Child Psychology- Chapter 5: Perceptual and Motor Development

What are the three networks of attentional processes?

1: Orienting network 2: Altering network 3: Executive network

What are the two challenges involving motor skills?

1:Locomotion 2:Fine-motor skills

What are the two premises used in an infants acuity test?

1:Most infants look at patterned stimuli instead of plain, nonpatterned stimuli. Ex: shown two stimuli, infants most likely look longer at the striped pattern than at the grey block. 2:Make the lines narrower (along with the spaces between them), there comes a point at which the black and white stripes become so fine that they simply blend together and appear grey

Shayla has just begun to use her thumb when she grasps objects. Until now she only used her fingers when she picked up objects. Shayla is probably _______ months old.

7-8 months

What is visual cliff?

A glass-covered platform that appears to have a "shallow" side and "deep" side; used to study infants depth perception. Ex: baby is placed on the platform and the mother coaxes her infant to come to her. Most babies willingly crawl to their mother when she stands on the shallow side. But virtually all babies refuse to cross the deep side, even when the mother calls the infant by name. Clearly infants can perceive depth by the time they are old enough to crawl. Babies who cannot crawl yet... when babies as young as 7 months were placed on the deep side of the platform, their heart rate accelerated, a sign of fear. Although young babies can detect a difference between the shallow and deep sides of the visual cliff, only older, crawling babies are actually afraid of the deep side.

What is visual expansion?

A kinetic depth cue in which approaching objects fill an ever-greater proportion of the retina. Visual expansion is why we flinch when someone unexpectedly tosses a soda can toward us, or what allows a batter to estimate when a baseball will arrive over the plate.

What is motion parallax?

A kinetic depth cue in which nearby moving objects move across a person's visual field faster than distant objects. EX: look out the side window in a moving car, the tree next to the road move rapidly across the visual field but mountains in the distance move much more slowly. Babies uses these cues in the first week after birth; for example 1 month olds blink if a moving object looks as if it's going to hit them in the face.

What is retinal disparity?

A perceptual cue to depth based on the fact that, when a person views an object, the retinal images in the left and right eyes differ.

What is dynamic systems theory?

A theory that views development as involving many distinct skills that are organized and reorganized over time to meet demands of specific tasks. Ex: walking includes maintaining balance, moving limbs, perceiving the environment and having a reason to move.

What is inter-sensory redundancy theory?

A view, proposed by Bahrick and Lickliter, that the infant's perceptual system is particularly attuned to amodal information that is presented to multiple sensory modes.

What is a toddler?

A young child who has just learned to walk

What is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder?

ADHD Children with special problems when it comes to paying attention. Roughly 3%-7% of all school age children are diagnosed with ADHD. Boys outnumber girls by a 4 to 1 ratio.

What is ADHD linked to?

ADHD has been linked to TV, food allergies and sugar, but research does not consistently implicate nay of these as causes. Scientists believe that genes put some children at risk for ADHD by affecting the alerting and executive networks of attention and the brain structures that support those networks. Environmental factors also contribute, prenatal exposure to alcohol and other drugs can place children at risk for ADHD

Describe reaching in babies

About 4 months infants can successfully reach for objects. The early reaches look clumsy, their arms and hands don't move directly and smoothly to the desired object. Reaching requires that an infant move the hand to the location of a desired object.

What are some cultures that discourage motor development?

Ache and indigenous group in Paraguay, protect infants and toddler from harm by carrying them constantly. Chinese parents often allow their children to crawl only on a bed surrounded by pillows, because they don't want their children crawling on a dirty floor.

Adult coaches impact on kids in sports

Adult coaches encourage their player and emphasize skill development, children usually enjoy playing, often improving their skills and increase their self-esteem. Coaches emphasize winning over skill development and criticize or punish player for bad plays, children lose interest and stop playing. When adolescents find sports too stressful they often get "burned out", they lose interest and quit.

How to measure auditory threshold?

Adults auditory threshold is easy to measure, a tone is presented and the adult simply tells when he or she hears it. Infants are seated on a parent's lap, both parent and baby wear headphones, as does an observer seated in another room who watches the baby through an observation window. Experimenter presents tones over the baby's headphones; neither the observer nor the parent knows when tones are to be presented (and they can't hear them through their headphones). On each trial, the observer simply judges if the baby responds in any fashion, such as by turning her head or changing her facial expression or activity level. This test reveals that adults can hear better than infants, adults can hear quiet sounds infants can't. Infants hear sounds best that have pitches in the range of human speech- neither very high- nor very low-pitched. Infants can differentiate vowels from consonant sounds, and can recognize their own names by 4 1/2 months.

What do motor skills do for infants?

As infants motor skills improve, they experience their environment differently and literally see their world in new and more sophisticated ways

What is the orienting network?

Associated with selection, it determines which stimuli will be processed further and which will be ignored. Well developed in infancy Ex: infant turns his or her head toward a flashing light

All constancies are achieved when?

At least in rudimentary form, by 4 months. Infants can tell that an object is the same, even though it may look different.

Do babies respond to pain?

Babies behavior in response to apparent pain-provoking stimuli suggest they experience pain. Ex: Baby receiving an inoculation (vaccine), the sound of his cry is probably the unique pattern associated with pain. The pain cry begins suddenly, is high-pitched and not easily soothed. The baby is agitated, his heart rate has jumped and trying to move his hands, arms and legs.

What do infants actually see?

Babies spend much of their waking time looking around and scanning their environment. Birth, babies can see bright lights and can track moving objects with their eyes.

What is the best treatment for ADHD?

Because ADHD affects academic and social success throughout childhood and adolescence, researchers have worked hard to find effective treatments. Stimulants are given to children who are already overactive, but these drugs stimulate the parts of the brain that normally inhibits hyperactive and impulsive behavior. Thus, stimulants actually have a calming influence for many youngsters with ADHD, allowing them to focus their attention. Intervention programs that were designed to improve children's cognitive and social skills and often included home-based intervention and intensive summer programs. Ex: children can be taught to remind themselves to read instructions before starting assignments. And they can be reinforced by others for inhibiting impulsive and hyperactive behavior. Medication plus psychosocial treatment was the best treatment, but was not long lasting. ADHD is better considered a chronic condition, like diabetes or asthma, one that requires ongoing monitoring and treatment.

Why is executive network so important?

Because executive network has such a broad reach and develops so slowly, it is a crucial force in children's development, influencing their physical and mental health as well as success in school.

What is important about learning locomotion?

Being able to locomote and to grasp gives children access to an enormous amounts of information about their environment. Improved motor skills promote childrens cognitive and social development, also making life more interesting.

Tiffany is worried that her 12 month old daughter may be hearing impaired. What symptoms would suggest that she has cause for concern? If these symptoms are present, what should she do?

By 12 months, Tiffany's daughter should be looking in the direction of sounds (and should have been doing so for several months), should respond to her name, and should make speech-like sounds on her own. If she doesn't do these things, Tiffany should take her daughter to see a pediatrician and to an audiologist, right away!

What are pictorial cues?

By 7 months infants use several cues for depth that depend on the arrangement of objects in the environment. Depth cues like those used by artists to convey depth in drawings and paintings; examples include linear perspective and interposition.

How do infants grow control of their hands?

By greater coordination of the two hands. Although 4 month olds use both hands, each hand seem to have a mind of its own. About 5 or 6 months, infants coordinate the motions of their hands so that each hand performs different actions that serve a common goal. Ex: A child might hold a toy animal in one hand and pet it with the other.

When can newborns see color?

Circuits begin functioning the first few months after birth. Babies can perceive few colors, but by 3 months, the three kinds of cones and their associated circuits are working and infants are able to see the full range of colors. The ability to perceive color, with rapidly improving visual acuity, gives infants great skill in making sense of their visual experiences.

What are the signs of hearing impairments?

Concern if a young baby never responds to sudden, loud sounds. Repeated ear infections, does not turn in the direction of sounds by the age of 4 or 5 months, does not respond to their own name by 8 or 9 months, and does not begin to imitate speech sounds and simple words by 12 months.

What is motor skills?

Coordinated movements of the muscles and limbs. Perceptual process is closely linked to motor skills... perception often guides a child's movement. Ex: a child uses vision to avoid obstacles Improvements in motor skills enhance children's ability to explore, understand and enjoy the world

What is kinetic cues?

Depth cues based on motion, such as visual expansion and motion parallax.

What is differentiation?

Distinguishing and mastering individual motions.

Coordinating skills when walking

Dynamic systems theory emphasizes that learning to walk demands orchestration of many individual skills. Each component skill must first be mastered alone and then integrated with the other skills.

What do different kinds of sense organs do?

Each are receptive to a unique kind of physical energy. Ex: Retina at the back of the eye is sensitive to some types of electromagnetic energy, and sight is the result. Eardrum detects changes in air pressure and hearing is the result. Cells at the top of the nasal passage detect airborne molecules, smell is the result. The sense organ translates the physical stimulation into nerve impulses that are sent to the brain.

Using a spoon

First birthdays, toddlers usually try to eat with a spoon. They simply play with the spoon, dipping it in and out of dishes or sucking on an empty spoon. With help they learn to fill the spoon with food and place it in their mouth. This is typically awkward as babies keep their wrist rigid. By 2 years old they rotate the hand at the wrist while scooping food from a dish.

What factors contribute to low levels of fitness?

Fitness tested with items such as the mile run and pull up, fewer than half usually meet standards for fitness. In most schools PE classes meet only once or twice a week, and are usually not required of high-school students. Even when students are in these classes they spend nearly half the time standing around instead of exercising. TV and other sedentary leisure time activities may contribute too. Youth who spend much time online or watching TV often tend to be less fit physically. Children. glued to the TV or computer screen likely have fewer opportunities to exercise, but perhaps children in poor physical condition chose sedentary activities over exercise.

In the first year, infants begin to see in what?

Greater acuity and color

The phenomenon in which infants pay less attention to a stimulus as it becomes more familiar is called______________.

Habituation

When 6 month old Sebastian watches his mother type on a keyboard, how does he know that her fingers and the keyboard are not simply one big unusual object?

Her hands and fingers move together, independently of the keyboard, and her hands and fingers have a common color and texture that differs from those of the keyboard.

At school and at home, 6 year old Janet often blurts out whatever she is thinking without stopping to consider whether her thoughts are appropriate to express at that moment. This tendency to act without thinking describes the ______ symptom of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Impulsivity

What are some cultural influences that influence motor development?

In Europe and North America, most infants walk alone near their first birthday. Infants in other cultures often begin to walk (and reach other milestone) at an earlier age because of child-care customs which allow children to practice their emerging motor skills. Ex: some traditional African cultures, infants sit and walk at younger ages. Infants are commonly carried by their parents in the "piggyback" style which helps develop muscles in the infants trunk and legs. Some cultures practice essential motor skills... Ex: Kipsigis of Kenya help children learn to sit by having them sit while propped up. West Indians of Jamaica, mothers have an exercise routine that allows babies to practice walking. Infants with these opportunities learn to sit and walk earlier.

Hearing loss in babies

Infants can be born with limited hearing, or even deaf. Heredity is the leading cause of hearing impairment in newborns. Meningitis (an inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord) after birth.

Infants and music

Infants can distinguish different musical sounds. They can distinguish different melodies and prefer melodies that are pleasant sounding over those that are unpleasant sounds. Infants are sensitive to the rhythmic structure of music. After infants have heard a simple sequence of notes, they can tell the difference between a new sequence that fits the original versus one that doesn't Thus, by the middle of the first year, most infants respond to much of the information provided by sounds/songs.

Which of the following statements is NOT true about infants perceptual skills?

Infants can only differentiate sweet and salty substances.

How can we know what an infant senses?

Infants can't tell us what they smell, hear or see, so researchers have devised other ways. Investigators present two stimuli to the baby, such as high-pitched tone and a low-pitched tone, or a sweet-tasting substance and a sour-tasting substance. Investigator records responses such as heart rate, facial expression or eye movements. If the baby consistently responds differently to the two stimuli the baby must be distinguished between them.

What are environmental cues when walking?

Infants learn to walk in relatively safe environments, on a flat surface, uncluttered floors at home. They soon discover that the environment offers a variety of surfaces.

What are multimedia events?

Information spans multiple senses. A rattle stimulates vision, hearing and touch. Temporal information, such as duration or tempo can be conveyed by sight or sound. Ex: detect the rhythm of a person clapping by seeing the hands meet or by hearing the sound of hands striking. Texture of a surface whether it's rough or smooth, can be detected by sight or by feel.

What is amodal information?

Information that can be presented to different senses, such as duration, rate and intensity. Ex: mother claps her hands in time to music, the sounds of the claps as well as the appearance of the hands coming together and moving apart provide clues to the tempo of the music.

What is the executive network?

It is responsible for monitoring thoughts, feelings and responses as well as resolving conflicts that may occur. The most complex element of attention and the slowest to develop Ex: When a 1-year old plays with a new toy, they may be easily distracted by a program on a nearby TV: the toy and the TV program compete for attention and because the executive network is immature the infant cannot ignore the TV to focus on the toy.

What are benefits of using motor skills physically?

It promotes growth of muscles and bone, cardiovascular health and cognitive processes, and can help establish a lifelong pattern of exercise. Individuals who exercise regularly 30 minutes at least 3 times a week, reduce their risk for obesity, cancer, heart disease, diabetes and psychological disorders including depression and anxiety.

What is alerting network?

Keeps a child's attentional processes prepared, ready to detect and respond to incoming stimuli. Well developed in infancy Ex: A baby who, hearing a parent's footsteps in a nearby room, looks at a doorway in anticipation of parents arrival.

What cues do infants use to infer depth on the visual cliff?

Kinetic cues Visual expansion Motion parallax Retinal Disparity Pictorial cues

Describe depth

Knowing what an object is, babies need to know where it is. Determining left and right as well as high and low is relatively easy because these dimensions-horizontal, vertical can be represented directly on the retina's flat surface. Distance or depth is more complicated because this dimension is not represented directly on the retina. Instead, many different cues are used to estimate distance or depth.

What is integration?

Linking individual motions into a coherent coordinated whole. Ex: in the case of walking, not until 9 to 15 months of age has the child mastered the component skills so that they can be coordinated to allow independent, unsupported walking.

Are newborns sensitive to touch?

Many areas of the newborns body responds reflexively when touched, such as an infants cheek, mouth, hand or foot.

Describe grasping

Most 4 month olds just use their fingers to hold objects. They wrap an object tightly with their fingers alone. 7 or 8 months infants use their thumbs to hold objects. Infants begin to position their hands to make it easier to grasp an object.

What are fine-motor skills?

Motor skills associated with grasping, holding, and manipulating objects. Ex: feeding, infants progress from being fed by others to holding a bottle, to feeding themselves with their fingers, to eating with a spoon.

What is the impact of motor skills?

Motor skills come from infants growing ability to hold and manipulate objects. 4-month olds can hold a toy with their finger but not until a few months later do infants become skilled at holding a toy, turning it to see its appearance on different sides, and stroking it with a finger to discover its texture. Allow children to learn more about the properties of objects and literally change how they perceive objects. Infants who can explore objects are more likely to understand the three dimensional nature of objects and to notice the details of an object's appearance, such as its color. Infants emerging abilities to move themselves and to manipulate objects creates a bold new perceptual experience.

Describe stepping

Moving the legs alternately repeatedly transferring the weight of the body from one foot to the other. Children don't step spontaneously until approximately 10 months because they must be able to stand upright to step. The stepping motion that is essential for walking is evident long before infants walk independently. Walking unassisted is not possible, though, until other component skills are mastered. Young babies step reflexively when they are held upright and moved forward.

Are newborns able to taste?

Newborns have a highly developed sense of taste. They are able to differentiate salty, sour, bitter and sweet tastes. Most infants prefer sweet and salty substances they react to them by smiling, sucking and licking their lips. Infants are also sensitive to changes in the taste of breast milk that reflect a mother's diet. Infants nurse more after their mother has consumed a sweet-tasting substance such as vanilla.

Are newborn babies able to smell?

Newborns have a keen sense of smell; they respond positively to pleasant smells and negatively to unpleasant smells. Young babies can also recognize familiar odors, mothers breast milk or her perfume.

Jenny and Ian are both left-handed and they fully expected their son, Tyler, to prefer his left hand too. But he's 8 months old already and seems to use both hands to grasp toys and other objects. Should Jenny and Ian give up their dream of being the three left-handed musketeers?

No. At 8 months it's too early for Tyler to show a consistent preference for one hand. They need to wait; by 13 to 15 months of age they should have a much better idea of whether Tyler will be left-handed.

What are the symptoms of ADHD?

Note: not all children with ADHD show all these symptoms to the same degree. Some are hyperactive and impulsive, others are primarily inattentive. Often have problems with academic performance, conduct and getting alone with peers. Many have problems related to overactivity, inattention, and impulsivity as adolescents and young adults. Few of these young adults complete college and some will have work and family related problems

What research show the extended development of executive network?

One task there are left and right buttons and a left or right facing arrow is shown to indicate which button to press. When a conflict is introduced-- adding a smaller arrow pointing in the opposite direction of the large arrow- preschool children respond more slowly and less accurately. The executive network is less able to help them resolve the conflicting directions indicated by the large and small arrows. Similarly, when children learn to sort pictures according to one rule (sort by color) and then are asked to sort them again using a different rule (now sort by shape), preschool children often return to sorting by the old rule, even though they can describe the new rule perfectly. They are less able to ignore the conflict generated by the old rule, which causes them to sort some cards by color even when they know the new rule says to sort by shape.

Why do we get distracted?

Our perceptual systems are marvelously powerful. They provide us with far more information at any one time we could possible interpret.

Treatments for hearing impairment

Partial hearing, some children benefit from mechanical devices. Hearing aids help some children, but others benefit from a cochlear implant (an electronic device placed in the ear that converts speech into electric signals that stimulate nerve cells in the inner ear. Profound hearing loss, lip reading helps or learning to communicate with sign language.

Describe sports participation

Playing sports allows kids to get exercise and improve their motor skills. Sports can enhance participants self esteem and can help them learn initiative. Sports can give children a chance to learn important social skills, such as how to work effectively as part of a group, often in complementary roles. Allows children to use their emerging cognitive skills as they devise new playing strategies or modify the rules of a game. Participating in sports can enhance children's physical, motor, cognitive and social development.

Fine-motor skills

Preschool children become more dexterous, making many precise and delicate movements with their hands and fingers. Greater fine motor skills means preschoolers can begin caring for themselves, eating and dressing without help. Ex: 2 or 3 year olds can put on some simple clothing and use zippers, but not buttons 3 or 4 years old can fasten buttons and take off their clothes when going to the bathroom 5 years old can dress and undress themselves, except for tying shoes, which is mastered typically around 6. Complex acts involve many component movements. Each must be performed correctly and in the proper sequence. Development involves first mastering the separate elements and then assembling them to form a smoothly functioning whole. Ex: eating finger food requires grasping the food, moving the hand to the mouth and then releasing the food.

Negatives of youth participation in sports

Several studies linked youth sports to delinquent and antisocial behavior. Outcomes are usually positive when sports participation is combined with participation in activities involving adults such as school, religious or youth groups.

What are perceptual constancies?

Size, brightness/color, shape

How are perceptual skills useful to newborns and young babies?

Smell and touch help them recognize their mother and make it much easier for them to learn to eat. Early development of smell, taste and touch prepares babies to learn about the world.

What determines whether a child is left or right handed?

Some believe that a gene biases children toward right-handedness. Identical twins are more likely than fraternal twins to have the same handedness. Experience also contributes to handedness. Many culture have traditionally viewed left handed as evil and have punished children for using their left hand Handedness is influenced by both heredity and environment.

How do we detect wavelength, and therefore color?

Specialized neurons called cones that are in the retina of the eye.

What are cones?

Specialized neurons in the back of the eye that detect the wavelength of light and therefore, lead to perception of color. Cones sensitive to... Short wavelength light (blues and violets) Medium wavelength light (greens and yellows) Long wavelength lights (reds and oranges) These different cones are linked in complex circuits of neurons in the eye and in the brain, and this neural circuitry allows us to see the world in color.

In the U.S. children spend nearly half of their time in physical education classes _________.

Standing around instead of exercising

How do we know that infants have a rudimentary sense of size constancy?

Suppose an infant looks at an unfamiliar teddy bear. Then we show the infant the same bear, at a different distance, paired with a larger replica of the bear. If infants lack size constancy, the two bears will be equally novel and babies should respond to each similarly. If babies have size constancy, they will recognize the first bear as familiar, the larger bear as novel, and be more likely to respond to the novel bear.

Coordinating information from different senses was thought to be demanding for infants. What thinking challenges this view?

That cross-modal perception is actually easier for infants because in infancy regions in the brain devoted to sensory processing are not yet specialized. Ex: regions in an adult's brain respond only to visual stimuli; those same regions in an infant's brain respond to visual and auditory input.

What is locomotion?

The ability to move around in the world. Newborns are relatively immobile, but infants soon learn to crawl, stand and walk. Learning to move through the environment uprights leaves the arms and hands free, which allows infants to grasp and manipulate objects.

Why must infants relearn balance when sitting, crawling and walking?

The body rotates around different points in each posture (the wrists for crawling versus the ankles for walking) and different muscle groups are used to generate compensating motions when infants begin to lose their balance.

What is Sensory and Perceptual Processes?

The means by which the nervous system receives, selects, modifies and organizes stimulation from the world. The first step in the complex process that eventually results in "knowing"

Define attention

The processes that allows people to control input from the environment and regulate behavior.

What is auditory threshold?

The quietest sound that a person can hear.

What is size constancy?

The realization that an object's actual size remains the same despite changes in the size of its retinal image.

What is visual acuity?

The smallest pattern that can be distinguished dependably. To estimate an infant's acuity, pair the gray square with squares that have different widths of stripes. When infants look at the two stimuli equally, it indicates that they are no longer able to distinguish the stripes of the patterned stimulus. By measuring the width of the stripes and their distance from an infants eye, we can estimate acuity (detecting thinner stripes indicates better acuity)

How do we perceive color?

The wavelength of light is the source of color perception. Light we see as red have a relatively long wavelength, whereas violet has a much shorter wavelength.

What did the visual cliff experiment determine about infants?

They can perceive depth by the time they are old enough to crawl.

How can teachers and parents help young children pay attention better?

Tools of the Mind is a curriculum for preschool and kindergarten children that uses pretend play to improve the attentional processes of the executive network. Pretend play improves attention by staying "in character" and teaches children to inhibit inappropriate "out of character" behavior. It encourages thinking flexibly as children respond to their playmates improvisation, teachers also contribute by providing visual reminders of the need to pay attention, such as showing a drawing of an ear to remind children to listen. Parents and their preschool children attended an after-school program that included activities designed to improve children's attention. Children were taught how to color carefully while being distracted by a nearby peer who was playing with a balloon. Parents were taught ways to support their children's attention. After children participated in this program, their attention improved (attending to a specified event while ignoring a distracting event)

Fundamental to walking

Upright posture, which is difficult for young infants because the shape of their body makes them top-heavy. Only with growth of the legs and muscles can infants maintain upright posture. After infants can stand upright they continuously adjust their posture to avoid falling. A few months after birth, infants begin to use visual cues and an inner-ear mechanism to adjust their posture. We use vision to maintain upright posture.

When infants blink in response to a moving object that looks as if it is going to hot them in the face, they are exhibiting a depth cue called _________.

Visual expansion

Can infants hear?

We know that a fetus can hear at 7 or 8 months after conception. If a parent is quiet but then coughs an infant may startle, blink his eyes and move his arms or legs. This indicates that infants are sensitive to sounds.

Describe habituation.

When a novel stimulus is presented, babies pay much attention, but they pay less attention as it becomes more familiar, a phenomenon known as habituation. Habituation is becoming unresponsive to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly. Repeatedly presenting a stimulus such as a low-pitched tone until an infant barely responds. Then present a second stimulus, such as a high-pitched tone. If the infant responds strongly, then researchers conclude that the baby distinguished the two stimuli.

Reaching and grasping infants

When learning to feed themselves. About 6 months they are often given "finger foods". Infants pick up such foods but putting it in their mouth is challenging. The hand grasping the food may be raised to the cheek, then moved to the edge of the lips and finally shoved into the mouth. Eye-hand coordination improves rapidly

Handedness

When young babies reach for object they don't seem to prefer one hand over the other, they use their left and right hands interchangeably. By the first birthday most kids emergent right handers. Left hand is used to steady the toy, while the right hand manipulates the object

Describe perceiving faces

Young babies are attuned to human faces as babies depend on other people to care for them. Faces with normal features over faces in which features are scrambled Upright faces over inverted faces Attractive faces over unattractive faces Scientists can claim that babies are innately attracted to moving stimuli that are face-like. At about 2 or 3 months of age, different circuits in the brain's cortex begin to control infants looking at faces allowing infants to learn about faces and to distinguish different faces. The first few months babies have a general prototype for a face, one that includes human and nonhuman faces. Over the first year infants fine tune their prototype of a face so that it reflects faces that are familiar in their environments. 3 month olds prefer to look at faces from their own race but they can recognize faces from other races. 6 month olds often fail to recognize faces of individuals from other unfamiliar races. Older infants greater familiarity with faces of their own race leads to a more precise configuration of faces, one that includes faces of familiar racial and ethnic groups. Babies born in Asia but adopted by European parents recognize European faces better than Asian faces.

Participation in organized sports has many potential benefits for children. Research has found all but which of the following advantages for kids who engage in such activities?

Youth participation in sports is linked to lower levels of delinquent and antisocial behavior.

Important milestones in motor development

about 4 months most babies can sit upright with support 6 or 7 months babies can sit without support 7 or 8 months they can stand if they hold on to an object for support 11 month old can stand alone briefly and walk with assistance. 17 or 18 months first steps for some 24 months most kids can climb steps, walk backward and kick a ball.

What are motor skills?

coordinated movements of the muscles and limbs.

According to dynamic systems theory, mastery of complex motions such as learning to walk requires both ______-mastery of component skills - and their _________ - combining them in proper sequence into a coherent, working whole.

differentiation; integration

According to Bahrick and Lickliter's ___________ theory, when infants are presented with redundant information through multiple sensory modes, they are able to integrate that information.

intersensory redundancy

What skills do infants develop during their first year?

perceptual skills This reflects an epigenetic plan in which genetic instructions unfold in the context of a stimulating environment, motor skill are essential to this plan

From birth, an infant _______________.

responds to light and tracks moving objects

Scientists have identified three different networks of attentional processes, each with unique functions and neural circuitry. They include all but which of the following?

the listening network