Psychology Exam #4
What is the sequence of language development (6)?
1. 2-3 months: cooing 2. 4-6 months: babbling 3. 12 months: real words 4. 18 months: telegraphic speech 5. 2-3 years: vocabulary explosion 6. 5-6 years: fluency in native language
What are the 3 experimental methods used to study development?
1. Cross-sectional 2. Longitudinal 3. Cross-Sequential
What are the 4 theories of whether physiology or emotion comes first?
1. James-Lange Theory 2. Cannon-Bard Theory 3. Schachter-Singer Theory 3. Cognitive Appraisal and Emotion
What are the 2 classifications of twins? What makes them different?
1. Monozygotic twins - identical 2. Dizygotic twins - fraternal monozygotic twins develop from one egg and one sperm and have identical sets of chromosomes. dizygotic twins develop from two separate eggs inseminated by two different sperm and do not have identical chromosomes.
What are the 3 categories of development?
1. Physical 2. Cognitive 3. Socioemotional
What are 2 important components of normal language acquisition?
1. Physical development - mostly in language-processing areas 2. Exposure to language - if a child is not exposed to language during the first several years, normal language skills will not develop
What are Piaget's 4 stages of cognitive development?
1. Sensorimotor 2. Pre-operational 3. Concrete Operational 4. Formal Operational
What are the 3 main debates in regard to development?
1. Stages v. Continuity 2. Hereditary v. Environmental Influences 3. Stability v. Change
How many words do most children know by age 6?
13,000
How many chromosomes does a human's dna have? how many pairs? How do we get them?
46 total 23 pairs We get 23 from our mother and 23 from our fathers at conception
Describe the Cross-sequential method used to study development.
A mix of longitudinal and cross sectional, participants are divided into age groups and then followed over time
Describe the James-Lange Theory.
A stimulus initiates a physiological reaction that causes emotions -each emotion has its own distinct physiological footprint and emotions could be identified based on these responses
Describe Piaget's Concrete Operational Stage.
Age 7 children begin to think more logically and systematically suggested that not everyone reaches this stage
What is the most common teratogen? What can it cause?
Alcohol - leads to fetal alcohol syndrome causing delays in normal development, a small head, lower intelligence, and distinct facial characteristics
Describe the Longitudinal Method used to study development. What are some advantages/disadvantages?
Follows one group of individuals over a period of time Adv - easy to identify similarities and differences in aging Disadv - takes time, money, and investment; attrition is common; practice effects can occur
Describe Piaget's Preoperational stage.
From 2-7 year's old children use language to explore and understand their words - symbolic thinking is used - limited by egocentrism - limited logical reasoning processes (don't understand that different shapes can be the same thing)
Describe Piaget's Sensorimotor stage.
From birth to 2 years old sensory abilities and motor activities are used to learn about the surrounding world object permanence is a significant milestone in this stage
Describe the Cross-sectional method used to study development. What are some advantages/disadvantages of this method?
Gathers a group of people at different ages and examines their behavior at that age. Adv - provides a lot of information quickly Disadv - difficulty distinguishing between developmental changes and generational differences (cohort effect)
What is the most well documented case of deprivation of language?
Genie She spent 12 years either in a dark room, strapped to a toilet, or confined in a cage-like crib. She was beaten when she made noise. When she was found, she wouldn't speak and could only understand simple words. Researchers helped her build her language abilities, but she could never get to the level of a normal person
What are the 6 universal emotions/facial expressions?
Happy Sad Anger Fear Disgust Surprise
What were the Harlows and colleagues interested in studying?
Interested in learning about how physical contact affects the development of loving relationships between infants and mothers - used monkeys
Describe the Heredity v. Environmental influences argument for development.
Nature v. Nurture argument - it is generally agreed that both are at play, but the discrepancies arise when discussing how much each influences humans.
What does the biopsycosocial perspective of development consider - Physically, Cognitively, Socially?
Physically - heredity, chemical activity, hormones Cognitively - learning and personality Socially - family, culture, media
Describe Harlows's experiment.
Placed infant monkey in cage with surrogate mothers (one that is soft, one that is wire) Conclusion: infant monkeys spent most time clinging to or in contact with the cloth mother (even if she wasn't the one providing milk)
Is there a critical period for humans for language acquisition?
Possibly, some researchers suggest there is only a sensitive period which increases the chance of better language acquisition, but wont result in permanent changes
What are 2 chronic stressors?
Poverty and Acculturative Stress
Describe newborn's/fetus's smell, taste, touch, and sight abilities.
Smell/Taste - prefer sweet Touch - evident as early as 2 months after conception Sight - weakest sense - optimal distance is 8-14 inches - vision blurry for several months
Describe the Stages v. Continuity debate of development.
Some aspects of development occur in discrete stages, while others in continuous processes. Stages - learning to walk/talk, sexual maturity, language acquisition Continuity - transition from age groups (ex. toddler to young child)
Describe the Stability v. Change argument for development.
Some research suggests that personality traits identified early in life can predict behaviors later in life. Other researchers disagree.
Explain Ekman's faces study.
Traveled to New Guinea to find participants that had virtually no interaction with western world. Ekman told participants stories that related to certain emotions and asked them to pick the photo that had the facial expression to match the emotion in the story. Conclusion: There are some universal facial features.
Who is Jean Piaget?
a Swiss biologist interested in developmental psychology - among the first to suggest that infants have cognitive abilities and that children do not think like adults
What is a schema?
a collection of ideas or notions representing a basic unit of understanding - children form these based on functional relationships and mature as they do
What is the sucking reflex? When does this reflex mature?
a feeding reflex allowing a baby to suck - matures at gestational age of 33-36 weeks
What is cognitive equilibrium? How do we get back to equilibrium if we are thrown off?
a feeling of cognitive balance fixed with Assimilation or Accomodation
What is epigenetics?
a field of study that examines the processes involved in the development of phenotypes
What is a dominant gene?
a gene that has power over the expression of an inherited characteristic
What is a recessive gene?
a gene that is dominated by the other gene in the pair
What is emotion?
a psychological state that includes a subjective or inner experience is intensely personal also has physiological components and behavioral expressions is subjective
What is accommodation in relation to cognitive equilibrium?
a restructuring of old notions to make a place for new information remodel old schemas or create new wones
What is a stressor?
a stimuli that can cause psychological, physiological, and emotional reactions
How many words are there in the english language that describe emotions?
about 200
What are Teratogens?
agents that can damage a zygote, embryo, or fetus and can result in a miscarriage, decreased birth weight, or heart defects ex. radiation, viruses, bacteria, chemicals, and drugs
How are emotions in language characterized?
along different dimensions; based on pleasantness and arousal Valence: pleasant or unpleasant Arousal: high or low
What is assimilation in relation to cognitive equilibrium?
an attempt to understand new information using existing knowledge base or schema
What is genotype? Does it react to the environment?
an individual's complete collection of genes - interacts with the environment, but does not change in response to it
What is object permanence?
an infant's realization that objects and people still exist when they are out of sight/touch
What is a reflex?
an unlearned pattern of behavior
How do people cope with acculturative stress? Does it work?
by assimilating (letting go of old culture and adopting the new one) - can work, but can also cause problems with friends or family disagree with new ways
What is Distress?
caused by a bad stressor - the stress response to undesirable or disagreeable occrrences
What is Eustress?
caused by a good stressor - the stress response to agreeable or positive events ex. wedding, birth of a child, etc.
What is cognitive development?
changes in memory, problem-solving abilities, decision making, language, and intelligence
What is babbling? Is it important? What do deaf babies do during this stage?
combining consonants and vowels - important foundation for speech production - deaf babies move their hands around
What is the Social Readjustment Rating Scale?
developed by Holmes and Rahe, it measures stress or life events in relation to illness positive correlation between amount of stress and illness
What is Physical development?
development of the body that begins the moment sperm unites with an egg and continues until death
Is cognitive development universal?
early in life yes, but variation arises as cognitive abilities change with age
What is the difference between mood and emotion?
emotions - strong, but don't last as long; more likely to have identifiably cause; initiated by a stimulus; more likely to motivate action moods - long-term emotional states; less intense; no distinct beginning or end
Describe the Cannon-Bard Theory.
emotions and the body responses occur simultaneously -suggests the thalamus might not be able to carry out this complex processing on its own and other brain areas may contribute
What is the cohort effect?
explains that different experiences between generations can be the cause of differences across age groups as opposed to developmental stages
What are newborns sensory capabilities designed for?
facilitating relationships they prefer to look at faces and may begin recognizing their mother's voice in the womb
What is the most common emotion?
fear
How does socioeconomic status correlate to language spoken in the home?
high income families are more likely to engage in conversation with their children/infants
What is Infant-directed speech?
high-pitched, repetitious language that is more likely to be paid attention to by infants
What are daily hassles? What do they cause?
minor problems or irritants we deal with on a regular basis that cause stress which can lead to colds or headaches
How long are new neurons being created during fetal development? How many neurons are present at the time of birth?
neurons are mostly done being created by the end of the 5th month of fetal development At birth, a baby has about 100 billion neurons - similar to adult
Can stressors be avoided?
no
Is the order of events in terms of whether physiology or emotion comes first agreed upon?
no, there are 4 theories.
How is poverty a stressor?
people struggling to make ends meet experience a lot of stressors (ex. poor health care, noisy living situations, overcrowding, violence, etc.)
what are practice effects?
people tend to perform better the more they practice, so if people in a study are asked to do a certain test every time they meet with the research team, they may become better at it simply because they have done it previously
Who is Paul Ekman?
psychologist that traveled to New Guinea to study isolated indigenous people
What reflexes does a newborn have?
rooting and sucking reflexes
What are gonads?
sex glands; with a Y, gonads become testes; without a Y, gonads become ovaries
Describe the Schachter-Singer Theory.
stimulus causes physiological arousal which is then labeled and given an emotion -critics say it overstates the link between physiological arousal and the experience of emotion
Describe the cognitive appraisal and emotion theory.
stimulus causes physiological arousal which then causes appraisal (interpretation) and then the emotion -emotion can occur with out being able to determine what it is -appraisal causes the emotional reaction -suggests emotions are adaptive and help us cope with the world
What is acculturative stress?
stress associated with adjusting to a new way of life
What is the facial feedback hypothesis?
suggest that people are able to manipulate our emotions through out facial activities Ex. Smiling can make a person happier
What is the Language Acquisition Device (LAD)?
suggested by Noam Chomsky, the LAD provides an innate mechanism for learning language supported by the fact that children from around the world seem to learn language in a fixed sequence and during the same sensitive period
What sex hormone do testes and ovaries secrete?
testes - androgens ovaries - estrogen
What do behaviorists propose about language?
that it is learned through associations, reinforcers, and observation - that infants learn through positive attention to correct behavior and negative attention to incorrect behavior
What did Holmes and Rahe propose?
that life-changing events are potential stressors and that they have a cumulative effect
What do critics of Piaget's stages suggest?
that the transition between stages is more gradual that the theory underestimates children's cognitive abilities
How is sex of a baby determined?
the 23rd chromosome pair is either xx (girl) or xy (boy) depending on what chromosome the sperm is carrying.
What system mediates the fight or flight response?
the Sympathetic nervous system
What brain structure is central to our experience of fear?
the amygdala
what does developmental psychology examine?
the changes in our bodies, minds, and social functioning
What is Development?
the changes that occur in our bodies, minds, and social functioning
What is socioemotional development?
the development of social behaviors, emotions, and changes with respect to relationships, feelings, and disposition
From ages 3-6, where does the greatest increase in neuronal connections occur?
the frontal lobe
What is an embryo?
the name for the mass of cells between the 3rd and 8th week embryo is protected by the amniotic sac and receives nourishment and oxygen through the umbilical cord which is attached to the placenta cells differentiate and major organs and systems begin to form
what is maturation? Is it universal? What drives it?
the name for the physical growth throughout life - yes - biology
What is the germinal period?
the period of development from conception to the end of the 2nd week the zygote implants in the uterine wall.
What is the fetal period?
the period of growth of a fetus from 2 months to birth grows from the size of a pumpkin seed to a small watermelon
What is a rooting reflex? How long is it present?
the reflex for a newborn to look for a nipple when its face is touched - lasts about 4 months
What is stress?
the response to perceived threats or challenges resulting from stimuli or events that cause strain related to how one perceives the surrounding world
What is a phenotype?
the results of the interaction between genotype and the environment that are observable Ex. hair color, skin color, etc.
What is a zygote?
the single cell that is created when an egg and sperm meet
What is telegraphic speech?
two-worded phrases
are pleasant or unpleasant emotions more prevalent?
unpleasant
What is cooing?
vowel-like sounds
what is attrition?
when people drop out of a study
What is synaptic pruning?
when unused synaptic connections are downsized or eliminated - usually around puberty
