality to the developing embryo or fetus

Molyneaux question

are the senses are separated or integrated at birth?

When does fovea take its characteristic shape?

around 2-3 months

Fetal respiration

breathing amniotic fluid in and out

Proximodistal development

development proceeds inward to outward

Example of experience dependent learning

eskimos are exposed to igloo building at a young age

Cephalocaudal development

head grows more than the body; head to body

Amodal invariant

information that is common to more than one modality, not specific to any one modality

Gibsonian ecological viewpoint of perception

intermodal or cross-modal perception • Environment is rich in perceptual information, does not need to be supplemented cognitively. •Developmental task is to learn to differentiate relevant information from the environment: amodal invariants •senses might be integrated near birth in some ways: Infants might be able to unite, for example, sight and sound, by differentiating the relevant amodal invariant •environment has an influence on how we act think and perceive things

Amodal developmental task

learn to differentiate relevant information from the environment

Effects of FAS

mental retardation (irreversible), learning problems, characteristic facial appearance, CNS damage, growth deficiencies

Developmental change in visual acuity

vision improves throughout the first year

Example of experience expectant learning

we are all exposed to visual stimuli, thus the brain expects and is highly responsive to visual stimuli during the sensitive periods

What does the case of DES teach?

women need to be very careful about taking (even FDA-approved) drugs during pregnancy

Experience Expectant

•Incorporation of environmental information that is ubiquitous and general to a species •All species members expect to receive information •Occurs often during only one developmental period: critical period •Synaptic connections between cells are overproduced ("blooming") in anticipation of receiving experience in all members of species •Experience selects which pattern of connections remain, "pruning," but net result is increase in synaptic connections prior to overproduction→learning •occurs early in life, during the sensitive periods •is general (ie. we are all exposed to visual stimuli, thus the brain expects and is highly responsive to visual stimuli during the sensitive periods)

Zygote (germinal period)

•0-2 weeks post conception, until implantation on uterine wall •earliest cell divisions of fertilized egg

Embryo (embryonic period)

•2 weeks-8 weeks post conception •all embryonic cells initially equivalent •by end of period, all major external and internal structures have begun to differentiate

Fetus (fetal period)

•9th week-40 week •further development of all systems •rapid physical growth

Affordances: Locomotion (Adolph)

•Affordances change as new motor systems (e.g., reaching, sitting, crawling, walking) come online •Infants need to learn new affordances associated with new motor abilities •New motor systems have different consequences for acting on world (crawling vs walking) •Specificity of affordance learning

Reflexes

•Automatic, organized pattern of behaviors to specific stimulus •Associated with lower portions of CNS, brain •Present in early development •Some may become inhibited as brain develops

Habituated sleep state

•Babies put themselves to sleep in order to shut out annoying noises and light -Baby's ability to self-soothe in order to go back to sleep -Reaction to social stimulus

What did Spelke's experiment show?

•Babies shift attention because they are detecting amodal variant (temporal synchrony) that combines lip and sound •Babies are capable of cross modal perception very early in development, senses may already be integrated when babies come into the world (can use more than one sense at once)

Gibsons view of affordances in comparison to Gesell and Thelen's view

•Contrasts with Gesell maturational view—no role of learning •New affordances arise as new motor abilities develop •New affordances arise as body dimensions or characteristics change •Changes to the manual system •Changes to the locomotor system •All these new affordances require learning •Complements Thelen's view-motor development not just a matter of central nervous system maturation

Current CDC advise to prevent FASD

•Current advice is not to drink throughout pregnancy or while trying to become pregnant •Female may not be aware she is pregnant in the first few weeks •No such safe thing as safe alcohol

Advice on breastfeeding and alcohol

•Current advice is to avoid •Infant is exposed to less alcohol than through pregnant mother, but infant cannot metabolize or get rid of as quickly

Maurer & Lewis findings

•Delayed removal of cataracts in childhood can result in lower levels of visual acuity, even though eyes are transmitting normal pattern information •Brain won't develop correctly •Longitudinal studies of people who had cataract surgery at different points in life

DES (synthetic form of estrogen)

•Drug given to mothers (1940-1970s in U.S) to prevent miscarriages, •Thought high estrogen levels could prevent miscarriages •Had sleeper effects •Effects development of reproductive tract later in life

Thalidomide

•Drug used in Europe in late 1950s to alleviate morning sickness (early in pregnancy), sold over the counter; scientists did not believe drug could pass through placental barrier •10,000 infants born shortly afterwards with deformed limbs (phocomelia), other problems with sensory systems (blindness, deafness), heart defects

DeCasper and Fifer (1980) Newborn Learning Experiment

•Experiment, "can fetuses learn?" •Played recorded passages of mothers and unfamiliar females reading Dr. Seuss •Contingent sucking paradigm: Infant sucking enabled the passages to continue

Infant visual development

•From "where" to "what" •Shift to greater cortical involvement as development proceeds in early months •Early experience may be critical for the brain centers associated with vision, especially for "what", to develop fully

Peripheral retina

•Has more to do with localization •Localizing stimuli-where system •More developed at birth •Consistent with where to what

Relationship between critical periods and thalidomide

•If taken early in pregnancy (during the critical period for heart, eye, ear, and limb development) it had profound developmental consequences •If taken later in pregnancy (not during critical periods) did not harm baby

Experience Dependent

•Incorporation of environmental information that is unique to a member of a species •Information is specific to a member of species, not all members receive this information or experience •Not specific to any developmental period •No overproduction of synaptic connections in advance of receiving information/experience •Experience causes net increase in synaptic connections→learning •occurs over the lifespan in response to complex environmental stimuli •no optimal period for it to occur during •unique to individuals (ex: exposure to igloo building at a young age for eskimos)

How do infants born with cataracts demonstrate critical periods for visual development?

•Infants born with cataracts (e.g., clouded lenses) do not receive normal pattern information •Delayed removal of cataracts in childhood can result in lower levels of visual acuity, even though eyes are transmitting normal pattern information (Maurer & Lewis) •Suggests normal visual experience is needed early in development to drive development of visual acuity/pattern processing at the level of the brain

Findings from DeCasper and Fifer's study

•Infants sucked pacifiers more when linked with mother's voice •Newborn infants (less than 3 days old) discriminated familiar from an unfamiliar female voice •They worked longer (produced longer sucking bursts) to hear mother's voice over an unfamiliar female voice •Newborns → longer bursts of sucking in order to hear passage read by familiar voice -Recognize the mother's voice from unfamiliar female -Do not get same results with the father's voice -Since done so soon after birth, babies have not yet learned father's voice, but learned mother's voice during fetal period

Effects of FASD

•Lower IQ or more subtle learning problems

Results of Milewski experiment for 1 month old

•Only focused on outer edges, not internal feature •Did not dishabituate to internal change, didn't realize the internal change •Only dishabituate to external change

DeCasper and Fifer (1994) Fetal learning experiment

•Pregnant women recited rhymes to fetuses between 33-37th week of fetus gestation •Then fetus stimulated with the target rhyme and control rhyme after 37th week recited by unfamiliar female •Heart rate decreased to the familiar rhyme •Unfamiliar rhyme produced no change in heart rate •Suggests fetuses can become familiar with recurrent speech sounds

Sucking Reflex

•Reflex that causes a newborn to make sucking motions when a finger or nipple if placed in the mouth/when lips are stroked •highly organized pattern of behavior, important for survival, feeding, soothing

Visual scanning: 2-3 months old

•Scan both the perimeters and interiors of shapes •By 3 months, visual scanning of a stimulus is becoming exhaustive: scan both internal and external features •Consistent with "what" function of vision becoming more functional, tied to brain development

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD)

•Set of disorders associated with drinking alcohol during pregnancy (2-5% of births) •FASD can occur with lower levels of drinking during pregnancy •FAS in extreme cases

Milewski experiment

•Showed babies shapes within shapes -habituation stimulus is a circle inside a square -(a) is a triangle inside a square -(b) is a circle inside a triangle •Baby sucked a nipple, the more they sucked the brighter the shape would become -Maximum control procedure -Even at one month of age, feel control •Sucking decreased when baby lost interest in shape •Tested in dishabituation phase: new stimulus -Internal change or external change in stimulus -looked to see if babies noticed the change (measured by if sucking increased or not)

Connection between DES and Sleeper Effects

•Sleeper effects: 40-fold increase in a rare vaginal cancer in daughters, shows up in females 14-22—had rarely been seen before in young women •higher risk for deformities to female reproductive track at birth, infertility, abnormal pregnancies •In males, increase risk of testicular abnormalities (e.g., undescended testis)

How are reflexes adaptive?

•Some may aid survival when young infants have poor voluntary motor control •May become integrated into later voluntary behaviors: e.g, stepping reflex→walking •Some may be remnants of evolutionary past-swimming reflex

Intermodal Perception Experiment

•Spelke •Used intermodal preferential looking technique •Present two videos side by side •Central located soundtrack, corresponds to one video •Monitor infant looking to see if infant shows preference •Typically infant prefers to look at video that corresponds to soundtrack (4 months) •Amodal invariant: temporal synchrony, infants prefer unified world •Babies are capable of crossmodal perception very early in development, senses may already be integrated when babies come into the world •This shows cross modal perception because the babies prefer the video where the senses are integrated, if this were not true they would show no preference over which video they watched because their senses wouldnt be integrated and they wouldnt be able to tell which version was correct or not

Examples of reflexes in newborn period

•Sucking reflex •Rooting reflex •Moro reflex •Swimming reflex •Tonic neck reflex

Why were the findings from DeCasper and Fifer's experiment important?

•Suggests the CNS is somewhat functional in fetal period •Baby already recognizing characteristics of the mother and the mother is also getting more attention from the child •Both studies: we need to modify the meaning of experience (pre or post birth) •How experiences affect development prior to birth

Jean Piaget

•Swiss developmental psychologist •Focused on cognitive development from infancy through adolescence •Research and writings have had a profound influence in psychology and education Published scientific papers about mollusks between 15-18 years, paper published when he was 15 resulted in a job offer as a curator at a natural history museum in Geneva •Interested in unobservable mental "structures" and how children "construct" their own knowledge- child x environment interaction •Work gained acceptance in 1960s •Interested in children's wrong answers, he noticed: -children of the same age would answer incorrectly in the same way, not randomly -at different ages, different kinds of wrong answers

Affordances

•Term coined by J.J. Gibson •Way to relate perception and action •Refers to opportunities for action in the environment that are geared to the organism's physical characteristics and motor capabilities •We don't sit on small branches on trees because we know if we do it will break and we will fall •the way we interact with the environment is based on our physical characteristics •Perception is action-based, both objective and subjective simultaneously •New affordances arise as new motor abilities develop •New affordances arise as body dimensions or characteristics change •Changes to the manual system •Changes to the locomotor system •All these new affordances require learning

Swimming Reflex

•When they are laid horizontally on their stomachs, infants stretch out their arms and legs. •4-6 months/ infants tendency to paddle and kick in a sort of swimming motion when lying face down in a body of water •Organized pattern of behavior •Remnant of evolutionary past •May aid in survival, won't be able to keep itself afloat, but by swimming as a reflex, it can aid survival

Piaget's development

•Worked in a lab with Carl Jung after finishing college in 1816 •1920, begins work in Binet laboratory (Binet a developer of first standardized intelligence test) to help develop standardized questions • Thought standardized testing procedure too restrictive, did not allow probing of children's answers •Was also studying logic (philosophy) at this time, became interested in how children's intelligence conformed to logical rules → way to integrate biology and philosophy

Rooting Reflex

•a baby's tendency, when touched on the cheek, to turn toward the touch, open the mouth, and search for the nipple. •an infant reflex that occurs when something touches an infant's cheek, and the infant instinctively turns his or her head toward the touch •adaptive because of breastfeeding, baby contributes to process of breastfeeding through this reflex

Four lines of evidence of developmental progression from "where" to "what" early in development

•anatomy •eye movements •visual acuity •visual scanning

Vision for "What"

•cortical •evolutionarily new system •fovea and visual cortex •develops at 2-3 months •telling what something is

Experience expectant learning and language

•development of primary language •brain expects to be exposed to language

Experience dependent learning and language

•development of second + language(s) •it is dependent on exposure to environmental stimuli

Results of Milewski experiment for 4 month old

•dishabituate to both internal and external change

When do teratogens typically have an effect?

•during a critical period: exposure at different times can have different effects or no effects at all •Often depends on dosage •Some individual differences in terms of genetic susceptibility • Can have effects later in life (DES)

Visual Cliff experiment: Gibson and Walk 1960

•fear of height not innate in babies who have just learned to crawl •babies who have been crawling for around a month don't cross over visual cliff (don't cross over from about 8 1/2 months on) •babies won't cross when warned off my mother's (fearful) facial expression •babies will cross if mother smiles/is encouraging •showed biological mechanism is strongly influenced b y emotional reactions of caregivers (this influences fear of heights)

Habituation

•form of early learning/most simple form of learning •recognizing something that has been experienced before •decrease in a response after repeated presentation of a stimulus •speed at which an infant habituates reflects general efficiency of the infant's processing of information •fundamental to basic cognitive development •infants who habituate rapidly tend to have higher IQs 18 years later

Prenatal psychological care of mother

•just as important as nutritional care, requires attention •exposure to stressful environments during pregnancy can be harmful to fetus of fetus if fetus is raised in non-stressful environment •can have long-term adverse consequences on fetus once it is born •PTSD in pregnant women during 9/11 → biological marker for PTSD in newborns if mother was in 3rd trimester during 9/11

Elanor Gibson affordances experiment

•presented babies with flat surfaces and waterbeds •looked at if they detected the different affordances for support based on if they changed the way they crossed each surface

Infant visual scanning: 1 month old

•scan the perimeters of shapes •do not exhaustively scan a visual stimulus •they are visually captured by a contour boundary: a sharp change in brightness such as an edge •more likely to lock on to an outer edge when scanning

Vision for "Where"

•subcortical •may be initially better than vision for "what" •evolutionarily older system •retina and superior colliculus •telling where something is •present at birth

How do experience expectant and experience dependent processes wire the brain?

•synaptic connections between cells are overproduced in anticipation of receiving experience in all members of a species •experience selects which pattern of connections remain •experience dependent causes net increase in synaptic connections→learning

Why might an infant show habituation?

•the stimulus is becoming familiar—low level form of memory or recognition, boredom •might simply indicate physical fatigue

Characteristic appearance of FASD

•thin upper lip •less defined fold un upper lip (smooth philtrum) •small eyes

What are the advantages of experience expectant effects?

•very important to basic functioning but would be very hard to program genetically (language) ****