developmental and social psychology

Normative vs. Informational Conformity

normative: wanting to fit in informational: thinking others know more than you

attitude strength effects

persistance resistance impact on processing and judgement imapct on behaviour

indirect measures pros and cons

+ usually not controllable + predictive validity beyond standard measures - selection of stimuli can be subjective to different people -convergent validity issues -predictive and construct validity contested.

Haidt- moral foundations theory

1. nativism- evolutionary based innate predispositions help us solve current adaptive problems quickly and efficiently 2. cultural learning -evolutionary based foundations get rewritten and changes through experiences 3. intuition vs reasoning - moral evaluations generally occur rapidly and automatically. reasoning is important when we need to explain ourselves to others

Conduct problems (ODD and CD)

A broad range of behaviours ranging from mild to serious. • •Change across development as the individual develops increased physical strength, cognitive abilities and sexual maturity. • •Usually less severe behaviours earlier (e.g., lying, fighting), more severe later (e.g., burglary, arson). From conduct problems to conduct disorders Diagnostic categories in DSM-5: •Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) •Conduct Disorder (CD) ODD: an ongoing pattern of anger-guided disobedience, hostility, and defiant behaviour toward authority figures that goes beyond the bounds of normal childhood behaviour. CD: prolonged pattern of antisocial behaviour such as serious violation of laws and social norms and rules. Often seen as the precursor to antisocial personality disorder, diagnosed from age 18 years. Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) Conduct Disorder (CD) •Many children with ODD do not show the more serious conduct problems associated with CD • •But ODD is often a precursor for CD • •ODD on average earlier, (average onset 6 years) than childhood-onset CD (average onset 9 years) • •Most children with CD also show symptoms of ODDDiagnosis of Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) (DSM-5) Common features of oppositional defiant disorder include excessive, often persistent anger, frequent temper tantrums or angry outbursts, disregard for authority. Symptoms for longer than six months and beyond normal child behaviour e.g. •Performs actions deliberately to annoy others •Argues often •Often loses temper High comorbidity with Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Learning disorders Diagnosis of Conduct Disorder (CD) (DSM-5) Includes repetitive and persistent pattern of behaviour where the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate societal norms or rules are violated e.g. 3 or more of these in the past 12 months •Aggression to people and animals •Destruction of property •Deceitfulness or theft •Serious violations of rules And these behaviours cause significant impairment in social, academic or occupational functioning •Child-onset vs adolescent-onset type •Mild, moderate, or severe •In DSM-5: presence of callous-unemotional (CU) traits, or not Very high comorbidity with ADHD - 65%-90% of children with CD meet criteria for ADHD Conduct Disorder: Associated Problems •Poor academic achievement, esp. reading •Lower than average IQ •Truancy•School suspension or expulsion •Accidents (due to risk-taking) •Risky sexual behaviours, STDs •Unplanned pregnancy, early teenage parenthood •Earlier onset of sexual behaviour, drinking, smoking, illegal substance use and risk-taking acts •Problems in work adjustment •Legal difficulties, criminal offending •Physical injury from fights •Higher risk of criminal victimization; being killed or maimed •Behaviour may preclude attendance in ordinary schools or living in a parental/foster home •Adulthood: health problems, occupational difficulties, family problems, marital difficulties, criminal offending. Prevalence of ODD and CD Loeber et al (2000) Review of literature found great variation: CD: 1.8% to 16% in boys, <1% to 9% in girls ODD: 2% to 15% in boys, 1.5% to 15% in girls.Massive difference in 1.8% to 16% This could be due to SES Area Crime Different diagnostic instruments being used. Different countries Different raters Different times Different versions of the DSM Notice all the differences across studies that are likely to influence the measured prevalence Prevalence of ODD and CD Costello et al (2003) Both ODD and CD rates relatively stable over ages 9-16 years

Dramatic vocabulary development:

Comprehension of 50-100 words at 18 months → 900 words at 2 years → 8000 words at 6 years

Evidence for the Early vs Late Starter Model

Dunedin (New Zealand) longitudinal study of 1,037 children born 1972-3. Assessments of anti-social behaviour (ASB) at ages 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 years Moffitt identified a sub-group of boys (5%) who had: •ASB rated above average at every time point •also rated "very antisocial" by parents, teachers, and self •mean ASB ratings >1SD above the norm at every time point → "Life-course persistent" antisocial behaviour In contrast, 2/3 of remaining boys were above average - but at only some time points, or only as rated by one observer. In the teenage years, many "newcomers" to delinquency. → "adolescence-limited" antisocial behaviour Above average on self-reported delinquency (and police record) at ages 13 or 15 In the teenage years, antisocial behaviour in general goes up, making the two groups difficult to distinguish (when looking only at their recent / teenage behaviour) At age 15: BOTH "Life-course persistent" and "adolescence limited" groups - had broken an average of five different laws in the past three months Whereas the rest (most boys) - had broken fewer than one law in the past three months Early vs Late Starter Model: Implications Different developmental pathways à a framework for assessment, case formulation and treatment Age at onset predicts developmental course and prognosis (early onset - more likely to be lifecourse-persistent) DSM-5 criteria for Conduct Disorder (CD) recognise a distinction between childhood and adolescent onset type "Early starters" •Usually male •Family dysfunction, poor parenting •Deficits in verbal ability •Deficits in social cognition •ADHD •Deviant peer group "Late starters"•Male : female ratio lower than in early •Less aggression •Fewer prior difficulties •More normative peer relationships •Poor parental monitoring or supervision •Deviant peer group Early vs Late Starter Model - an update: More than two developmental trajectories Moffitt and colleagues have been continuing their follow-up of the Dunedin cohort - to age 38 in 2010-12, with assessments at 44 and 50 also planned.Recent data - Odgers et al (2008) •6 "conduct problem" items - each person gets a score 0-6 on the scale at each time point. •Assessed by developmentally appropriate questions at each age (lying to parents for children, lying on a job application for adults) •Reporter varies with age, e.g. parent + teacher in childhood, parent+teacher+self in adolescence, self alone in adulthood Statistical technique: general growth mixture modelling (GGMM) - tests whether the population is made up of two or more discrete classes of individuals, in terms of patterns of growth over time The "conduct problem" score is plotted on the y axis Note •New group: "childhood-limited" •High %s in several groups - but being in one of these groups is NOT the same as being diagnosed with CD

Components of language

Phonology (sounds) How do we distinguish and segment sounds? Semantics (meaning) How do we learn the meanings of words? Syntax (structure) How do we learn grammar? Pragmatics (use) How is context-appropriate use of language learnt?

Autism spectrum disorder

Problems with social skills and communication, repetitive behaviours Autism spectrum disorder (ASD): Characteristics First noted by Kanner (1943) •"He wandered about smiling, making stereotyped movements with his fingers, crossing them about in the air. He shook his head from side to side, whispering or humming the same three-note tune. He spun with great pleasure anything he could seize upon to spin ... When taken into a room, he completely disregarded the people and instantly went for objects, preferably those that could be spun ... He angrily shoved away the hand that was in his way or the foot that stepped on one of his blocks." Autism spectrum disorder (ASD): Clinical Definition DSM-IV (1994), Pervasive Developmental Disorders, comprising •Autistic disorder •Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified •Asperger's Disorder •Rett's Disorder •Childhood Disintegrative Disorder • In Autistic disorder, three areas of impairment •Social interaction •Communication •Restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities DSM-5 (2013), diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) covering these previously distinct disorders Similar areas of impairment (two are combined) •Social communication and interaction •Restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities Communication e.g. delay / lack of language; repetitive language; one sided, awkward conversations Social interaction e.g. "joint attention"; eye contact; understanding facial expressions & affect Imagination/ repetitive behaviours e.g. lack of symbolic pretend play; restricted, narrow interests; rigid routines; stereotyped motor behaviours.People with ASD have nearly doubled. There is more awareness Also seen as a spectrum so more people are on it. Also people being diagnosed younger. Appears to be quite high heritability. Not one part of the brain that is singled out. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD): Theories Central issue: •Theory of mind •Executive functions •Weak central coherence Autism spectrum disorder (ASD): Theory of mind deficit? Proposal that ability to understand others' mental states is impaired in autism •Baron-Cohen et al (1985) •Baron-Cohen (1995), Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory of mind → Supported by failures on false belief tasks (Sally Anne and others) → Individuals with high-functioning autism or Asperger syndrome tend to -Pass basic theory of mind tests (Bowler, 1995 ) -Fail more complex tests (Baron-Cohen et al, 1999) -Not attribute mental states spontaneously (looking task) (Senju et al, 2009). à But: proposals that theory of mind is not enough to explain the whole triad of impairments in autism - e.g. Frith & Happé (1994), "Autism: beyond 'theory of mind' " Executive function deficit? Autism: problems with planning, inhibition, flexibility, attention shifting, problem solving? (Frith, 2003)Autistic people worse at this task- inhibition of some cognitive function. •Could explain restricted and repetitive behaviours •Limitations •Not specific to ASD (ADHD, Tourette Syndrome and Conduct Disorder, Williams Syndrome) •Does not explain the social impairments in ASD (because it is completely separate) Autism spectrum disorder (ASD): Weak central coherence? •Uta Frith: autistic people "cannot see the wood for the trees." • •Focus on detail rather than integrating information into meaningful wholes • •"inability to experience wholes without full attention to the constituent parts" (Frith, 1989 - see also Weak central coherence theory)People with autism will just see the individual parts such as the small letters but not the big letters. Someone with acute ASD may look at the pram and see the triangle And look at the horse and see the shape as oppose to a rocking horse Autism spectrum disorder (ASD): Weak central coherence? •Note that in WCC, style of processing is atypical, but not necessarily a 'deficit' Like there is nothing necessarily wrong with it. •Continuum in the general population (Happé, 1999) •Not always replicable; cannot explain core social deficit Autism spectrum disorder (ASD): summary The search remains elusive for either -a single environmental or genetic cause -a single type of underlying cognitive deficit See Happé et al (2006), "Time to give up on a single explanation for autism" -

Leach (2005) - critique of new racism

Racism as a categorical ascription of relative inferiority (inferior intelligence, effort, culture or morality) that suggests a prescription of inferior treatmentEndorsing racist beliefs is linked to more negative feelings. Perception of cultural difference are also a high predictor of negative feelings. Leach et al., (2000)In his work he asked across different countries the majority about their ethnic outgroups. Still quite highly endorsed in racism. Look at the cultural differences. Very very high.

classic compliance inducing tecniques Cialdini-1988.

Reciprovity, commitment and consistency, liking and scarcity.

indirect measures

affect misatribution procedure brief flash of true stimulus

crisis situation

individuals do not think clearly, quick decisions needed, emotional responses effect outcome.

suedfeld (1971)

like people who look more like us, conform more to people who look like us.

social values

security, conformity, tradition, benevolence, universalism

personal values

self-direction, stimulation, hedonism, achievmeant, power

cohesion

the extent to which we are attracted to a social group

multiple roles hypothesis

the idea that any given persuasion variable can play more than one role in persuasion, and therefore will not always have the same effect on attitudes

why are values so special?

values are seen as inherently positive we use them to justify our actions people belive it is harder to change values than traits

mere exposure and attitudes

zajonc- 1960 only works for initially neutral or good attitudes Bornstein & D'agostino, 1994 mere exposure works by perceprtual fluency or a missatribution effect. unconcious process.

Belief-desire reasoning

•People act to fulfil their desires in light of their beliefs • •Wrong belief can lead to misguided action • •If we know a person's belief and desire, we can predict how they will actPeople act to fill their desires in line with their beliefs. If you have a wrong belief it can lead to misguided action (going to an empty fridge to get a beer).

Neuronal recycling hypothesis:

"reading acquisition partially recycles a cortical territory evolved for object and face recognition" - Dehaene et al, 2010; review article Dehaene & Cohen, 2011 2010 study: literate vs illiterate participants. When learning to read, representation of written words (partially) takes over the "visual word form area" (VFWA).

Moral Typecasting

-Agents can't feel pain? -patients can't do wrong?

how to determine internal validity

1. rule out other variables 2. include 2 timepoints 3. run a quasi experiment

Theory of Reasoned Action

A theory suggesting that the decision to engage in a particular behavior is the result of a rational process in which behavioral options are considered, consequences or outcomes of each are evaluated, and a decision is reached to act or not to act. That decision is then reflected in behavioral intentions, which strongly influence overt behavior.

Relationship between approximate and exact number systems?

Accuracy of children's approximate number system at 14 yrs is correlated with their maths ability with exact numbers on school tests at 5-11 yrs (Halberda et al, 2008) - suggests some continuity between the two systems. Beware direction of causality here.. But also tested predictively (Libertus et al, 2013)Two early-developing systems, also shared with nonhuman animals •exact number tracking up to 3-4 •approximate large number discrimination Formal •Built up from basic via counting and language (Gelman) •This depends on education (developmental and cross-cultural studies) •But correlations suggest that the basic system continues to contribute to formal mathematical skill (Halberda et al)

Antisocial Behaviour

Actions damaging to others: e.g. violence, theft, destruction of property Also damaging to the individual: e.g. poor achievement in school, obtaining a criminal record Starts earlier than risk taking behaviour Antisocial Behaviour High prevalence, especially in teenagers e.g. Eaton et al (2006) - large survey of 9th-12th grade (14-18 year-old) individuals in the U.S. •19% had carried a weapon in the last 30 days •36% had been in a fight in the last 12 months •30% had had their property stolen or damaged at school in the last 12 months •6% had missed school because of concern for own safety in the last 30 days

Authoritarian personality

Adorno (1950) Authoritarian personality: personality syndrome that predisposes people individuals to be prejudiced Traits: Conventionalism: conformity to the traditional societal norms and values of the middle class Authoritarian submission & Authoritarian aggression Power & toughness Anti-intraception, i.e. rejection of all inwardness, of the subjective, the imaginative, the tender-minded, and of self-criticism; Cynicism, hostility Projectivity: The disposition to believe that wild and dangerous things go on in the world; the projection outwards of unconscious emotional impulses. \ This was rooted in freudian theory with a strong super-ego and a week ego. Adorno (1950) Authoritarian personality: personality syndrome that predisposes people individuals to be prejudiced Cause: autocratic, punitive parents BUT, cannot explain sudden changes in people's attitudes and behaviours Scale comprises of many different attitudes & traits The first 3 components have been taken: conformism, anger, authoritarianism

ABC of attitudes

Affect: Emotional reactions to an attitude object Behavior: Knowledge about interactions with an attitude object Cognition: Thoughts about the attitude object why are these useful attitudes cause ABC, attitudes can be caused by ABC, disagreements within ABC can lead to dissonance

Right wing authoritarianism

Altemeyer: Authoritarianism as an ideology 3 factors: Conventionalism ¡Everyone should have their own lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences, even if it makes them different from everyone else / Gays and lesbians are just as healthy and moral as anybody else. Authoritarian submission It may be considered old fashioned by some, but having a normal proper appearance is still the mark of a gentleman and, especially, a lady / Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn. Authoritarian aggression What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush evil, and take us back to our true path / Once our government leaders give us the "go ahead" it will be the duty of every patriotic citizen to help stomp out the rot that is poisoning our country from within RWA and anti-immigration attitudes Cohrs &Stelzl, 2010Does right wing authoritarian attitudes correlate with negative attitudes towards immigrants. Is authoritarianism only linked to conservative political ideology? LWA - Conway et al., 2017 RWA - example items: It is always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in government and religion than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in people's minds Homosexuals and feminists should be praised for being brave enough to defy "traditional family values." (reverse coded) LWA - example items: It's always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in science with respect to issues like global warming and evolution than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubts in people's minds. Christian Fundamentalists should be praised for being brave enough to defy the current societal and legal norms. (reverse coded) Authoritarianism isn't necessarily linked to your political beliefs but you can submit to beliefs irrespective of what side of the political spectrum you are on.

twin studies that show there are genetic links between attitudes

Arvery et al, 1989- job satisfaction Waller et al, 1990- religious beliefs, Scarr, 1981- political beliefs

Spatial updating at 3 years (and before)

Coding relative to landmarks not until 5 years Different view produced by walking - can use spatial updating Different view produced by rotation - have to use landmarks Not above chance until 5 years New studies in virtual reality - Durham Psychology dept e.g. Negen et al (2018) Instead of rotating a board, we can "teleport" participants to a new viewpoint Development of spatial representations

discrimination definition

Engagement in harmful and hostile behaviours towards members of a group Asking how people feel about certain groups People may be aware of stereotypes but may not endorse them or believe them. Prejudice is not just negative feelings and negative stereotypes. One may argue that alot of negative stereotypes and discrimination have been sanctioned. However, lots of subtle behaviours still exist as well as blatant forms.

Milgram Experiment

Experimenter instructed people to administer increasingly painful electric shocks to a subject.

Historical view of adolescence

G. Stanley Hall (1904) Adolescence as a time of "storm and stress" Three aspects: •conflict with parents •mood disruptions •risky behaviour Broadly these hold true, although more recent research emphasises: •Individual differences ("storm and stress" is more likely in adolescence than at other ages, but not all adolescents experience it) •Cross-cultural differences ("storm and stress" appears lower in traditional, non-Western cultures) See Arnett (1999) Erik Erikson: Puberty as a period of "identity crisis" Book: Identity: Youth and Crisis (1968) Adolescence: •physical growth •sexual maturation •integrating our ideas of ourselves and about what others think of us A time when we form our self-image The task is to "resolve the crisis of our basic ego identity" The identity crisis according to Marcia Marcia (1966) Adolescent "identity crisis" Better understood as the extent to which one has both explored and committed to an identity - e.g. in •politics •occupation •religion •intimate relationships •friendships •gender roles Crisis is picking which one and this leads to commitment to one of the alternatives Increased psychological problems in adolescence Isle of Wight Study; 2,300 children, aged 14 - 15 years Males Females (Questionnaire data): "Often feel miserable or depressed" 21% 23% (Psychiatric interview): Reported misery 42% 48% Observed anxiety 20% 28% Suicidal ideas 7% 8% (Rutter et al., 1976 •Increase in schizophrenia, depression in adolescence (Rutteret al., 1976; Costello et al 2003; Green et al, 2004) which can be exacerbated by environmental factors, e.g.cannabis use (Nelson et al 2005; Arseneault et al, 2002) •Increased emotional distance from parents (Steinberg 1987; Steinberg 1988) •Increased risk-taking (Arnett & Balle-Jensen, 1993) •More on risk-taking shortly Can we explain "storm and stress", and vulnerability to psychological problems, from a contemporary / experimental perspective?

Consequences of prejudice and discrimination

Glass ceiling - lack of representation in top leadership Glass cliff - tendency to be appointed to precarious leadership positions (high probability for failure) - Ryan et al., (2016)Companies that experienced a scandal were more likely to have female executives on their boards (Brady et al., 2011) Black men and Black and White women are more likely to be promoted to CEO positions in firms that are experiencing a decline in performance (Cook & Glass 2014) Ethnic minority coaches were more likely to be appointed as head coaches to teams with a history of losses in the previous year (Cook & Glass, 2013)

studies that show modelling/ socialization of attitudes

Glass et al, 1986- works both ways between parents/kids

Schultz et al (2007)

IV1- descriptive only- household town about usage for own area and typical usage IV- all this and a smiley face. is other conition. then measured how much ebergy they actually both descriptive no smiley and descriptive smiley reduce bad users, but descriptive no smiley makes good users use more electricuty, smiley face stops this effect tho. used. Found a 'boomerang effect' with social norms interventions. As those with already-positive behaviour also receive the normative message, their behaviour can be worsened. E.g. while a normative message reduced energy use by high users, it also increased use by low users.

group unamity

In asch's experiment even when one confederate gave a different answer to the others but was still an incorrect one then participant was more likely to say the correct answer.

Priveledge

Inequality is not just about the 'other' but also the people in power.Concept studied in various fields:¡Women's studies (McIntosh, 1988); Sociology (Feagin & O'Brien, 2003); Legal studies (Wildman & Davis, 1996) Kind of borrowed from social studies such as women's studies, legal studies and sociology Privilege definition (Case, Iuzzini & Hopkins, 2012) Relational term Individual privilege vs. Group privilege ( the fact that you have better outcomes simply because you belong to a certain group) Group privilege: unearned benefits afforded to powerful social groups (Kendall, 2006; McIntosh, 1988) Challenges beliefs in meritocracy (belief that if you work hard you get better outcomes) and group equality Intersectional framework: race/ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation.

Sensitivities at, or soon after, birth

Infants discriminate similar-sounding phonemes, e.g. /b/ vs. /p/, At 1-4 months evidence for categorical perception - better on either side of a boundary used by adults (Eimas et al 1971) More attention to differences in phoneme than differences in voice of speaker (Kuhl, 1979) (think about the McGurk effect)

Development of executive function

It is obvious that abilities to attend, focus, and solve problems (including planning) develop markedly in childhood Experimental tasks have measured this development, linked it to brain development, and informed our understanding of developmental disorders (e.g. ADHD)

Aspects of Attitude strength

Krosnick (1993), Pomerantz (1995) 1. acessability 2. knowledge 3. extremity 4. importance 5. ambivelence

The language environment and vocabulary development

Longitudinal study of a single child and his linguistic environment - Roy et al, Video and paper - Roy et al (2009) Acquisition of individual words Child's acquisition of the word water Gaga → water

Freedman and Fraser (1966)

Method: Researchers asked households in California whether they would allow them to place a big ugly public-service sign reading "drive carefully," in their front yard. Another set of homeowners were asked whether they would display a small "be a safe driver" sign. Nearly everyone agreed to this request. Two weeks later, these homeowners were asked by a "volunteer worker" whether they would display the bigger and ugly "drive carefully" sign. Results: In the first set of homeowners, only 17% of householders agreed with putting the large sign in their front yard In the second set, 76% of them complied with this request

homophobia

Modern homophobia scale Raja & Stokes(1998) Different source of prejudice against gay men and lesbian women: HIV/AIDS epidemic associated with gay men Lesbians threaten traditional power structure Key aspects: Personal discomfort with lesbians and gay men Changeability of sexuality (belive that they can change their sexuality/ its a choice/ conversion) Support for institutionalized discrimination (support of lack of gay marriage) Previous research has lumped gay men and lesbian women together even though the prejudiced against them are very different.Higher prejudice from men against gay men. Important to separate groups.

Cognitive development: executive function

Most studies show steady improvements in executive function through adolescent years From Paus (2005) (see paper for references to the individual studies) Verbal and nonverbal fluency Inhibition (oculomotor)

Cognitive and social development and the brain

Part of Steinberg's argument - see review papers See also: Blakemore & Choudhury (2006) •Frontal areas (e.g. PFC) are involved not only in cognitive / executive function, but also emotional regulation • •Brain areas mediating emotional experience change more rapidly than those mediating cognitive regulation: Monk et al., (2003) • •Remodelling of dopaminergic systems at puberty lead to increased reward-seeking (Steinberg, 2008) •These neural changes may contribute to greater self-focus in adolescence, greater risk-taking, etc.

What is perception?

Perception tells us what is out there Allows for adaptive decisions, actions, social interactions... Perception is difficult i-Cub: a robotic simulation of human perception and action The human brain is solving perceptual problems much faster and much more reliably than the best robotic systems. So many modules, shows how complicated the system is.the human brain is really good at solving perceptual problems, and better than robots. Developing perception is about training. Perception is interesting Perception as interpretation (Helmholtz: 'unconscious inference') - continuum between perception, cognition and decision-making Perception based on prior assumptions about how the world works - to what degree in-built, and to what degree learnt? (developmental question) Eg necker cube and kansiza triangle

Prejudice definition and measurement

Prejudgment or an attitude towards a group of people consisting of: Cognitive component - i.e., stereotypes about groups (percieved 'facts') Affective component - (negative) feelings about the group Measurement: Feeling thermometer: How warm (favourable) or cold (unfavourable) do you feel towards the following groups? (Haddock et al., 1993)

Racism

Prejudice and discrimination against people based on their ethnicity or race Stereotypes: Targeting Black people: lazy & stupid (low competence) / musical & sensitive (high warmth) (Gaertner & McLaughlin, 1983) Targeting Asian people: competent & intelligent (high competence) / cold, associable (low warmth) (Lin et al., 2005) Old fashioned racism (more heavily sanctioned) (Henry & Sears; 2002; Leach, 2005) : Beliefs in the biological inferiority Social distance & segregation New type of racism - Symbolic racism Do not work hard enough Demand too much There is no more discrimination (racism no longer exists) Undeserved advantaged Madon et al., (2001) shows that more blatant forms of racism have decreased as time has gone on.

Forms of discrimination

Reluctance to help Gaertner & Dovidio (1977)- more likely to help a white person than a black person. Tokenism Making public concessions to avoid accusations of prejudice & discrimination Reverse discrimination Discrimination in favour of the stigmatized group to deflect accusations Extreme forms Dehumanization Perceiving and treating people as less human / denying human nature and uniqueness Genocide - extermination of entire social group Dehumanization Refugee crisis: Refugees = "swarm" (British MP); "invasion of human trash" (Polish MP) and "wild beasts" and "lice" (Hungarian politician). an example of this is Kteily et al. 2015 had to rate different ethnic groups on how human seeming they were. Bruneau et al. 2017- relative and blatant dehumanization in hungary

how flexible and general are infant learning mechanisms?

Research on "statistical learning" - Saffran, Aslin, Fiser Infants' abilities to rapidly learn the co-occurrence statistics (which items tend to go together) even in completely artificial stimuli Saffran et al, Science 1996: auditory

how many basic values are there?

Rokeach (1973) - 36 -18 terminal and 18 instrumental schwartz (2012) 10, updated theory says 19 (2019)

brain development and puberty

Review/ reminder •Grey matter -cell bodies (neurons) and synapses • •White matter -myelinated axons (connections between neurons) myelin = electrically insulating fat. • •Rearrangement of axons (synaptic connections) - within brain areas or across brain areas. Change connectivity between neurons and so alter brain function. • 1. Synaptic pruning towards adult levels - later in prefrontal cortex than in visual or auditory cortex (Huttenlocher 1979; Huttenlocher et al 1982; Huttenlocher 1997) See also Bruer, Neural Connections: Some You Use, Some You Lose 2. White matter increases throughout adolescence: continuing myelination? Giedd et al, 1999 Blakemore, 2008 3. Gray matter changes - different in different brain regions. Ages of peaks correspond to puberty onset, suggesting possible interactions between puberty hormones and grey matter development. In females brain changes happen earlier than male Prefrontal cortex last to mature Changes in grey matter density from MRI (Gogtay et al, 2004). Synaptic pruning à decrease in density See also review paper: Paus (2005) - including issues with interpreting grey matter changes (Box 3) Role of prefrontal cortex in executive function (see memory and executive function lecture) - planning, reasoning, working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility. It only changes later at like 17. → Implications for cognitive development through adolescence? Cognitive development: executive function McGivern et al (2002) •Match-to-sample task: answer as quickly as possible (yes/no) whether each stimulus is the same as the previous one (emotional words or faces) • •Temporary decrease in performance at onset of puberty (shown in more detail in a separate analysis) •Note different ages for reaction time increase for male (dotted line) and female(solid line) • •Authors interpret as inefficiency related to a wave of synaptic proliferation in the frontal lobes at puberty onset (subsequently pruned) You get worse and you then get better. Females get worse before and then get better and men get worse than better slightly later.

value measurement

Schwartz value survey- rate how important a value is to you the portrait value questionnaire- people read short descriptions of someone else's thought and person can rate how similar their beliefs are to the text.

Explanations for prejudice

Selection bias: men are preferred when the company is doing well and women when the company is doing poor (Haslam & Ryan, 2008) Stereotypes - communality is a good trait in times of crisis (Bruckmüller & Branscombe, 2010) Need for change in times of crisis

Social dominance theory

Sidanus and Pratto Personal vs group-based hieararchy Systemic and multi-level approach to understanding prejudice and discrimination: including cultural ideologies, policies, institutional practices, relations of individuals to others inside and outside their groups, the psychological predispositions of individuals 3 distinct systems of group hierarchy Age system Gender system Arbitrary -set system (depends on culture/ context) More flexible, includes more violence (characterised by violence betweend ifferent groups), focus dominant vs subordinate males (violence occurs between these 2 groups most often) This is a systematic representation of it. Social dominance orientation: The extent to which individuals' desire group-based dominance and inequality This is the scale used ( see below)

Group dominance and Privilege

The characteristics of the dominant group = perceived as normal and less likely to be questioned Half-blindness to one's privileged position In explaining group difference the focus is more often on the subordinate groups (Pratto et al., 2008) Dominant group identity is less salient Members of dominant groups are more likely to believe that group dominance is a 'natural' thing and these beliefs are related to group promotion

Stereotype content model (Cuddy, Fiske & Glick, 2007)

We only hold prejudice if we have and endorse negative stereotypes? This may not always be the case. Measured on 2 dimensions - competence and warmth. This study uses an american sample. There are a mix of both positive and negative stereotypes. There are low competence and high warmth group eg disabled people and elderly.

Political ideology

What is ideology? Formal system of political thought (e.g., Marxism, liberalism, fascism) Political party programs In psychology: organized system of political attitudes, norms, values and morals Measurement : Unidimensional concept (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski & Sulloway, 2003) Left-Right / Liberal (Progressive) - Conservative Two dimensional concept (e.g., Feldman & Johnston, 2014) Economic dimension (government control vs. free market ideology) Social dimension (traditional vs. modern values)

Newborn abilities and subsequent development

Where does the evidence come from? Example: 7 month olds' abilities to discriminate musical stimuli Saffran, Loman & Robertson, Cognition 2000 •7-month-olds listened to two Mozart sonata movements at home, once a day, for 14 days •Can they discriminate passages taken from these familiar pieces of music from those from unfamiliar pieces taken from the same recordings? •In the lab, tested on 12 trials: 3 each with 4 pieces of music (2 familiar + 2 unfamiliar). •On each trial: •Blinking light to one side (30 degrees left/right) attracts the infant's attention •Once head is turned, speaker on the same side starts playing 20s passage •Coder records how long until the infant looks away •To prevent bias, coder and parent wear headphones playing different music, and do not know if each trial is a familiar or an unfamiliar one •Prediction: infants will attend longer to the familiar passage •days •Can they discriminate passages taken from these familiar pieces of music from those from unfamiliar pieces taken from the same recordings? •In the lab, tested on 12 trials: 3 each with 4 pieces of music (2 familiar + 2 unfamiliar). •On each trial: •Blinking light to one side (30 degrees left/right) attracts the infant's attention •Once head is turned, speaker on the same side starts playing 20s passage •Coder records how long until the infant looks away •To prevent bias, coder and parent wear headphones playing different music, and do not know if each trial is a familiar or an unfamiliar one •Prediction: infants will attend longer to the familiar passage. Infants look longer at the novel passages. Counter to the prediction, but still shows an ability to tell them apart. Control group who did not have the home listening show that the chosen passages are not otherwise differently engaging. Note 1: as often in looking time studies, quite a small (6s vs 7s) mean difference - but as long as it is statistically significant, enough to show discrimination ability Note 2: frequent issue in looking time studies - sometimes there is a "novelty preference", sometimes a "familiarity preference". Does it matter which? A criticism of these infant looking tasks is that sometimes infants attenuate to novelty and sometimes to familiarity. 2. Vision: basic properties

stereotypes

Widely shared generalizations about members of a social group (e.g., 1994) simplified evaluative image of a social group They may or may not be accurate Develop early and are often difficult to change

Definition of attitude

a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor Eagly and Chaiken, 1993 or shorthand version: People's stored evaluations judging things as being good or bad

skitka- moral convictions

attitudes based on personal preferences, social norms, or moral convictions we think out values are universal 1. universality 2. objectivity 3. autonomy 4. emotions 5. motivate and justify actions

ultilitarian function of attitude

attitudes guide our behaviour towards positive or negative outcomes, should we approach or avoid something?

ego-defense function of attitudes

attitudes serve to protect our self esteem and justify actions that make us feel guilty

related concepts to values

attitudes- evaluative response towards a person, object or an issue beliefs- ideas about the relations between different things norms- generally accepted standards of behaviour in a group, community or society personality traits- relatively stable patterns of behaviours, thoughts and emotions ideology- organised system of political attitudes, norms, values and morals

Cialdini

car park study dropped handbills advertising motobile safety week on the bonnet of every car in the car park,. either car park was clean or dirty. and a confederate walked by or didnt

dual process theory of moral judgement

deontological decisions- based on emotions utilitarian decisions- based on reasoning

norms

descriptive norms are information about the world that most people do and it isn't necessarily right or wrong. injunctive- you should do something because its right or wrong.

values (schwartz)

desirable goals that motivate action trans-situational serve as a standard/criteria beliefs related to affect ordered by relative importance provide guidelines for action

Learning grammatical rules and exceptions

e.g. the past tense in English jump → jumped (regular) go → went (irregular) Exceptions have to be remembered individually General rules are more efficient, and can be applied even to new words Slobin (1985), children's grammatical rule learning •At first memorise specific examples, whether regular or irregular • •Learn to apply the general rule • •Over-regularise the rule (go → goed) • •Finally, learn to deal correctly with both regular and irregular cases

Does attitude predict behavior?

early studies- LaPierre (1934), Corey (1937) Wicker (1969, 1971) meta analysis- said that attitude only predicted 3% of variation in behaviour however, cherry picked studies, all attitudes not equally strong, correspondance matching (TACT)

compliance

egaging in behaviours because one is asked to. private acceptance noit required. doesn't come from an authority figure.

Obedience

egaging in behaviours due to the direct influence of a powerful source. private acceptance not required and source should be viewed as high power.

Conformity

engaging in behaviours due to other people engaging in that behaviour private acceptance is not required. other actual or implied people engage in this behaviour and the participant perceives this.

Torrance 1955

gave members of a navy bombing crew a reasoning problem to solve, those with higher status correct more/

Sherif's Autokinetic Effect (1953)

group of participants would converge on how a light was "moving" - carried this belief into a new group - so clearly believed group estimate was true

group size

hits relative asympote at 4/5 and doesn't increase much more.

modifications to milgram procedure

if learner in the same room obedience drops to 40%, if experimenter hones in 21%. if they deem to be sadist assistant 20% obedience. if 2 confederates present walk out 10%.

expertise and status

judge those who are experts as more likely to be right but this extends to beyond the research situation.

gray: theory of moral mind

mind perception -experince vs agency denying mind, moral disengagement and dehumanization. gray assumes we need to ascribe mind in order to assume morality.

gray: theory of moral mind - cognitive template of morality

morality=agent +patient

Ambivalent sexism inventory Glick & Fiske (1996)

ostile sexism towards women - negative stereotypes and feelings towards women Examples: Women exaggerate problems at work. / Women seek power by gaining control over men (women use sex to control men). Benevolent sexism towards women - positive stereotypes and positive feelings that can even elicit pro-social behaviours Examples: Women should be cherished and protected by women. Women have a superior moral sensibility and refined taste culture. Eg women should be protected, they are delicate and cannot stand up for themselves. Paternalism, gender differentiuation and heterosexual intimacy (women is incomplete without a man). Also eg women are not as smart but they have better cultural and creative understanding (gender differentiation) The reason it is called ambivalent sexism- incorporates both hostile and benevolent in a balanced way. Glick et al (2000)-Positive correlation between hostile and benevolent sexism.Women are more likely to endorse benevolent sexism and men are more likely to endorse hostile sexism. The ambivalence towards men inventory Glick & Fiske (1999) Hostile sexism towards men Examples: Men will always fight for greater control. / Men act like babies when they are sick Benevolent sexism towards men Examples: Even if both work, women should take care of men at home. / Women are incomplete without men

social adjustment function of attitudes

our attitudes help us fit in with social groups, we are motivated to hold attitudes that will be approved of by others.

value-expressive function of attitude

our attitudes help us to express our values and communicate them to others.

Asch Experiment

participants asked to say which line was larger or smaller, one participant and 6-8 confederates. 76% of participants gave wrong answer at least once

Sexism

prejudice (& discrimination) based on gender Gender stereotypes: Housewife and sexy woman vs. career woman and athlete High warmth / low competence Women are believed to be friendly and useless in this way with traditional stereotypes.

morality

prescriptive judgements of justice , rights, welfare pertaining to how people ought to relate to eachother Turiel, 1983 people's beliefs about what is right or wrong, good or bad. morality distinguishes what is right from wrong and regulates social life

elabouration

process of generating thoughts favuring or disfavouring a possible attitude position.

Transphobia

societal discrimination and stigma of (Sugano et al., 2006) individuals who do not conform to traditional societal norms of sex or gender (Ellis et al., 2016) Understudied area - often subsumed in studies investigating prejudice against lesbians, gay and bisexuals Participants tend not to conform to socially desirable norms - openly transphobic views seem to be easily expressed (Hill & Willoughby, 2005; Tebbe & Moradi, 2012)Extreme forms are still very high. Summary: Old fashioned and modern forms of prejudice & discrimination co-exist Look beyond negative feelings/stereotypes

empirical evidence for cue vs thought biasing

studies about wokr program likely to be inplemeted at uni. across 3 experiments, vocal message , vocal speed + intination or pitch varied. half of ppt where distracted- half undistracted (high vs low elaboration) high elaboration lead to a much stronger attitude

factors that increase conformity

task ambiguity, minority influence, group unanimity and size of majority, attraction to group, less anonymity, more expertise and status, more group cohesion.

Theory of Planned Behavior

the idea that people's intentions are the best predictors of their deliberate behaviors, which are determined by their attitudes toward specific behaviors, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control

elaboration likelihood model

theory identifying two ways to persuade: a central route and a peripheral route low elabouration- cue moderate- controls elaburation likelihood high thought biasing, argument, thought validation

why are values assumed to be universal?

they help fufil an individual's biological needs, enable social interaction, as well as survival of groups

values and behaviour model

values are abstract and behaviours are concrete (jiga-boy et al, 2016, sagiv &roccas, 2021) values activate stimuli causing us to interpret, action causes us to choose, action causes us to plan. can line up values and actions by making actions more abstract or values more concrete

gender

was origionally thought that women conformed more than men but Eagly, 1987 ands sistrunk & McDavid found that tests were moderated by gender of experimentor and nautre or stimuli. men conform more on feminine topics and vice versa.

ontological question: are moral judgements rational or intuitive?

yes- moral realism no-anti-realism or subjectivism value constructivism- evaluative truths are objective, but also depend on human activity evaluative judgements: rational or intuitive? kant- moral rationalist vs Hume- moral sentimentalist

Empirical evidence for TACT

Davidson & Jaccard (1979) asked 244 women about attitudes towards birth control pills varied level of correspondance, more speceific the question the more attitude predicted behaviour

What is Theory of Mind?

"Theory of mind underlies the ability to explain, predict, and interpret actions and speech by attributing mental states - such as beliefs, desires, intentions and emotions - to oneself and to other people." Astington & Hughes (2013), in Zelazo (Ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Developmental Psychology, Vol 2. Can you put yourself in another person's position? Can you use this information to predict how other people will act or react? How can we decide what a person will or won't do? •Predicting how others will act is central to successful social interaction • •To understand others' actions we need to understand their mental states We are drinking beer You go to the fridge I explain I had the last beer To explain your behaviour (going to fridge), I just theorised that: - you desire beer - you believe (incorrectly) that there is some in the fridge I have a theory of your mental states. It's only a theory - it could be wrong - you might be after something else. But without theories of what others believe, desire, or intend, their behaviour would be very difficult to understand "Theory" of "Mind" Introduced by Premack & Woodruff (1978), studying chimpanzees. Can a chimp take a human actor's desires and intentions into account in order to predict his behaviour? •P & M: "Theory of mind" = a system that imputes mental states in order to make inferences about behaviour • •It's a theory because it is making predictions from unobservable states • •It's a theory of mind because these states are mental states (e.g. desire) The monkey sees bananas hanging from the ceiling, and the human is reaching for them. Can the monkey infer that the humans are reaching for the banana? The monkey can push a box in to the room to help a human get the bananas.

self report pros and cons

+ fast, cheap + alot of topics people will be honest about +face validity predicts more predictive validity + can assess suspicion, hypothesis can be made hard for participants to find out - bad for anything controversial -bizzarre response sets -acquiescence bias

Autism and modularity

-suggestions of an impaired "theory of mind module" (e.g. Leslie, 1992) -but although good evidence that "theory of mind" is impaired, other domains are also impaired

meta analysis of TOM results and issues

1. Typical development Well known variant (included in the meta-analysis) is the unexpected contents task (Perner et al, 1987) Make it easier by having children themselves experience the false belief - but most 3-year-olds still fail Smarties task- expect there to be smarties in a smarties packet. Instead, there are pencils. Ask child: if your dad or friend comes in what will he think in the smarties packet? Pass: smarties Fail: pencils. Issue with this is that is children think their dad's know everything. Another issue is that if its not presented correctly as a packet of smarties again because if they can see the pencils they will answer pencils. If you say a stranger onstead of your dad you will get a completely different result. 2. Developmental disorders Baron-Cohen et al, 1985 - Sally-Anne task Compared typically developing children with those with autism and Down's Syndrome 85% of typical group 86% of Down's Syndrome group pass only 20% of autism group pass (despite higher mental age) → Meta-analysis of 40 studies comparing typical, autism, and other mental retardation (MR) (Yirmiya et al, 1998) supports that typical > MR > autism

Implicit or intuitive "theory of mind"

1.Awareness of others' perceptions, desires, and intentions at <18 months ● 2.Implicit understanding of false belief at 9 months to 3 years Individual differences in false belief task performance: At the transitional age of around 4 years, what predicts which children will pass? Language skills and executive function (e.g. Hughes & Ensor, 2007) à Better executive function predicts passing theory of mind - in line with the requirements to select correct / inhibit incorrect response. The task is not JUST about understanding another's mental state (more on this shortly). Home environment and parenting styles - e.g. •Parents who explain and discuss vs just punish, Ruffman et al, Social Dev 1999 •Securely attached infants, Fonagy et al (1999) •Maternal "mind-mindedness", Meins et al, Child Dev 2002 These home environments and parenting styles provide better opportunities for learning/developing TOM From the classic false belief tasks to other tests of theory of mind •Abilities to reason explicitly about false beliefs not until 4-5 years • Can you reason explicitly from a false belief story. •But explicit reasoning is not the whole story • •Evidence for a distinction and dissociation between "intuitive" (or "implicit", or "spontaneous") and "reflective" (or "explicit") components of theory of mind • •Evidence for "intuitive" ( "implicit") understanding at much younger ages than in the classic tasks Implicit or intuitive "theory of mind" 1.Awareness of others' perceptions, desires, and intentions at <18 months ● 2.Implicit understanding of false belief at 9 months to 3 years 1. Awareness of others' perceptions, desires, and intentions at <18 monthsAbility to recognise the goals underlying others' actions (though not to understand false beliefs) - in chimps (Call & Tomasello, 2008) - TiCS review article, 30 years on from Premack & Woodruff - in human infants (e.g.Woodward, 2003)1. Awareness of others' perceptions, desires, and intentions at <18 months Work by Michael Tomasello and colleagues on early understanding of mental states Lizkowski et al (2006). 12- and 18-Month-Olds Point to Provide Information for Others.Classic false belief tasks include a number of difficult cognitive demands Bloom & German (2000) As many have pointed out, even if children understand that beliefs can be false, this is still a difficult task. To solve it, the child has to follow the actions of two characters in a narrative, has to appreciate that Sally could not have observed the switching of the chocolate, has to remember both where the chocolate used to be and where it is at the time of the test, and has to appreciate the precise meaning of the question (for instance, that it means where will Sally look, not where she should look but the child may not know this) → Studies using other methods to test for understanding of others' false beliefs at younger ages A. Looking time methods Onishi & Baillargeon (2005). Do 15-month-old infants understand false beliefs? •Infant watches an actor putting an object into a box •The object is moved or stays in the same box •The actor can see what is happening with the object or not •The actor reaches into one box or the other can see the moveActor cannot see the move because the screen is up. The actor will then reach in to the box that they originally put it in or in to the box that it actually is in. They measured looking time. Sequence in which the toy is or is not moved between boxes, while the actor either can or cannot see it move, means that: TB-green: actor should have a true belief that that the toy is in the green box (object hasn't moved) TB-yellow: actor should have a true belief that that the toy is in the yellow box (the actor has seen the object move) FB-green: actor should have a false belief that that the toy is in the green box (it is in the yellow box now as it has moved from green to yellow) FB-yellow: actor should have a false belief that that the toy is in the yellow box ( has seen it move but it has moved back) And two different outcomes for each of these: actor reaches into yellow or green box, so 8 conditions in totalThe authors interpret differences in looking time across conditions as evidence that 15 month olds can predict the actors' behaviour based on their beliefs about the object's location Can you see how this conclusion follows from the data? When the actor has a true belief and they reach in to the wrong box looking time is higher. If the actor has the false belief that the object is in the green box, the child will look shorter when they reach in to the green. The child will look longer when the actor looks in the yellow box, the place where it actually is. The child knows that the actor shouldn't know that the object is there. This task takes all the language elements out.

phonemes

= smallest meaningful units in a language e.g. one phoneme difference between "cat" and "mat" Perceptual challenges for the infant: -Phoneme discrimination (telling cat from mat) - -Segmentation of the sound stream into phonemes ("the cat sat on the mat")

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits and antisocial behaviour

A dimension of psychopathy in children (along with Narcissism, Impulsivity) Frick, Bodin, & Barry (2000) CALLOUS-UNEMOTIONAL TRAITS •Unconcerned about the feelings of others • •Lack of guilt • •Unconcerned about school work ••Does not keep promises • •Does not show emotions • •Does not keep the same friends Dimension of psychopathy in children Callous-unemotional (CU) traits and antisocial behaviour Low levels of guilt, empathy, emotionality Small proportion of antisocial children, but at high risk of a chronic and severe pattern of antisocial behaviour compared to antisocial children with low levels of CU traits. Also poorer outcomes to parenting interventions compared to low CU children. These differences in correlates, course and treatment response for high vs low CU traits in children has led to the inclusion of CU traits as a specifier for Conduct Disorder in DSM-5 Temperament Model of the Development of Conduct Problems Frick & Ellis (1999); Frick & White (2008) Callous-unemotional Pathway •Strong genetic basis •Low emotional reactivity •Punishment insensitivity and reward dominance •Proactive aggression •Violence, more severe aggression •More resistant to standard treatments Hostile-impulsive Pathway •Highly reactive to emotional and threatening stimuli •Respond more strongly to provocations in social situations •Hostile attribution bias •Conduct problems associated more strongly with parenting practices •Responsive to parental discipline(hot and cold psychopathy pathways Cold is callous unemotional Hot is hostile impulsive)

Simulation models in emotional understanding.

A lot of research on simulation within yourself. When you recognise emotions you must simulate this in yourself. When you see someone angry your muscles can tense in your arm. Recognise emotion because you are experiencing it. Is this what happens with mental states? People with an inability to make facial expressions are worse at recognising them in others. Individual differences in false belief task performance: At the transitional age of around 4 years, what predicts which children will pass? From the classic false belief tasks to other tests of theory of mind •Abilities to reason explicitly about false beliefs not until 4-5 years • •But explicit reasoning is not the whole story • •Evidence for a distinction and dissociation between "intuitive" (or "implicit", or "spontaneous") and "reflective" (or "explicit") components of theory of mind • •Evidence for "intuitive" ( "implicit") understanding at much younger ages than in the classic tasks

Space - formal abilities: maps (also photographs and scale models)

A map (or photograph or model) symbolises the real environment - related to development of symbolic thought Can find a toy in real room based on location in a model room at 3 years (deLoache, 1987) à shows symbolic understanding, though nature of spatial coding unclear as all locations were unique (e.g. there is only one chair). More detailed tests of spatial coding - Spelke and colleagues. e.g. Winkler-Rhoades et al, 2013: Put Kermit in the place shown on the map: better than chance (49% correct vs 33% expected by chance) at 2.5 years à Early developing abilities to use maps as symbols, and relate spatial relations in maps to spatial relations in real layouts.Formal geometry and number are abstract concepts They relate to real objects, but idealised geometric objects do not exist in the real world (e.g. points so small they have no extent, lines so thin they have no width) Euclid (~300BC) deduced the principles of what is now called Euclidean geometry from a small set of axioms Kant (18th Century) argued that the human mind has Euclidean intuitions a priori (independently of experience) To what extent is geometric knowledge either "innate" or dependent on experience? A great question for developmental and cross-cultural psychology: àstudies with young children àstudies with remote groups who have had no formal education in geometry Geometry in US adults, US children, and Mundurucu* adults (*Amazonian culture without instruction in geometry) Studies by Izard, Pica, Spelke and Deheane. Review:Izard et al (2011) In Brannon & Dehaene (Eds.), Attention and Performance Vol. 2

Implicit understanding of false belief at 9 months to 3 years

A. Looking time methods Also other studies, e.g. Surian et al, 2007 - caterpillar searching for food. 13 month olds look longer when an informed caterpillar does not find the food, but not when an uninformed caterpillar does not find it - see paper for details 2. Implicit understanding of false belief at 9 months to 3 years A. Looking time methods Criticisms 1. Perceptual differences always remain between conditions that could explain looking time differences 2. The infants may not represent false beliefs, but may just represent that the actor is ignorant of the true location*. Although given two locations an ignorant actor could be correct half the time by chance, young children expect the ignorant person to be wrong rather than at chance.This argument is made in Southgate et al, 2007 à development of an alternative measure * Why is this distinction important? After all, they are both evidence for knowing what the actor knows. Important because false belief in particular has been the focus of the classic tasks and to test whether false beliefs in particular can really be understood before age 4 we need to be measuring the same thing. 2. Implicit understanding of false belief at 9 months to 3 years B. Alternative looking-based measure: anticipation Southgate et al, 2007. Used eye tracking to record where on the screen infants looked as they watched different "false belief" (and "true belief") scenarios Exploits the fact that eye movements tend to anticipate what will happen next - provides a way of measuring where infants think the actor is going to search Result: 25-month-olds' eye movements anticipate where the actor will search, in line with understanding the actor's false (and true) beliefs. → Good evidence that at least by 2 years, there is understanding of false beliefs.

false belief tasks

Fail: the cupboard Pass: the drawer 1. "Maxi task" Wimmer & Perner (1983). "Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception." ß 2. "Sally-Anne task" Baron-Cohen, Leslie & Frith (1985) "Does the autistic child have a 'theory of mind'?" Sally and anne are playing with an object Sally puts the object in a box Sally goes outside to play Anne puts the object in the basket When sally comes back inside where will she look for the object? Pass: box Fail: basket It is hard to keep conditions identical across age groups. Accidental and unintentional gesturing towards an answer. Results of Maxi, Sally-Anne, and related tasks 1. Typical development Initial studies, and follow-ups: (meta-analysis of 178 studies: Wellman, Cross & Watson, 2001) Typically developing children do not answer the "false belief" question correctly until 4-5 years. Before that, answer incorrectly based on where the object is now. e.g. on average (Wellman, Cross & Watson, 2001), 20% correct at 30 months, 50% correct at 44 months Several factors to do with how the task is presented make a difference to the age of passing, as do the country of origin - but no evidence from themeta-analysis that the main result (failure before about age 4) is due to experimental artefacts

Postnatal development

After birth, the brain develops over a very long period of time (changes in childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, mid-life and old age) Early brain development: • Brain quadruples in weight from birth to adulthood • Most neurons already present at birth • However connections between them are not • Myelin (fatty sheath surrounding axons) grows, as does the number of synapses (the contacts between cells) • Some synapses are also removed ("pruned") • Synaptic growth and pruning depends on experience Brain starts without many connections and develops them through axons covered in myelin. After this flourishing of connections and synapses, the connections are pruned based on experience.In the first three years, a child's brain has up to twice as many synapses as it will have in adulthood. 2 year old has wild pattern of connections which drops by adulthoodPruning different in different cortex's. big period of change in childhood and also adolescence. Are children more sensitive? There is just more background noise in childhood head, get better as an adult as can filter out irrelevant signals.Another example: visual development If one eye has poor vision in infancy, neurons in visual cortex develop connections mainly to receive input from the good eye. à "patching" treatment to force the brain to process signals from the weaker eye amblyopia can arise from cataract, strabismus, refractive error In the field of vision have been able to look at monkeys. Alternating bands with input from the left or right eye. Picture below good eye in white, mostly signals from it. Patch up good eye to force signal from bad eye to be processed.

executive function

An interrelated set of "high level" cognitive skills, including planning, reasoning, working memory, inhibition and cognitive flexibility. Executive control of other cognitive processes. AKA "cognitive control" (Posner). Tower of London task, a classic test of planning Shallice, 1982.Piaget's 'A not B' task includes elements of working memory and inhibition Executive function Allows you to control information in your memory stores. Prefrontal cortex is crucial for executive function (review - Robbins, 1996) Damage to prefrontal cortex à problems with planning, inhibition, cognitive control.Phinneas gauge- example of classic issues with executive function due to damage to pre-frontal cortex.

How uniquely human is language?

Animal communication lacks the flexibility of human symbolic systems Animals trained with symbolic systems have managed some impressive feats, but fall far short of the complexity of human language. BUT •Some auditory mechanisms involved in early speech perception are shared with other species - e.g. phoneme perception in chinchillas (Miller et al 1975) • •Like language, birdsong is learnt through experience, and like infants, birds have sensitive periods (review, Brainard & Doupe, 2002) If birds aren't exposed to their own species birdsong they can never replicate this sound. • •Human language includes ancestral mechanisms shared with other species, and the nature of the overlap is yet to be fully understood. (Review, Fisher & Scharff, 2009)

How "biologically special" is language?

Are parts of cortex already specialised for language in early life? Yes: speech processing specifically in left temporal lobe at 3 months, Dehaene-Lambertz et al, 2002 Yes... Speech vs silence This is the TVA it is activated when speech happens and isn't activated with silence.Forward (activates) vs backward speech (doesn't activate) BUT •after early brain damage, different regions of cortex can support nearly normal language acquisition • •In congenitally deaf participants, areas normally supporting oral language can take on other functions àHuman infants arrive well equipped for language, but development itself is very flexible and plays a crucial role. Review : Johnson, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (3rd Ed), 2011, Ch 9 Man who echolocates his visual cortex is active, as active as it would be in a seeing person.

Interpreting the dissociation between early-developing (intuitive) and later-developing (reflective) TOM skills

As an alternative to creating increasingly complex TOM scenarios, researchers have measured how quickly participants work out the correct answer e.g. Surtees & Apperly, 2012 - children and adults asked: how many dots can you see, OR how many dots can the character see1.The "explicit" tasks are wrong: they are failing to measure 3-year-olds' true abilities because of extraneous cognitive demands (e.g. Csibra & Southgate, 2006) ● 2.The "implicit" tasks are wrong: they can be explained more simply without assuming that infants have knowledge of mental states (e.g. Perner & Ruffman, 2005) ● 3.The tasks measure different aspects of "theory of mind" - the early developing intuitive understanding is a basis for later explicit understanding (e.g. San Juan & Astington, 2012) ● à Evidence from the Asperger study for a dissociation between the two àDistinct neuronal substrates? (see later) à àQuestion: HOW do children build on intuitive understanding to get to explicit? San Juan & Astington (2012) propose that language development plays an important role. Do we need this to increase in sophistication? This is a muddied system Beyond 4 years:Further development of TOM in school-age children Second order mental states" - X person believes that Y person believes that p Perner & Wimmer (1985) - at around 7 to 8 years, children are able to represent and reason from 2nd order beliefs. Extended "Maxi" task (actually John and Mary and ice cream van) First order Maxi puts chocolate in drawer Hannah moves chocolate while M is not looking M has a false belief Where will M search? Second order Maxi puts chocolate in drawer Hannah moves chocolate. M sees H moving it but H does not realise that M saw H has a false belief that M has a false belief. (M actually has a true belief) Where does H think that M search? Too hard? Increasingly sophisticated reasoning about mental states is a basis for understanding: •Speech in which the listener is not intended to take the meaning literally - irony and metaphor (e.g. Filippova & Astington, 2008) • •"white lies" told to protect a character's feelings (e.g. Talwar et al, 2007) • •Social "faux pas" (unintentionally creating hurt feelings) - e.g. Baron-Cohen et al, 1999 All these developing in the school years Show deficits in individuals in Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism who otherwise pass the more basic 4-year-old false belief tasks (Baron-Cohen et al) Beyond 4 years: TOM in healthy adults

Why study development ?

As psychologists, we would like to understand how the mind and brain are organised. Most of the organisation we see in adults is not present at birth. When and HOW does it emerge? Development is an interaction between pre-programmed processes and learning from experience. Understanding how these work and interact is still very challenging. A scientific understanding of human development is crucial for informing education, medical practice, government policy Eg brains of those who were born with 1 arm are different to those who have lost one later in life. Something gets wired differently in childhood, but what?

Developmental disorders

Atypical development "When development goes wrong?" This is no longer called atypical as it has its own negative connotations etc Disorders are a broad spectrum, including • Disabling genetic conditions, e.g. Angelman Syndrome - severe developmental delay, lifelong speech and movement problems, epilepsy (see list of genetic disorders) • Milder and more specific conditions, e.g. high-functioning autism - where some dispute the normative definition and the claim that they have a "disorder". Autism rights movement, aka neurodiversity movement. Autism as a variation in functioning rather than a disorder to be cured (e.g. Autistic Self Advocacy Network) They see autism as diversity as oppose to a disorder that needs to be fixed. But note that many individuals (and families) affected by autism take the opposing view that autism is a disorder and this is because once you take it in to account as diversity research funding goes away. Autism advocacy - respecting differences vs the need for a "cure" Simon Baron-Cohen's comments strike a balance "I do think there is a benefit in trying to help people with autism-spectrum conditions with areas of difficulty such as emotion recognition. Nobody would dispute the place for interventions that alleviate areas of difficulty, while leaving the areas of strength untouched. But to talk about a 'cure for autism' is a sledge-hammer approach and the fear would be that in the process of alleviating the areas of difficulty, the qualities that are special - such as the remarkable attention to detail, and the ability to concentrate for long periods on a small topic in depth - would be lost. Autism is both a disability and a difference. We need to find ways of alleviating the disability while respecting and valuing the difference."

3. CD, ODD and antisocial behaviour: risk factors

Burke et al (2002) "Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder: A Review of the Past 10 Years, Part II" • •Multiple causal pathways - not one single causative factor • •Multiple subtypes of the disorders, likely to have different causative factors Issues with different subtypes, consider spectruming the disorders • •"Future steps will involve the restructuring of diagnostic criteria to capture adequate subtypes and indicators, clarification of the neurological underpinnings of the disorder, and refinement in the models available to explain the varied pathways to ABD" Burke et al (2002) review evidence for many risk factors Child biological factors •Genetics •Intergenerational Transmission •Neuroanatomy •Neurotransmitters •Other Neurochemicals •Autonomic Nervous System Underarousal •Prenatal and Perinatal Problems •Neurotoxins Child functional factors •Temperament •Attachment •Neuropsychological Functioning •Intelligence and Academic Performance •Reading Problems •Impulsivity and Behavioral Inhibition •Social CognitionSociomoral Reasoning •Puberty and Adolescent Development Psychosocial factors •Parenting •Assortative mating •Child abuse •Peer Effects •Peer rejection •Association with deviant peers •Neighbourhood and Socioeconomic Factors •Life Stressors and Coping Skills Protective factors Such as parenting can be protective Each of these based on several research studies - see these papers, cited in Burke et al, for more details on where the evidence comes from Some important issues (see Burke et al) •Different risk factors for different symptoms? •Accumulation of risk factors? •Protective factors: just the opposite of risk factors, or different?

"Disorientation" tasks:

Cheng (1986) - rats; Hermer & Spelke (1994) - humans Another way to dissociate updating from landmark use is to disorient participants eg all blue room.and spun around. Forces them to rely on landmarks - so a strict test for landmark use 3 walls are white and one is blue. Does the child use geometry or colour.? If the child only uses geometry should be checked equally on diagonal corners Children tend not to use colour but geometry.-The task is solved at 4 years, Spelke and colleagues attribute this to development of language abilities. "Core" (innate) geometric understanding combined with linguistic coding for left/right/next to, etc. - -Many criticisms of this account (see Twyman & Newcombe (2010), Five Reasons to Doubt the Existence of a Geometric Module - -But overall, many studies show human infants and other species to be highly sensitive to room geometry (shape) (review, http://www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu/asc/Cheng/ ) - -It seems in any case that humans have an early-developing capacity to perceive the shape ("geometry") of 3D layouts -does this have any relation to later understanding of formal geometry, and if so what is the relation between the two? (see later) 5 years: flexible landmark use Nardini et al (2006). 3-6 year-olds had to recall the location of a toy within an array surrounded by landmarks.- Changed viewpoint produced by walking around: can use spatial updating. à All ages (3+) can solve - Changed viewpoint produced by the board being rotated: have to use the landmarks. à Only 5 years+ can solve

Williams Syndrome (WS)

Cognitive profile (from Bellugi et al 1999) •Some more interesting dissociations - one kind of visual judgement (line orientation) is very impaired, another (face recognition) is close to normal* performance • * "mental age"-matched. NC individuals with WS usually substantially below chronological age norms across all kinds of tests•Unlike the Down syndrome group who are delayed across domains, the WS group show an uneven cognitive profile • •What does this tell us about genes, the brain, cognition and its development? Williams Syndrome (WS) [and also specific language impairment, SLI] - a modular account Pinker (1991) and book, Words and Rules, 1999 Focusing on •relative language strengths in WS vs impairments in other domains •language impairments in SLI vs scores in the normal range in other domains • Pinker: the dissociation suggests that the language system is autonomous of many other kinds of cognitive processing If both WS and SLI turn out to be disorders of genetic origin, and development of language and nonverbal cognition can be separately impaired, then perhaps the genes influencing development of language and nonverbal cognition are independent Williams Syndrome (WS) - reasons to doubt the modular account, and alternatives •The language abilities in WS may have been overstated (Brock, 2007), and some elements of language are better than others •The language abilities that are "good" are usually relative to "mental age" - still impaired relative to chronological age. • •Performance in the normal range may be generated by highly practiced skills that nevertheless rely on atypical underlying cognitive processes • See Thomas et al (2013), in Zelazo (Ed), Oxford Handbook of Developmental Psychology

critical periods and post natal brain development

Critical periods •It has long been thought that visual deprivation in infancy, while connections are forming, has much more drastic and long-lasting effects than a similar period of deprivation in adulthood. • •Binocular vision critical period over by 3 years (Banks, Aslin & Letson 1975). • •Even 4 months of cataracts at birth can lead to deficits in pattern vision later in life (Lewis et al 2002): sleeper effects (Maurer, Mondloch & Lewis 2007). critical periods can arise from visual systems. There are critical periods in visual development. Eg 3 years for binocular vision. Sleeper effects- visual deprivation in early infancy can lead to defecits much later in life such as subtle things like pattern perception. Challenging critical periods Project Prakash & other trials of cataract surgery show: •Contrast sensitivity improves (Kalia et al, 2014) •Face categorisation can be learned (Gandhi et al, 2017) •Having learned to discriminate shape by touch alone, older children learn very quickly to discriminate them by vision also •Multisensory integration improves (Senna 2021) •Thus, there may be more residual plasticity in the visual system than was once thought. •Visual experience is still needed, though.. •..and action remains a challenge (Ernst 2019). Large scale trials . About cataract surgery, removing them from kids and adults. Promising improvements in basic visual function, facial recognition, sensory intergration. Discriminate shapes by touch alone and discriminate with vision after. Maybe not visual periods, more plasticity than we thought? More plasticity in some areas than other, need more research !

Vision: basic properties

Development of acuity and contrast sensitivity •Not well explained by changes in the eye • •Explained by experience-dependent changes in neuronal connectivity: LGN (lateral geniculate nucleus) to V1 (primary visual cortex) and beyond. • •Visual deprivation in infancy can cause a permanent loss of acuity and contrast sensitivity because neurons in V1 do not acquire connections to inputs from the affected eye (see brain dev. lecture) • •Development has been measured behaviourally (through preferential looking) and with EEG Atkinson & Braddick (2011) Nardini 2017Development of orientation processing, motion processing, and binocularity: behaviour and EEG VEP = visual evoked potential, an EEG method to assess whether neurons are firing in response to a specific visual change, e.g. a change of orientation Atkinson & Braddick (2011) Nardini 2017 Vision is being done sub cortically (more basic systems) and as the cortex becomes developed and trained it can then be seen. Development of orientation processing, motion processing, and binocularity: neuronal mechanisms Orientation selectivity in cortical cells via experience-dependent development of connections from LGN. (Hubel & Wiesel, 1960s) Binocularity (input to cortical cells from both eyes) via experience-dependent changes in connectivity

Development of STM in childhood: digit span

Digit span was 8 for college students 6-7 for 12-year-olds 4 for 5-year-olds (Starr, 1923, Brener, 1940) Major changes in STM capacity? Many other factors: •Items of interest remembered better •Development of chunking strategies •Development of rehearsal strategies

Piaget - stage theory

Emphasis on qualitative changes (transition from one state to another) in children's capabilities and mental operations: what they can vs cannot do at each stage Most contemporary research takes an information processing approach: breaking down the task the child is trying to solve into its elements, understanding it as a computational problem. Sees what it needs to do in order to solve that problem. Emphasis on: quantitative changes task demands - check that failures in something complex are not due to something more basic, e.g. limited memory capacity Two of Piaget's influential findings 1. Object permanence Children below about 8 months do not search for a hidden object. "Out of sight, out of mind", for infants when the object is hidden it no longer exists Piaget suggests before 8 months we live in a sensory world where we believe things don't exist beyond our immediate senses.More recent studies show evidence that much younger infants do keep track of hidden objects, when performance demands are reduced. Measure looking behaviour instead of searching responses. Baillargeon et al, Cognition 1985 5-month-olds look longer at the impossible event. Habitutaion to board falling and goes through block. This is an example of how a qualitative difference is explained by task demands. Two of Piaget's influential findings The 'A not B error' (to about 10 months) Item is hidden at A, they search at A, find it. They then see that it is hidden at B and they will search again at A. Piaget: infants believe they make the object appear by searching for it But looking time studies show that much younger infants keep track of where hidden objects are Many alternative accounts of the AnotB error based on specific cognitive abilities, including memory, inhibition, motor control. Specific experimental tasks address these individual abilities. Piaget and others on early memory •Piaget (1952) - children under 18 months incapable of mentally representing objects and events, live in a "here and now" world • •"Infantile amnesia" (Pillemer & White, 1989). Idea that memory doesn't develop until the first few years of life. This has been proven wrong, some foundational present from birth But we will see that once specialised methods were developed to assess early memories, research showed infants to have similar kinds of memory abilities to adults This suggests that the major developmental changes are quantitative (capacity, duration)

Number - basic abilities

Exact large-number numerosity Keeping track of how many of something there are is a key perceptual and cognitive ability Small numbers - keep track of nearby objects of interest Large numbers - judge which of two sets is more numerous Infants have both basic abilities early on.Place another object Would expect there to be 2 if you were keeping track of small numbers Look longer at the impossible event so must be able to keep track of small numbers. ​​ Likewise, untrained birds and primates have been found to represent the exact numerosity of small sets of objects (e.g. Hauser et al, 1996) Exact number representations are limited to about 3-4 May be related to the "object file" system that evolved to allow us to keep track of 3-4 moving objects (Carey, 2001).Habituated to the number of dots (8) Infant shown 8 or 16. Infant looked longer at non habituated one yes. This happened at 6 months. Can do this with auditory beeps as well. Two basic number systems Review, see Feigenson, Dehaene & Spelke (2004) Infants (and many nonhuman animals) can 1.Subitising: keep track of exact numbers up to about 3-4 2.Approximate number system: discriminate larger numbers with >1.5 ratios Later, humans uniquely also learn to deal with exact large numbers (e.g. 752 + 191 = 943) - abstract concepts with no immediate basis in perception How do they do this? Exact large-number numerosity An important foundation for exact numerosity is learning to count Gelman and colleagues: counting builds on previous nonverbal knowledge and serves as the basis for future numerical understanding (Gallistel & Gelman, 2005).Acquiring the exact number system for large numbers seems to depend on education: Young children and adults from indigenous groups without formal education represent large numbers on a non-linear (log) scale Booth and Siegler, 2006 (children) Cross-cultural studies with the Mundurucu: Dehaene et al (2008).Position numbers on the number line as if the difference between 10 and 20 is as great as between 50 and 100 Cross-cultural studies with the Mundurucu: Dehaene et al (2008). Numbers at the bottom of the scale are conceptually stretched Numbers at the top are perceptually compressed Eg think the difference between 0-10 is bigger than 70-80.

Are cognitive systems also modular?

Fodor - The modularity of Mind (1983) Original definition 1. Domain specificity 2. Mandatory operation 3. Limited central accessibility 4. Fast processing 5. Informational encapsulation 6. 'Shallow' outputs 7. Fixed neural architecture 8. Characteristic and specific breakdown patterns 9. Characteristic ontogenetic pace and sequencing Much debate since - see Modularity of Mind in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Müller-Lyer illusion - illustration of informational encapsulation and inaccessibility. Knowing that the lines are the same length does not change the percept. So perception of the line lengths is carried out by a "module" that cannot access this information.Fodor: working quickly/unconsciously using dedicated neural/cognitive architecture and a limited knowledge base is a useful property, for low-level perceptual and motor skills in any Evidence for modularity in developmental disorders? Implications of modularity in developmental disorders? • In some genetic disorders there is evidence for an uneven cognitive profile - e.g. Williams Syndrome - visuospatial skills much more affected than language • Many non-genetic disorders have an uneven cognitive profile by definition - e.g. in DSM-5, "specific learning disorder" • Implications for treating the disorder - need to understand how the "module" normally develops and what can cause this process to go wrong • Implications for understanding normal cognitive function. Evidence from developmental disorders that functions are dissociable informs us about how they are normally organised similar to the role neurologically.The modularity approach to disorders has both proponents and critics Some examples of claims for modularity: • A module crucial for reading fails to develop in Dyslexia (Frith, 1995 ) • A theory-of-mind module fails to develop properly in autism ( Leslie, 1992) • A module for syntax fails to develop properly in some forms of specific language impairment (SLI) (van der Lely 2005) • A module for editing intentions fails to develop properly in Tourette syndrome (Baron-Cohen, 1998) See Thomas et al (2013) in Zelazo (Ed) Oxford Handbook of Developmental Psychology The modularity approach to disorders has both proponents and critics Prominent anti-modularity view: Annette Karmiloff-Smith Classic article: Karmiloff-Smith (1998), "Development itself is the key to understanding developmental disorders." Offers a "neurosconstructivist" account of development, as an alternative to modularity • seeks more indirect, lower-level causes of abnormality than impaired cognitive modules • Considers how simple/low level impairments early on can lead to abnormal development of more complex functions

Williams Syndrome (WS) - Neuroimaging

Go back to modular for a second. We have been discussing cognitive "modules" What is the relationship between these and brain areas? We know that in many respects the brain has a modular organisation Do developmental disorders show atypical brain organisation or brain function? Function could be organised differently or different function all together. Structural and functional differences in the dorsal stream in williams syndrome. Williams Syndrome (WS) - filling the gaps genetics → brain development → cognitive development Chailangkarn et al (2016) - "A human neurodevelopmental model for Williams syndrome" Shows some of how genetic differences in WS lead to atypical neural development (neural progenitor cells and cortical neurons) → Implications for organisation of brain areas and cognitive function →Supports "neuroconstructivist" idea of general, low-level deficits (rather than whole impaired "modules")

Relating changes in memory capabilities to brain development

Hippocampus, esp. dentate gyrus, developing significantly to age 4-5 years. Hippocampus continues to increase in volume into adolescence • •Major prefrontal cortex development, including synaptic growth, in first 2 years, further development, including synaptic pruning, through childhood and into adolescence Direct correlations between brain activity and memory abilities in development Bell & Fox, 1992. EEG differences in 7-12 month old infants who can vs those who cannot solve the A not B task after a long (13 second) delay: • Power of EEG signal at frontal electrodes • Coherence* of EEG signal between front and back electrodes • à Individual differences in brain activity (related to maturation of PFC) explain some of the individual differences in A not B performance * Measure of correlation between EEG signals: high coherence between two electrodes implies that brain areas are communicating with each other How does this relate to changes in development? Its all to do with the prefrontal cortex (STM). Long term memory is the Hippocampus. The hippocampus increases in volume in to adolecents. The Bell and Fox 1992 study took infants who could and could not solve the A not B task. They measured how strong the signal at the front was and the coherence frpm front to back. Individual brain activity, in particular the coherence affected performance on the A not B task. This study was also controlled for age.

vision : faces and objects

In 60's and 70's people doing lots of work on visual development, then moved on to visual perception. Surely faces develop earlier. Newborn face perception Newborn infants prefer standard faces (face like) over scrambled (or blank) - Johnson et al, Cognition 1991 this used a preferential looking task. The scrambled face is a good control because it has all the same visual elements. Prefer scrambled to blank. Because newborn visual cortex is so immature, newborn face perception is likely to be driven by more basic and early developing sub-cortical mechanisms By 2 months, face processing includes sub-cortical ('conspec') and cortical ('conlern') mechanisms working in parallel Johnson et al, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2005 2 months to move to a cortical mode is in line with research in other systems. Newborn face perception Which features or aspects of face organisation are newborns responding to? Johnson et al, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2005 Neural correlates of infant face perception Are the neural mechanisms underlying perception the same as those of older children or adults? Can use EEG to study this. Classic comparison is upright vs inverted faces. Why? •All the visual information is the same, so a differential response indicates activity specific to face processing •Contrast with another upright vs inverted object for further evidence that the activity is specific to face processing What is plotted here is scalp activity. Human face has specific cortical response that is different to any other response. Development is not on/off, it instead moves from basic to sophisticated.

Diagnosis of Conduct Disorder (CD) (DSM-5)

Includes repetitive and persistent pattern of behaviour where the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate societal norms or rules are violated e.g. 3 or more of these in the past 12 months •Aggression to people and animals •Destruction of property •Deceitfulness or theft •Serious violations of rules And these behaviours cause significant impairment in social, academic or occupational functioning •Child-onset vs adolescent-onset type •Mild, moderate, or severe •In DSM-5: presence of callous-unemotional (CU) traits, or not Very high comorbidity with ADHD - 65%-90% of children with CD meet criteria for ADHD A strikingly similar pattern emerges from a similar analysis of a much larger British cohort (>12,000) at ages 4-13: Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children Barker & Maughan (2009) Maternal report on questionnaire (5 items) à each child scored as "high risk" or "not high risk" based on age norms The 5 questionnaire items: •often has temper tantrums or hot tempers •generally obedient, usually does what adults request •often fights with other children or bullies them •often lies or cheats •steals from home, school or elsewhere

Puberty

LHRH = Luteinizing-hormone-releasing hormone Gradual increases in LHRH amount and frequency of release before and during puberty •Increased LHRH in hypothalamus, which controls activity of •Pituitary gland, which stimulates •Adrenal cortex and gonads (testes & ovaries), which produce •Sex hormones (androgen, testosterone, estrogen, progesterone) Development of primary and secondary sexual characteristics But note feedback loops Terasawa & Fernandez, 2001

language introduction

Language is a symbolic system used to communicate complex ideas based on some mutually-agreed rules, most importantly: It is both rigid and fluid. There must be mutually agreed rules about this so that people actually understand each other Word meanings "Cat" (English) "Chat" (French) "Mačka" (CroatianGrammatical rules The cat's paw" (English) "La patte du chat" (French) "Mačkina šapa" (Croatian) 3 different rules for signifying possession Interesting questions for development Children readily learn word meanings and grammatical rules in whichever human language they are exposed to. •→ What is the interaction between innate capacities and experience in language learning? (nature nurture) •Children seem to be highly attuned to linguistic stimuli from an early age Auditory systems tend to be the first to develop (they develop in utero) • → How "biologically special" are speech perception, language learning, reading, and writing, compared with other cognitive abilities? → How uniquely human are they?

Early speech perception and phonology: Perception of phonemes

Later in the first year, perceptual narrowing (see Perception lecture) Werker & Tees, 1984: English 6- to 8-month-olds discriminate two Hindi "d" sounds that adult English speakers cannot discriminate English 10- to 12- month olds no longer make the distinction, but Hindi infants do Now replicated many times with other languages and phoneme discriminations, both behavioural and ERP measures (Review, Gervain & Werker, 2008) → Early capabilities plus learning indicate an "experience-expectant" system: one with an organisation that supports the learning of the phonetic categories in any particular language.Ability to learn languages is honed in to specific experiences (for a monolingual household_ Early speech perception and phonology: Speech segmentation Speech segmentation is difficult: sounds run into each other, and not every word boundary has a pause Example: "There are no silences between words" The gaps in the speech don't occur after every word. Understanding where the gaps are is challenging. Infants pick up statistical patterns in language as a cue to segmentation: •Transitional probabilities - in continuous speech, some sound combinations are more frequent than others. Frequent combination à likely to be within a word, infrequent combination à likely to be between words. Evidence that infants rapidly learn such probabilities in artificial languages Saffran et al, 1996 - and many follow-up studies) Example (see Saffran, 2003): Syllables: Pre / ty / ba / by Are the words "Pretty baby or "Pre tyba by?" In continuous speech heard by infants, "pre" is followed by "ty" very often (80%), whereas "ty" is followed by "ba" very rarely (0.03%). Frequent combination - more likely to be within a word Rare combination - more likely to be across words •A number of other cues correlated with word boundaries, e.g. stress patterns in specific languages - also learnt and used at 7-9 months. - Review, Werker & Gervain (2013) in Zelazo (Ed) Oxford Handbook of Developmental PsychologyEg Americans make the end of their words or sentences higher. This is the same with Australians. This is a cue that allows infants to know to distinguish the new sentence. • • •→ These mechanisms for "statistical learning" indicate that infants come equipped to learn the meaningful patterns and distinctions in the language they are exposed to • • • • •Later on: knowing some individual words can also help to determine where other words in the stream are

object recognition

Many aspects of object processing also need to develop, including: •Recognising objects (from different viewpoints) •Size and shape constancy •Understanding physical relationships, e.g. occlusion •Assumptions about objects, such as unity / coherence • Example: Kellman & Spelke, Cog Psychol 1983 Dishabituation method 4-month olds perceive as a whole object (the box and the rod) Subsequent studies (Slater et al 1990, 1994, 1996): newborns perceive as separate objects ( see it as 2 rods even when stick going behind box)

Cognition as information processing:

Modal memory model - Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968 Perception: Information acquisition Attention: Information selection Memory: Information storage Executive function: Control and coordination of information processing Development of memory and executive function •Major changes in both areas during infancy and childhood - and later over the lifespan • •There is a lot to describe and understand, as each term comprises many different functions • •These functions are often dissociable in their brain mechanisms and ages of development •Memory span refers to the longest list of items (e.g., digits, letters, words) that a person can repeat back in correct order on 50% of trials immediately after presentation. Multiple memory systems Dissociable in their functional properties and neural bases (from patients, imaging studies, animal studies)

Development of LTM: episodic memory "Infantile amnesia"?

Most adults have few memories of events below age 3 And from 3-7 years have fewer memories than would be predicted by forgetting alone However, it is not true that children below 3 cannot form episodic memories. 2- to 3-year-olds remember specific events over long time periods: studied by asking children to recall events that happened to them - e.g. visit to Disney World, birth of a sibling, trip to hospital (Fivush et al 1987, Hamond & Fivush, 1991, Sheingold & Tenney, 1979) But there must be some differences in infant vs older episodic memory - why do we have so few under-7 (and even fewer under-3) memories? Bauer et al, Psych Science 2007; see also summary online Studied 7- to 10-year-old children's autobiographical memories using cue words (e.g. "ice cream") to recall events, and a timeline with pictures to date them. Graph distribution of events in time. •Like adults, most memories were recalled in the past 2-3 years •Like adults, youngest memory at 3-4 years

Antisocial behaviour over the lifespan

ODD and CD are defined and diagnosed as disorders of childhood and adolescence (antisocial personality disorder, APD, may be considered an "adult" version of CD). • •How do ODD and CD relate to earlier or later kinds of antisocial behaviour? What overall developmental trajectory are they a part of? • •Consider antisocial behaviour more generally - not as part of ODD/CD diagnosis, which is limited to <18 year olds • •One source of data on antisocial behaviour: legal data (e.g. convictions) however this isn't great because most anti-social behaviour doesn't get caught • •But note that legal definitions and concerns differ from clinical Antisocial behaviour over the lifespan: Age crime curve Many data sets show a peak in the teenage and early adult years, followed by gradual decline This is data from the fbi which shows the peak of crime commiting. Such a large snapshot. No child data which is why you get that big peak before.See Eisner (2003), Crime & Justice - huge overall historical decrease in violent crime contrasts with relatively stable age profile of offenders Interpretation: adolescence and early adulthood = the peak of antisocial behaviour? Possible factors: development of physical strength and independence from supervision, perhaps out of sync with cognitive and moral development. But, limitations in data of this kind - -No information on antisocial behaviour in childhood - -Cross-sectional data means we don't know what the same individuals are doing over time à Motivation for longitudinal studies in which the same individuals are followed up over many years Early vs Late Starter Model Moffitt (1993) •Evidence that antisocial behaviour steadily increases at ages prior to those recorded in criminal statistics (as well as then decreasing after an early peak) • •Evidence that the peak represents a large number of "adolescence-limited" individuals whose antisocial behaviour does not continue • •Proposes that alongside these there is a small but important sub-population of "life-course-persistent" individuals with persistent antisocial behaviour at all ages à Two different developmental pathways for antisocial behaviour

perceptual narrowing

Perceptual development includes becoming an expert in making subtle discriminations, e.g. - telling apart two faces - telling apart the phonemes /ra/ and /la/ Interestingly, while becoming experts in making important distinctions, infants also lose their ability to make others à "perceptual narrowing" Getting more specific/ specialised. Lose discriminations that aren't important to you. -Young infants distinguish phonemes from a variety of languages, but by 6-12 months are losing the ability to make distinctions not in their own native language. (e.g. Werker & Tees, Dev Psychobiol 2005). - -Adults learn these only with difficulty. Perception of phonemes in early infancy Sensitivities at, or soon after, birth Infants discriminate similar-sounding phonemes, e.g. /b/ vs. /p/,At 1-4 months evidence for categorical perception - better on either side of a boundary used by adults (Eimas et al 1971) More attention to differences in phoneme than differences in voice of speaker (Kuhl, 1979) Perception of phonemes later in the first year, after "perceptual narrowing" Werker & Tees, 1984: English 6- to 8-month-olds discriminate two Hindi sounds that adult English speakers cannot discriminate English 10- to 12- month olds no longer make the distinction, but Hindi infants do Now replicated many times with other languages and phoneme discriminations, both behavioural and ERP measures (Review, Gervain & Werker, 2008)Young infants discriminate both human faces and monkey faces equally, but by 9 months respond more to a novel human face than a novel monkey face (Pascalis et al, Science 2002) Perceptual narrowing makes sense: as the brain's resources are limited, it should learn distinctions that are important and not those that are not Infants start with flexible, general-purpose perceptual and learning mechanisms that are fine-tuned by experience Key questions: How flexible and general are infants' learning mechanisms? ß What is the time window ("critical period") different kinds of learning? Discussion: see Werker & Tees, Dev Psychobiol 2005

Adolescents - Emotion Perception

Point lights show biological emotions. Dynamic Clips of: Happiness Sadness Anger Fear Ross, P. D., Polson, L., & Grosbras, M. H. (2012). Developmental changes in emotion recognition from full-light and point-light displays of body movement. PLoS one, 7(9), e44815. Adolescents - Emotion Perception Sharp rise until 100 months which is about 8. Visual cortex goes first.Grosbras, M. H., Ross, P. D., & Belin, P. (2018). Categorical emotion recognition from voice improves during childhood and adolescence. Scientific reports, 8(1), 14791. Happiness and sadness are very high Anger and fear are quite low. Can just be an experience FMRI work Scanned kids and adolescents Kids see that there is less activation. Ross, P. D., de Gelder, B., Crabbe, F., & Grosbras, M. H. (2014). Body-selective areas in the visual cortex are less active in children than in adults. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 8.Temporal sulcus (TS) Difference - more active in adults when they look at bodies, no difference when looking at inanimate objects. Adolescents - Emotion PerceptionBody>Non-Body Voxel - is like a 3D pixel- FMRI can show us where the most active voxel is. Adolescents end up nicely in the middle for all. Ross, P. D., de Gelder, B., Crabbe, F., & Grosbras, M. H. (2014). Body-selective areas in the visual cortex are less active in children than in adults. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 8. Angry>Neutral Happy>Neutral & Grosbras M.-H. (2019). Emotion Modulation of Body-Selective Areas in Children and Adolescents. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.

Executive function and brain development

Prefrontal cortex (PFC) is crucial for EF in adults. (Review of evidence - Robbins, 1996) Recall, from the memory section: •Major prefrontal cortex development, inc synaptic growth, in first 2 years, further development inc synaptic through childhood and into adolescence PFC among last areas to mature: changes in grey matter density from MRI (Gogtay et al, 2004). Synaptic pruning is a decrease in density Also, direct evidence that developmental changes in PFC function accompany changes in executive function. Review: Fiske & Holmboe 2019 Example: Moriguchi et al, 2009

Theory of Mind: human development

Premack & Woodruff's (1978) work with chimps, and commentaries on this, led to interest in when and how "theory of mind" develops in children. Particularly: false belief* tasks. e.g. Wimmer & Perner, 1983; Baron-Cohen et al, 1985 *False belief tasks considered to provide the best test of understanding others' mental states. Need to predict how someone who has a belief different to one's own will act. This dissociation from own belief means that the correct answer cannot be based on own mental state The idea that others can have beliefs different from your own. Development perspective: How and when does theory of mind develop in kids? Theory of Mind: human development "Theory-of-mind" hypothesis for autism: proposal that ability to understand others' mental states is impaired in autism, predicting that individuals with autism will fail false belief tasks •Baron-Cohen et al, 1985•Baron-Cohen, 1995, Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory of mind •Those with autism are believe to fail as they cannot attribute mental states different from their own to other people.

Development of spatial representations

Recent and current research, using simple direct responses rather than explicit reasoning or problem-solving Many tasks are directly comparable with those used with animals Preview: From birth - spatial orienting (egocentric) (we can orient towards simple responses) In 1st year - from "egocentrism" to spatial updating (take in to account position to our own body) At 18-24 months - use of spatial updating and landmarks - specific landmark: room "geometry" (where am I relative to a certain landmark eg a door) At 5 years+ - flexible coding using indirect landmarks Whats the difference between direct and indirect landmarks? Neonatal spatial orienting (egocentric) Newborns can roughly localise visual, auditory and tactile stimuli in space Early spatial coding is largely egocentric - only relative to own body Cortical or subcortical? 1st year: from egocentrism to spatial updating Acredolo, 1978; Acredolo, 1980 The infant is in the enclosure. The infant learns to orient to a window where an experimenter is playing "peekaboo" (a) whenever a buzzer sounds (infant's RIGHT). The infant is carried and picked up to the opposite side. The buzzer sounds. Look to the (a) correct window, (now infant's LEFT) or (b) the incorrect (but egocentrically "correct") window? (the buzzer sounds overhead so it doesn't provide a spatial cue. Ability to update position correctly when moved develops at around 1 year. e.g. fail at 11 months but pass at 16 months in Acredolo, 1978Spatial updating is relative to yourself as you move. Eg ants 18+ months: spatial updating and landmark use "Sandbox task", Huttenlocher et al (1994); Newcombe et al (1998Same side (egocentric): above chance at 16 months Opposite side (updating and/or landmarks): also above chance (although less precise) at 16 months Updating or landmarks? Adding extra landmarks in the room improved performance only from 22 months+. So update using egocentric spatial updating. Updating: 16 months + Landmarks: 22 months + 18+ months: landmark use - room geometry

Development of infant LTM

Rovee-Collier and colleagues, see review, Rovee-Collier, 1999 Infants learn that kicking makes the mobile move. Do they remember? Expt: test again with trained (or novel) mobile. Used to measure properties of infant memory, e.g.: -3-month olds remember after 1 week delay -Given the same number of training sessions, max length of retention increases linearly with age -But having more training sessions can extend the retention interval even at younger ages. At older ages used a task in which infant learnt that pressing a lever makes a toy train move These kicks are recognition tests, but infants can also be primed by a cue to remember something they have forgotten, which is a more implicit form of learning. Both are present from earlyinfancy. These kicks are recognition tests, but infants can also be primed by a cue to remember something they have forgotten, which is a more implicit form of learning. Both are present from early infancy. Another widely used test of nonverbal recall: deferred imitation / elicited imitation (Meltzoff, Bauer). Preverbal infants recall action sequences many months later. This is a form of explicit memory As with the Rovee-Collier mobile kicking studies, older age à longer recall more repetitionsà longer recall Also: importance of "post-encoding" processes (consolidation) - more info: Bauer lab

Syntax (structure)

Rules of grammar - how to combine and modify words Without grammar - telegraphic speech, very basic communication Children's earliest word combinations, at around 18 months •"Mummy apple" With grammar - express more complex relations •"Mummy ate the apple" • •"Mummy ate the green apple" • •"Mummy ate the green apple that was on the table" • •"Mummy ate the green apple that was on the table because there were no oranges left"... Rules of grammar - how to combine and modify words Rules are language specific: for example, English the order has to be subject-verb-object (SVO) ("mummy ate the apple") → As with sounds and word meanings, the infant has to work out which particular grammatical rules their own language uses English Grammar•Opinion - Size - Age - Shape - Colour - Origin - Material - Purpose - Noun So you can have a: Lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. The Green lovely rectangular French old silver whittling little knife (this sounds bizarre as it doesn't follow the order) So even for Size and Colour and Age: Green Big Old Dragons Big Old Green Dragons

Atypical development of executive function

Several disorders of childhood onset, including ASD (autism spectrum disorders), ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), Tourette syndrome, are associated with impairments in EF. • •But not all children who meet clinical diagnosis for ASD or ADHD show EF impairment, so EF impairment alone is not enough to explain these disorders. • •Also some evidence for EF impairment contributing to reading difficulty, specific language impairment, and predicting behavioural problems. See Miyake 2012 Summary: memory and executive function •Cognitive development and cognition as information processing • •Experimental tasks have been developed to test aspects of information processing even in young infants • •Components of memory are in place early, but there are major quantitative changes (e.g. in retention interval) in the early years •Components of executive function develop in the first years of life, and mature significantly over childhood, adolescence and the lifespan. Some developmental disorders are linked to problems with EF. •In adults, aspects of memory and executive function are now quite well understood in terms of dissociable neuronal mechanisms. Development of these is likely to underlie many of the changes in infancy and childhood: •Indirect evidence - neural and behavioural changes happen at similar times •Direct evidence - individual differences in brain function correlate with individual differences in behaviour

What develops?

Spelke: nativist approach. "core knowledge" of basic spatial concepts supplemented by education and language (Spelke & Kinzler, 2007) Newcombe: empiricist or "neoconstructivist" approach. Increasingly sophisticated spatial coding schemes are constructed from experience (Newcombe, 2011)Dissociable neural bases for different kinds of spatial coding - e.g. "place" vs "response" learning in rats (similar dissociation to Acredolo orienting studies) "place" learning and flexible landmark use associated with the hippocampus - in animals, human patients and healthy humans. To what extent does development of cognitive abilities depend on brain development, e.g. of the hippocampus?Sluzenski et al, 2004

Piaget - Conservation tasks

Striking failures of reasoning about physical properties until the "concrete operational" stage (around 6-7 years) Made a change to objects that did not affect absolute quantity but did affect layout. Asks child whether absolute quantity changes or not. In each of these incidences, the correct answers no. Children answer incorrectly till older age eg 6-7. VIDEO The Three Mountains task (Piaget & Inhelder, 1956) Do children understand how things look from another viewpoint? Preschool children (≤ 4 yrs) unable to choose pictures showing how the mountains would look from other points of view Tend to choose the picture of their own view "egocentrism" ( this can be interpreted as just spatial reasoning or in other aspects of development as Piaget did) Consistently correct solutions not until 10-12 years Piaget's classic tasks show that explicit reasoning about formal properties (e.g. of space, number, area, volume) takes a long time to develop • •However, basic precursors of these abilities develop very early: studies show that infants have capabilities for representing space and number - as do nonhuman animals (there are some early and innate basic abilities but these become trained as we get older) • •Later-developing formal spatial and mathematical systems are uniquely human and are also supported by language

why does perception undergo post natal development?

Structure and function of sensory organs, e.g. eyes, ears: minor changes • •Structure and function of sensory brain areas: MAJOR changes • •These changes depend on sensory EXPERIENCE (see brain development lecture) Perceptual abilities To study how perception develops, what can we measure? (1) Different sensory modalities •Vision •Audition •Touch •Smell •Taste •Proprioception •Vestibular sense Within our brains there are submodules of modalities. Basic abilities are present at birth and there are more crude versions of complex abilities.

What might the consequences of these purely bodily changes be for... Perception ? Motor skill ? Social interaction ?

The body changes hugely in both size and proportional. These bodily changes have implications for perception, motor skill and communication. Children are asked to navigate worlds that are not proportional to them. Also looking up to adults etcHormonal changes have effects on behaviour, brain development. like the rest of the body, the brain develops in utero Postnatally, the brain undergoes further major structural changes, which change how it processes information These brain changes are closely linked to behavioural changes we can observe in infancy and childhood Study of these links: "Developmental cognitive neuroscience" If you were going to write a news article on the brain what would be some points: Prenatal exposure to hormones Environmental stimuli effects how the brain develops. Synaptic pruning- unused dendrites start to die off as they are no longer needed. Localistaion of function in the brain Do exercises like this Studying the developing brain promises to tell us a lot about children's perceptual, cognitive and social development BUT keep in mind that: - A lot about how human perception, cognition and social interactions depend on the brain is still unknown - Not all researchers agree that studying these functions in terms of their basis in the brain provides the most useful kind of information - What do YOU think?

interpretation of typical 4 year olds ability to pass a false belief task

The classic interpretation is that: •Children attribute to the character a belief that is different to their own (and false from their point of view) • •Children recognise that the character's belief is what guides his actions • •So recognise that people's relationship to the world is mediated by their mental representations - they act not based on how things are, but on how they think they are (Perner, 1991) Have to think about how other people see the same situation as you. We are very egocentric so even now this rarely happens. How do children acquire a "theory of mind"? And if those with autism do not do so, why not? •"Theory-theory". e.g. Gopnik & Wellman, 1994. AKA "the child (as little) scientist theory". Acquiring a TOM is analogous to a theory development in science - children collect evidence and refine their hypotheses based on this.Simulation theory. e.g. Harris, 1992. TOM depends on being able to imagine the other's point of view - i.e. to simulate the other person's mental states. • •Modularity theory. e.g. Baron-Cohen, 1995. TOM is an innate human cognitive capacity (though one that needs to mature). The "theory of mind module" can be impaired in developmental disorders A detailed account of these theories (and various versions of them), can be found in this Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article

What is social Psychology?

The discipline that seeks to understand how the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagines or implied presence of others

Functional specialisation and post natal brain development

The mature brain is specialised: (1) Anatomically - these are Brodmann's areas, a classification of different brain regions based on their anatomy. Brodmann's areas have different cytoarchitecture (cell architecture; arrangement of cells at a microscopic scale). Brodmann first described these in the 1900s. Brain functions are localised in different region of the brain Broadmann's areas are classifications based on anatomy. 2016 study (Glasser et al) - "classic" areas confirmed, and new ones established, from MRI scans of 210 adults. See BBC news article. Connectome is a huge study, painstaking looking at scans of 210 brains. Did really detailed modelling of connections and clusters of cells. Basic idea that there are specialised areas of the brain. The mature brain is specialised: •So an important part of what the young brain is trying to develop is functional specialisation. • •How might it accomplish this? • •Prominent current theory: "Interactive specialisation" • •Interaction of genetics and experience. There are genetically specified growth patterns, but these can change and adapt as a result of experience and its resulting neural activity. • •"activity-dependent interactions between regions sharpens up the functions and response properties of cortical regions such that their activity becomes restricted to a narrower set of circumstances' (Johnson, 2011).The very early brain has loads of connections everywhere, so how does it become specialised? Through interactive specialisation. A theory developed by Mark Johnson. There are competition between different regions. If you think of gthe opposing theories, functions set at birth or nothing at birth and then develop both, this is in the middle Some areas are predisposed to certain functions, while others are not and are completely blank.

How is syntax learnt?

Theory 1: Explicit corrections from parents Children learn because their parents correct their grammar. No. In fact: Factual mistakes are corrected: Child: "Walt Disney comes on Tuesday". Mum: "No, he does not". But not grammatical errors: Child: "Mamma isn't boy, he a girl". Mum: "That's right". (Brown & Hanlon, 1970) Theory 2: Skinner's operant conditioning model (1957) Skinner proposed that like other abilities, language could be learnt through imitation, trial and error, and reinforcement. (Skinner, Verbal Behavior, 1957)."a child acquires verbal behavior when relatively unplanned vocalisations, selectively reinforced, assume forms which produce appropriate consequences in a given verbal community" Basically you reward them when they're right. Chomsky (1959) "A Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior" Behaviourism studies only observables, or "input and output" relations. Chomsky argued that to understand a high-level process like language, we need to posit internal representations, e.g. symbols. i.e. to produce language we cannot just map inputs to outputs, we need an intermediate stage of mental representation that is not directly observable Theory 3: Chomsky's innate Language Acquisition Device (1965) surface structure, but they are really comprehending the deep structure. The rules relating surface to deep structure are too complex to be learnt by associative learning The fact that humans can learn them at all must mean that they have an innate capacity for grammar, i.e. arrive with some constraints/expectations for what kinds of grammars are possible in human language.

Early phonology, semantics and syntax

There is evidence in all three domains that infants come prepared with flexible language learning mechanisms. These are "experience expectant": refined through exposure to a particular language. Some important questions: •Are these mechanisms specific to language? • •How "biologically special" is language? • How uniquely human is language Are language learning mechanisms specific to language? CRITICAL PERIODS in language acquisition have been taken as evidence that language is special. From very rare cases of children who had no exposure to language, and much more common cases of second language learning. • BUT Evidence for overlap of language learning mechanisms and other learning mechanisms: •Infants also learn co-occurrence statistics of visual stimuli (Fiser & Aslin, 2002 - see Perception lecture) - broader learning rules may underlie some aspects of language acquisition. • •A general-purpose model of statistical learning could explain errors that seemed to be specific to language (over-regularisation of the past tense, Rumelhart & McClelland, 1985) Performance on an English grammar tests by native-Chinese & Korean adults who had arrived in the US at various ages (Johnson & Newport, 1989)

planning

Tower of Hanoi task - Klahr & Robinson, 1981, "Formal Assessment of Problem-Solving and Planning Processes in Preschool Children" Major improvements in the ability to plan ahead Older children more likely to pursue long term goals, could keep more subgoals in mind Interesting to think about applications to schools. Kids start joining schools at this time. Inhibition Inhibiting a routine or familiar response - also a crucial EF / prefrontal cortex function Classic adult test: stroop test A simplified (child appropriate) version of the classic Stroop task: "day and night" task - Gerstadt et al, 1994 70% correct at 3.5 years à 90% correct at age 7 years Have to say day when see picture of sun and night when picture of a moon then swap.

Development of LTM: episodic memory

Unlike adults, forgetting curve differs. In adults, power function: over time since the memory, forgetting slows, presumably as a result of consolidation: older memories are less vulnerable. • •In children, exponential function: forgetting continues at a constant rate, implying memories are not consolidated. Even older memories are vulnerable to being forgotten. • •Lack of early memories not because they were not laid down, but because more likely to be forgotten. More forgetting perhaps because of development and change and reorganisation in memory networks in the brain (more on this shortly). • •Number of details and level of complexity in narratives increase across childhood. Relations between children's memory for life events and their general cognitive abilities, such as speed of processing, source memory, and memory for temporal order. Development of STM in infancy: delayed response Interest S in a stimulus, hide it, test after how long an interval it is correctly found à estimate of duration of working memory (STM). Devised by Hunter (1917) Tests with infants show development of STM with age Here (Diamond & Doar, 1989) this is proposed to relate to development of prefrontal cortex à shown in patient and animal studies to be crucial for this kind of memory Here also related to performance on the "A not B" task (Piaget) - implies similar mechanism involved in both

imaging brain development

We have reviewed major pre- and post-natal STRUCTURAL changes in the brain It is clear that these have implications for brain FUNCTION To study developmental changes in brain FUNCTION more directly, we can also use imaging methods: And animal models - including lesion studies and single cell recording Testing Interactive Specialisation: increased tuning •Gathers et al. (2004): 5-8yrs and 9-11 yrs have similar BOLD activation in fusiform gyrus (FG), but only 9-11-year olds show specialized responses for faces in comparison to objects. • •Aylward et al. (2005): increased bilateral selective activation for faces vs. houses in older children (10-12yrs) in comparison to younger children (8-10 yrs) See if responses become more refined with experience. FG- area for processing faces. Testing interactive specialisation: changing connections "The focus on interactions between regions is consistent with the emergence of networks to support cognitive functions, as opposed to the focus on the emergence of functionality in individual regions characteristic of the maturational approach". (Johnson, 2011). Developing Human Connectome. The connections between regions are what sharpen their tuning. •Developing connections predict cognitive outcomes at 2 years (Girault et al, 2019)Publications now are looking at connections in the young infant brain. This is looking at outcomes using a standard test. Used model to predict how this will look in pre-term infants.Particular importance for connections between frontal cortex and rest of the brain. Circles are nodes that were important for connection, the bigger, the more important.Functional connectivity index shown. Show baby a task and look at patterns iof activation in brain during task. Which areas are communicating most with eachother, this is known as functional connectivity and this was found to be associated with the motor score. •Structural connections are largely present by birth (Zhao et al, 2019)...•But functional connections change, moving from visual-motor to more frontal by 2 years (Zhao et al, 2019). You can see that the structural patterns are similar, but functional connections change a lot. Become functionally much more involved. •But we need a lot more data on this! (Ropat et al, 2017)

Multisensory development in a multisensory environment

We often recieve redundant information (=same info across more than one sense) • Advantages of redundancy: • •When more information is available, it is possible to make faster or more accurate decisions • •Flexibility - use one cue when other not available • •Correlations between cues allow us to separate and attend to important objects. Uses correlations to give information about event. The proposal (see Bahrick & Lickliter, 2012) •Events that go together have "amodal" features in common such as temporal synchrony, rhythm, tempo. • •Young infants tune in to these redundantly specified, amodal properties of stimuli • •An account of how "young infants, with no prior knowledge of the world, rapidly come to perceive unitary events and attend to stimulation that is relevant to their needs and actions". Some evidence (review, Bahrick & Lickliter, 2012 - this study, Bahrick & Lickliter, 2000) •5 month-olds (n=8/gp) see and/or hear a hammer tapping a surface to a rhythm. Either see and hear or just one sense. • •After habituation looking time goes down (they get bored) • •They change the rhythm. Will they show more interest (longer looking)? ••Prediction: will have noticed/learnt the rhythm better in the two-cue (audiovisual) condition than given single cues. à Redundant information across senses guides attention and learning

Early speech and phonology

Words can be just meaningless It is just a soundwave You can do other cues like tone that aren't language related. Early speech perception and phonology •Sucking behaviour: newborns recognise their mother's voice compared with a stranger's (DeCasper & Fifer, 1980) •Infants also recognise a speech passage heard in utero compared with a new passage (DeCasper & Spence, 1986) •More recently: measures of fetal heart rate (at full term, 38 weeks) show increase to mother vs stranger reading the same poem (Kisilevsky et al 2003)•→ Evidence for very early sensitivity to speech and capacity for learning - may be based on speaker identity and/or intonation rather than processing parts of speech in a manner useful for comprehension It may just be familiarity, but it shows they recognise. It is just on identity and intonation.

Development of executive function: working memory

Working memory = short term memory for holding items need for an ongoing task "Working memory" is described as an aspect of executive function, but it is also described as an aspect of memory Recall, from earlier slides on memory Diamond & Doar, 1989 Increasing retention interval for spatial location cognitive flexibility Dimensional Change Card Sort Task, Zelazo et al 1996.Sort the same cards in two different ways, e.g. first by shape, then by colour (similar to Wisconsin card sorting test for adults, used to test EF and frontal lobe dysfunction) • •VIDEO • •Typically developing children can switch by 4 years, younger children have difficulties switching • •Provides a measure of EF, is impaired in children with ADHD and autism These tasks have been picked up from clinical literature and adapted to children. Halfway through they ask you to switch. These tasks have been picked up from clinical literature and adapted to children. Halfway through they ask you to switch.

What about reading and writing?

Writing is a symbolic system for making a record of spoken language With education, children can become highly proficient at reading and writing Note that reading and writing are much more recent than spoken language -Estimates of first "proto-language" range from 100,000 years to 2 million years ago -Earliest known writing only 3,600 BC → So humans' impressive reading and writing skills are likely to be based around pre-existing perceptual and motor abilities With spoken language, we addressed the question of how specific, special or unique to humans language abilities are How specific, special or unique are reading abilities? Reading is a historically new skill, so there is little scope for evolution of specific written language mechanisms à Research by Stanislas Dehaene and colleagues, including this 2009 book

physiological measures

galvanic response, heart rate, hormones - just measuring arousal

Research methods for development

long does infant spend looking at image 1 vs image 2? It shows that they can tell a difference if they look at the two images for different lengths of time Eye tracking Eye tracker (camera) determines where on the screen the infant is looking Like preferential looking, but collects more detailed information about looking patterns Records infants gaze More precise than preferential looking task. Allows us to track attention and what drives attentional capture Physiological methods Eg heart rate, pupil dilation, skin conductance Eg visual cliff experiment uses heart rate to see if they can perceive visual drop Skin conductance- see when you throw snowball at visual body Thermal imaging Neuroimaging / neurorecording EEG (electroencephalogram) Record electrical signals related to brain activity NIRS (near-infra-red spectroscopy) Measure changes in light absorption related to brain's use of oxygen (similar to fMRI) EEG is most common- meausure electrical activity propagated on scalp. Can measure time and stuff. A bit crude NIRS- better spatial resolution. MRI All the previous research methods can be used on infantsExperimental tasks can only be used on older children as they can begin to articulate their thoughts Experimental tasks are ideally presented as a game. Older children can start to get verbal responses. Start to take detailed quantitative measures. You can also used standardised tests on older children such as NEPSY ("A Developmental NEuroPSYchological Assessment") ADOS ("Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule") NEPSY screen for potential general difficulties Can see where they sit on standardised scales. Also for older children can do more detailed neuroimaging Functional MRI - need to be in the scanner, awake, attending to stimuli, often doing a task, all while keeping very still (Structural MRI, can do while asleep) Child needs to be able to be still, minimum 5 years.

eye movements

smooth pursuit system (track movement continuously) Saccadic system (one off eye movement from A to B) Why do eye movements (EMs) take time to mature? •EMs are controlled by a network of brain areas, cortical and sub-cortical •Development of EMs depends on brain development guided by normal visual experience Setting up normal EMs is a complex problem and EMs can fail to develop normally •Eye movement disorders include failure to develop proper vergence and nystagmus (unsteady fixation). •Can result from poor visual experience (e.g. blurred vision in one eye) There are lots of areas involved in getting eyes to make movements

pre-natal brain development

the brain begins life as a "plate" of cells in the embryo, which over quite a short period folds into a tube. The plate folds its middle portion In to a tube called the neural tube.This tube grows to become the spinal cord with the brain its top Various distinct areas form. The nervous system continues to develop.After this initial formation, the brain begins division into the separate parts which make up an adult brain: •Midbrain •Thalamus •Cerebellum •Cortex (neocortex) • Each part of cortex is also composed of several layers, which gradually differentiate Cortex sits on top of everything else and is composed of many layers which differ in function.Six stages of CNS (central nervous system) development during the fetal period - two months to birth The cells end up in an adult like configuration Cells divide and form new neurons Migrate to new destinations Cells differentiate. Cells in different areas have different forms and shapes Childhood you get lots if new synapses growing., cell death then rearrangement. This is all before birth. Note: All these processes are driven by gene expression, proteins and chemical signalling. Abnormalities in these processes can lead to abnormal brain development and disorders - e.g. abnormal migration reported in learning disabilities, schizophrenia, autism

What is construct validity?

the degree to which a test measures what it is supposed to this can be broken down in to Face validity- does it seem to measure what it is supposed to measure Predictor validity- can we use this to predict future behaviour Convergent validity- does it correlate with existing measures of the thing

Semantics

the meanings of words Now that we have perceived the phonemes and picked out the word "cat", how do we know what it refers to? Dramatic vocabulary development: Comprehension of 50-100 words at 18 months → 900 words at 2 years → 8000 words at 6 yearsAssociative / perceptual account: Associative learning plus perceptual similarity - Smith (2000) Picking up on statistics in the environment. You just see the cat around and see that the cat is frequently paired with the word cat. Eg hear the word dick and will say it. Social account: Children need social cues such as pointing and eye gaze to learn words (Tomasello, 1988; Bloom, 2001) Hybrid approach: Emergentist Coalition Model (ECM) Hollich et al, 2000 •Children learn words using perceptual, social, and linguistic cues • •Their reliance on these cues changes over time: mostly associative in 1st year of life, then increasingly reliant on social and linguistic information (Pruden et al, 2006; Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek-2006). • •Incorporates and builds on previously documented constraints and biases, e.g. • •Assumption of mutual exclusivity. Children expect that different words mean different things. Markman & Wachtel, 1988: Eg there should be one word for everything eg computer/ laptop Will assume that a laptop is a component of a computer • •3- to 4-year-olds assign newly introduced nonsense syllable to a novel object they don't yet have a word for, not the familiar one • • • •And when given new labels (e.g. trachea or pewter) for known objects, tend to interpret this as a part of the object, or the substance it is made of Syntactic bootstrapping → using syntax (grammar) to infer word meaning (Gleitman, 1990) "Big bird is gorping Cookie Monster"Will look at the picture with the arrow going from big bird to the cookie monster. "Big bird is gorping with Cookie Monster" They will look at the picture with the arrow going both ways •A child who hears the left phrase usually looks at the left image, and vice versa. •This shows that children use a grammatical distinction to help assign meanings to the words they hear (e.g. gorping seems to be a transitive verb, so the scene should be one where someone is doing something to someone else)

multi-sensory development

•1. Newborn abilities and subsequent development •2. Vision: basic properties •3. Vision: faces and objects •4. Perceptual narrowing Newborn abilities and subsequent development See also: Bukatko & Daehler, Child Development, Chapter 6 Leman et al, Developmental Psychology, Chapter 6 Vision At birth •Eye control: poor accommodation (focus), poor vergence (both eyes converging on same target), 'jerky' eye movements •Orients to patterns and faces, but limited visual acuity (ability to see detail) (there is a lot of knock on effects of this) and contrast sensitivity At 1-3 months •Development of better accommodation, vergence, and smooth eye movements for tracking moving targets •Better acuity and contrast sensitivity, emerging abilities to distinguish motion, orientations, patterns, and stereo (binocular) depth At 4-8 months •Acuity and contrast sensitivity getting closer to adult levels •Global organisation of stimuli, e.g. coherent form and motion •Discriminate different faces reliably •Depth from pictorial cues •Biological motion Audition At birthRecognise sounds and voices heard in utero •Prefers mother's voice to stranger's •Localise sounds in space At 1-3 months •Distinguish different speech sounds • • At 4-8 months •Increasing range of sensitivity to pitch (high and low) •Distinguish auditory patterns, e.g. different pitches, rhythms, melodies • At 9-12 months •Being to lose the ability to discriminate speech sounds not used in the language ( perceptual narrowing)

Cognitive development: risk taking

•Adolescents take more risks than children or adults do → statistics on car crashes, binge drinking, contraceptive use, crime, and results of surveys (e.g. Resnick et al, 1997) •Adolescents take more risks than children or adults do • •Two promising avenues for explaining this risky behaviour • •Cognitive factors •Given what we know about adolescents' immaturity in executive function (incl decision making and inhibition) • •Social factors •Given the decrease in parental supervision, together with forming new kinds of relationships with own peers • •These are not mutually exclusive - they could both be involved, and they could interact. Cognitive processes relevant to risk taking and decision making include: •Judging how risky an activity is, in general (e.g. drink driving) •Judging own vulnerability to it •Judging seriousness of consequences (e.g. if crash, or if caught) • Studies have asked: are adolescents deficient in these judgements? Cognitive development: risk taking Review paper: Reyna & Farley (2006), "Risk and Rationality in Adolescent Decision Making" Example: % choosing the more "risky" option in a laboratory task declines with age (Reyna & Mattson, 1994) Follow-up study: continues to decline in adults (Levin & Hart, 2003)Assessing the likely consequences of real-life risky behaviours Questionnaire with different scenarios, Beyth-Marom et al, 1993 Adolescents (n=199) vs adults (n=199) Similar response patterns for adolescents and adults - do not differ in their beliefs about what might happen e.g. Assessing the likely consequences of real-life risky behaviours Do those adolescents who engage in risky behaviours underestimate the risks? Reviewed in Reyna & Farley (2006) •In one study, adolescents who were smokers or who engaged in unprotected sex à estimated their risk of lung cancer or sexually transmitted disease as significantly higher than others did (Johnson, McCaul & Klein, 2002) • •Other studies: "optimistic bias" no more prevalent in adolescents than adults - on the contrary, adolescents perceive themselves are more vulnerable • •So adolescents do not under-estimate the risks • •BUT - adolescents' risky decisions may still be rational: •Rational decision making is a trade-off between risks and benefits •Perceived benefits of risky behaviour may be high for adolescents •The risk could be "worth it" Cognitive development: risk taking Implications for education/intervention? •It is not that adolescents fail to perceive how risky a course of action is - they perceive how risky it is but do it anyway • •Explains failures of attempts to educate adolescents about risks of drugs, alcohol, tobacco? Steinberg (2004); Steinberg (2007) If adolescents already know the risks, perhaps we should instead focus on the benefits (persuade them that the benefits are not as great as they think?) Cognitive and social development: risk taking Steinberg (2004); Steinberg (2007) The need to consider psychosocial factors as well as cognitive Steinberg (in line with the studies we have just reviewed): adolescents' inclination to engage in risky behaviour does not appear to be due to irrationality, delusions of invulnerability, or ignorance •But risk taking in the real world is the product of both logical reasoning and psychosocial factors • •Logical reasoning quite mature by 15 years; in contrast, psychosocial capacities that moderate risk taking (impulse control, emotion regulation, delay of gratification, resistance to peer influence) continue to mature well into adulthood • •It's psychosocial maturity, not cognitive abilities, that need to developSteinberg (2004); Steinberg (2007) Evidence for development of impulse control, emotion regulation, etc, into adulthood? (See if you can find some research studies cited in the two Steinberg review papers?) Some evidence for the effect of peer influence on decision-making:

•Can these multisensory temporal correspondences be used to drive a sense of one's own body?

•Are infants able to detect the correspondence between proprioceptively felt movement, and viewed movement? Show infants a display screen, either have a live feed of their own legs kicking, or a pre recording of their legs kicking at a different tempo. What one do they look longer at? •5 month olds but not 3 month olds look longer at a live feed of their own legs than a prerecording of their own, or someone else's, legs (Bahrick & Watson, 1985). • •3-5 month olds look longer when legs move in the opposite direction to their own current movement (Rochat & Morgan, 1995). •So infants notice the visuomotor correlation -- but may not relate it to their own body (Bahrick, 2013; Bremner & Cowie 2013). • •"any crossmodal links that infants make in this context are necessarily abstracted from spatial frames of reference centred on the body and limbs. This prompts the question of whether an ability to link this screen-based visual information to somatosensory input is of relevance to spatial representations of the body and limbs that could provide the basis for sensorimotor coordination, and body representations more generally." (Bremner, 2016) •Are infants able to detect the correspondence between tactile (felt) stroking on their own legs and viewed stroking on viewed legs (Zmyj et al, 2011)? 10-month-olds, but not 7-month-olds, looked longer at the synchronous display. This suggests visual-tactile correspondence is used to perceive (identify) the body at 10 months. However, the same criticisms apply as to visual-proprioceptive studies. •Filippetti et al, 2013 similarly used looking time to show that newborns detected visuotactile synchrony of stroking on their face and viewed strokes on another infant face.his is in line with adult work which shows that synchronous stroking on a viewed face and one's own face can due adults can experience an 'enfacement illusion' (you think your face looks more like the other person) (Tajadura-Jimenez, Longo, Coleman & Tsakiris, 2012). •But again methods problems: monitors at a distance; could they see the brush? • •Children engage in mirror self-recognition only in the second year of life (Lewis, 1999). • •à Perceptual discrimination isn't the same as subjective experience

Development in adolescence

•The period from puberty to adulthood • •From the Latin adolescere, "to grow up" • •The transition to assuming an adult social role • •A period of major physical, cognitive and social change •ends in early 20's and starts at around 13

use of fasle belief task to study autism

→ Use of the same method to study understanding of false belief in adults with Asperger Syndrome (AS) Senju et al (2009). Mindblind Eyes: An Absence of Spontaneous Theory of Mind in Asperger Syndrome. Asperger Syndrome (AS): a type of autism spectrum disorder, with relatively preserved cognitive and language abilities It May be a form of high-functioning autism* Includes impairment in social interaction, but good cognitive abilities in individuals with AS often allow them to learn and follow social norms in a deliberate manner. e.g. Bowler (1995) showed AS individuals solving "theory of mind" tasks. Senju et al: how do individuals with AS compare with controls on this spontaneous / intutive theory of mind task? *Asperger Syndrome is no longer a diagnosis in the latest (2013) edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Replaced by a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder on a severity scale. à Use of the same method to study understanding of false belief in adults with Asperger Syndrome (AS) Senju et al (2009). Mindblind Eyes: An Absence of Spontaneous Theory of Mind in Asperger Syndrome. •Adults with AS do not anticipate where the actor will search • •Unlike healthy adults and 2-year olds, adults with AS do not show "spontaneous" attribution of mental states - even though they tend (in other studies) to pass explicit tests.•Evidence for a dissociation between implicit and explicit understanding of TOM. Explicit can be learnt / can use strategies to solve. You can use your cignitiev abilities to solve this. People with AS have the same rate oif looking as simply chance. And returning to apes... (October 2016) paper in Science - same method