Infant Development Final
When infants encounter new objects and use actions that they have previously used to interacted with other similar objects, Piaget's theory says that they are using... a. concepts b. schemes c. constructions d. scripts
b. schemes
Stage 1 of Piaget's six sensorimotor substages
(0-1) Reflex schemes: infant responds relexively to sensory stimuli. Sucking, grasping
Stage 2 of Piaget's six sensorimotor substages
(1-4) Primary circular: when they chance upon a scheme. Grasping or sucking on toes occur initially are result of chance, then repeatedly and intentionally later just for fun. Centers around infant's own body.
Review the common reasons for deficits in infants' visual abilities at birth
-Have a smaller eye, which produces a smaller retinal image, so only get about 2% exposure to light -Retina is not completely developed until after birth because the cells are still migrating to where they need to be for the eye function. -Optic nerve and visual cortex are still undergoing myelinization -Vision experience is light-dependent (expectant)- there is not much light in the womb -Limited visual accommodation- very near-sighted, can only see about a foot in front of their face -Limited acuity - 20/400 at birth, improves to 20/100 by 5 1/2 months -limited contrast sensitivity
Bowlby's "attachment behaviors" (e.g., signaling, contact seeking, etc.) Familiarize yourself with these behaviors and pruposes they serve:
1. Signaling: crying, protests, distress, smiling, or other emotional display 2. Contact seeking: pursuing attachment figure, gaining physical contact 3. Contact maintaining: sinking in, clutching, hugging, grasping and molding into a parent 4. Distance Interaction: cooing, babbling, other vocalizations 5. Following: visual tracking and later on crawling or walking.
What is emotional regulation?
Ability to calm oneself behaviorally, psychologically, physiologically when distressed, excited, or aroused.
What is effortful control? How does this relate to children's regulatory abilities?
Ability to inhibit a dominant response to perform a subdominant response (ex. marshmallow video)
Common assumptions made in Piaget's theory
Adaptation is the process of how the child has schemes that are like categories for information, and they try to assimilate new information into an existing theme or category. They go through a state of disequilibrium if they can't fit that scheme there, something is wrong. So then they make a new scheme to fit the new information they receive, which is accommodation. Equilibrium: when the information fits again, it makes sense EX: a child sees a cat for the first time and learns what a cat is. Sees a dog for the first time and thinks it's a cat. Realizes they are not the same thing creates new category (dog) to create equilibrium again.
Assessing Infant Intelligence: what are some of the challenges? What are some of methodolgies (i.e., what are the Bayley scales and what do they tell us about intelligence?
Bayley scales not good for predicting later intelligence, but good for indicating delayed growth in relation to other infants same age. -Novelty habituation: faster processing predictive of higher IQ
Steroscopic Depth Information/Binocular Disparity:
Both eyes, disparity of image with both eyes provide cues about depth
If infants look longer at a video display that shows another infant's legs moving than at a video display that shows their own legs moving, researchers studying intermodal perception have concluded that... a. infants younger than 8 months are unable to integrate visual and proprioceptive information b. infants younger than 8 months do not notice that the movements of the other infant's legs do not match their own legs' movements. c. infants younger than 8 months are sensitive to the absence of a contingency between the feeling of their own legs' movements and the image of the other infant's legs moving. d. infants younger than 8 months are capable of cross-modal perception but not intermodal perception
C. Infants younger than 8 months are sensitive to the absence of a contingency between the feeling of their own legs' movements and the image of the other infant's legs moving.
Why is categorization important for infants' cognitive development?
Categories organize mental activities in three ways 1. Structure and clarify perception. Infinite array of sensory stimuli (all the time) and constant biological flux, need to categorize and ignore some incoming info in order to attend to others. Faces people and emotions are important to infants (higher priority than other incoming information) 2. Facilitates the storage and retrieval of information. Provide organization and aids memory 3. Enables rudimentary logical reference. Knowledge of an attribute can be inferred to other attributes (in same category).
Review the way adults can help enhance infants play behavior and the related benefits for infants:
Children engage in higher quality of play with caregiver than alone (scaffolding and ZPD) Children more likely to engage in solitary play afterwards
Which of the following would be the best way to test infants' ability to perceive amodal properties of events?
Displaying two different visual images that are accompanied by a soundtrack matching one of the images.
What form of simple learning is associated with early categorical development?
Habituation
Hearing (when it emerges, the sequencing of when it emerges, and how this is linked to structural maturation of the sensory organs at birth and beyond).
Human speech is preferred. When infants are born, they are extremely sensitive to noise and then for a few months, they ignore noise and 4-5 months thy are very sensitive again. Higher pitched voices attract the attention of infants, whereas deeper, softer tones lull and sooth infants. Babies also learn to distinguish words in sentences as early as 4-6 months. Hearing impairments significantly decrease infants' ability to develop language.
What is co-regulation?
Infant and caregiver each influence each other's and own emotion
What is a schema?
Mental category for organizing information based on precept or rule.
What impact does smiling have on infants' eary social development?
Parents think their infant is more easy-going after exogenous smile emerges--they think the baby is more fussy, irritable during the endogenous stage (because baby isn't smiling/responding back to the parent yet) facilitates bonding.
Multimodal:
Perceiving information about object with various senses at the same time. Integrate multiple simultaneous sources of sensory information (hearing bathwater hit tub, seeing the water flow, feeling the water splash onto skin...) BOTH HAPPEN AT THE SAME TIME. -These sensory events are separate and distinct for an infant, but with time, they are combined into one sensory experience.
What is the difference between proximal and distal parenting?
Proximal:parents maintain close, nearly constant physical contact by carrying babies on their boy and by practicing co-sleeping; emphasize social connection and value interdependence. Distal: Less physical contact with babies, but more face-to-face verbal and vocal interaction, more likely to encourage looking while they talk, value independence.
Attachment types:
Used in strange situation by Ainsworth: -Insecure-resistant: mixed display of anger and proximity-seeking, still distressed when mom comes back -Insecure-avoidant: avoids proximity with caregiver, don't show any emotional displays after mom comes back -Secure: seeks contact with caregiver, happy to see him/her. Explores (uses attachment figure as secure base). What Uri Brofenbrenner says about attachment: "Someone needs to be crazy about that kid!"
What does a schema look like in infancy?
Uses previously discovered actions to explore new objects. EX: infant uses spoon to eat, then attempts to use a pen to "eat" - infants think they are in the same schema
Visual Accommodation-how ability is measured and how they commonly differ from that of adults
ability to change curvature and thickness of lens to be able to see at varying distances (newborns can only see about a foot away from their faces)
Binocular:
disparity of image with both eyes provides information about depth if there is more disparity it is nearer. Develops at 2-4 months old.
Dynamic Systems Perspective:
full understanding of the emergence of new behaviors in perceptual and motor development requires consideration of a wide range of relevant components, including evolutionary, environmental, social, cognitive, and biological factors, as well as other potential modifiable variables. -new skills and other forms of behavior emerge due to self-organization, and interactions of the components of a complex system operating on multiple levels. No single part of the system--nature or nurture--exerts an inevitable or isolated influence.
Optical Expansion/Contraction:
how large the image is perceived on the retina (lar objects are close) increase and decrease in size of object's image on retina, cues about object approaching or moving away
Pictorial Depth Cues:
relative sizes, linear perspective, texture gradients, interposition. Develops 5-7 months old
Define Sensation
transduction of external energy by sensory organs into neural-chemical signals (actual info that comes in-- touch, light). Turns outside info into a form that the brain can process
Basic info. on taste, smell, touch, and hearing and what we know about intants' abilities in each of these sense modalities and how these abilities are commonly studied
All develops prenatally. Touch -First sense to develop -Sensitive to tactile information -Palmer reflex -Plantar reflex Taste -Sweet and bitter -Salty and sweet Smell -Related to taste Hearing -All the structures are distinct
Kinematic Depth Cues:
Babies use motion to tell them about the distance of an object (e. Riding in a car, thing that are close move quickly, farther away do not move as fast) first one to develop at one month old.
What is dyadic sychrony? What role does it serve in relationship development?
Dyadic Synchrony: mutual attention, matching emotions, turn-taking, sensitivity (co-regulation): foundation for building mutual, trusting relationships
Distinguish between the structuralist and functionalist views on emotions.
Functionalist: focus on social context and "function" of emotions in relationships (emotional contagion) Structuralist: looking more at the individual, interested in the structure, display, and organization of emotions (primary, secondary emotions) This facial expression is displayed with this behavior...etc)
Be familiar wit the term representation:
Representation refers to broad range of mental abilities (objects, concepts, memory, action, use of signs and symbols) According to Piaget, representation= the ability to think about people and objects that are not present (object concept). Contributes to pretend play, deferred imitation, and using gestures to communicate
What has this told us about infant temperament?
Temperament constitutes behavioral tendencies devised into three categories: easy, difficult, slow to warm up. Parents need to adjust parenting for child's temperament. Goodness of fit model (temperament and environment demands work together to determine child success). When the person's temperament...[is] adequate to master the successive demands, expectations, and opportunities of the environment," then there is a goodness of fit. Can't use the same test each time.
What social-ecological factors are thought to influence infants' early cognitive growth and development?
Vygotsky: Emphasized roles of social interaction: Play with adult=higher quality play then and later solitary play (higher quality reflects cognitive) Zone of proximal development - difference between what child can do alone and what child can do with adults help, encourages development towards the next developmental level, scaffolding. Ted Wachs: found nutritional correlates to cognitive growth: chaotic social environment leads to lower cognitive outcome. Nedd iron and iodine in diet (deficiencies lead to lower cognitive performance).
Which of the following orders show the progression of types of object play over the first three years of life? a. fine motor play, exploratory play, functional-relational play. b. exploratory play, functional play, functional-relational play, fine motor play c. exploratory play, fine motor play, functional play, functional-relational play d. functional-relational play, functional play, exploratory play, fine motor play
b. exploratory play, functional play, functional-relational play, fine motor play
They type of play in which infants bring together and manipulate objects that are not related to each other, such as a piece of silky fabric and a plastic measuring cup, is known as... a. exploratory b. relational play c. functional play d. symbolic play
b. relational play
The smallest spacing that can be perceived between parts of a pattern is known as... a. cone vision. b. visual acuity. c. peripheral vision. d. saccadic perception.
b. visual acuity
Define perception
basic processing of sensory information. Provides psychological structure and includes attention (habitation to some sensory information, choose what to pay attention to; the process)
Rothbart and Bates' definition of temperament:
biologically rooted differneces in behavioral tendencies that are present early in life and are relatively stable across situations and time. "Biologically rooted" studied using twin designs, breeding studies, psychophysiological (genetic/physiological predispositions) "Present early in life."
Cognition:
extraction of meaning from what we perceive (i.e., that touch is cold, etc.) Higher order function.
Vision (when it emerges, the sequencing of when it emerges, and how this is linked to structural maturation of the sensory organs at birth and beyond).
infants are able to distinguish moving objects at eight-weeks-old, which improves their ability to use smooth eye movements to follow moving objects. Infants are able to differentiate between human faces and nonhuman faces. Infants are able to differentiate colors comparable to an adult at four months and then eight months in regards to 20/20 vision. Vision is dependent on unimpeded stimulation and visual experience.
What are emotions?
Emotions are physiological, behavioral, and psychological events that represent internal states.
Acuity-how ability is measured and how they commonly differ from that of adults
How sharp an image is perceived (20/400 in newborns, 20/20 by eight months as good as adult vision) the smallest space between parts of the pattern that a person can see
What is the New York Longitudinal Study?
NYLS=Thomas and Chess study temperament and its role in development (its not just the mother's fault) Dance between parenting and child's temperament
Cross-modal Perceptions and evidence that supports it:
When they use the information they used in one sensory modality and trasfered it to another sensory modality (like you can see a ball and know that would feel round, but not actually touching it, or feeling a ball in a dark room and sensing that it is round (though you cannot see it, you transfer this knowledge to a new sense - HAPPENS AT DIFFERENT TIMES -The ability to experience something through one sense, such as taste, and be able to encounter the same thing from a different sense, such as sight, and be able to link the two objects -babies were given a pacifier that was bumpy and a another that was smooth, without them being able to see it. The babies afterward were able to focus on the one they had most recently sucked, despite never having seen it before. This is also known as using haptic information, exploratory mouth or hand movements that go well beyond tactile contact with an object
Cognitive science studies of infants' attention have shown that... a. longer looking times during habituation indicate more thorough processing of a stimulus. b. duration of looking time in the standard habituation procedure tend to increase with age. c. individual differences in duration of looking time during habituation tend to be stable over time. d. measures of looking time are invalid and should be replaced by event-related potential (ERP) recordings of brain activity during habituation.
c. individual differences in duration of looking time during habituation tend to be stable over time.
Stage 5 of Piaget's six sensorimotor substages
(12-18) Tertiary circular: experimenting with the schemes to see how they work. Try things in a different way. Banging on a xylophone with a mallet makes music, banging on it with a fist or plastic cup produces different sound. Trying different grasps to find which one allows him/her to pull toy through the bars of crib. Banging on different sized pots creates different pitches.
Stage 6 of Piaget's six sensorimotor substages
(18-24) Mental combinations: they can think about the schemes and associate symbols. EX. child perceives bars on crib, modifies grasp on toy in a way it can be pulled through the bars of the crib, or Dr. Porter's son's associating hamburgers with McDonald's golden arches (abstact, symbolic thought).
Stage 3 of Piaget's six sensorimotor substages
(4-8) Secondary circular: infant uses schemes to repeat actions and achieve outcomes. Push button on toy repeatedly and intentionally to activate motion of toy. INTENTIONAL.
Stage 4 of Piaget's six sensorimotor substages
(8-12) Coordination of secondary schemes. Combine multiple schemes to achieve an outcome. Move obstacle in front of toy, grasp toy, manipulate toy. Mom hides toy under cloth, move cloth, pick up toy.
Monocular
(one eye)--provides information about object size and develops at 6-7 months old
Review your handouts and notes on attachment and daycare. According to article presented in class (article in supplementary readings) on daycare does alternative care (non-maternal care) place infants at risk for developing an insecure attachment? What does this extensive NICHD study show in terms of the impact of daycare on attachment? **LONG ESSAY PROMPT
-Maternal responsiveness sensitivity most predictive factor for attachment security (more predictive than daycare-type, duration, etc) -Daycare does not present risks or benefits in terms of attachment development. Poor quality care only presented risks if mother not responsive (these children need more time with mom in order to feel that she is accessible), adds to problems from insecurity.
Know how infants' hearing differs from adults at birth and what factors often influence infants' hearing (i.e., review information on acute otitis media including causes and treatments).
-Newborns are less sensitive to moderately high-frequency sounds (10,000) cycles per second) than adults, but equally sensitive at higher frequency (19,000 cps) -More susceptible to ear infections that adults because Eustachian canal is horizontal (because their faces are compact), does not drain well and are compressed. Can lead to hearing loss if untreated (therefore, hearing loss more common in infants) -Some hearing loss is intermittent caused by illness -Otitis medua: middle ear infection (increases with smoking, FAS) -Antibiotics, tubes -Common colds
Critiques for Piaget's sensorimotor stage
-changed the way we think about infants -underestimated children's abilities -does not explain why children's thinking changes (some fuzziness) -not all knowledge is based in motor activity (sensory and perceptual processes just as important) -Ex. Thalidomide exposed infants
Be able to describe what is meant by Bowlby's behavioral control systems (BCS). According to Bowlby, what is the primary purpose for the evolution of the BCS? When or how is the BCS activated?
BCS: provides continuous feedback, maintenance, and correction between infant and caregiver -purpose: to balance the need for proximity and exploration and to maintain emotional balance (homeostasis) -Works best when caregiver is responsive to infants needs and cues, demonstrate that they are psychologically available, infant feels secure and is able to explore -Activated when infant or caregiver perceives a threat -Activation stimulates production of attachment behaviors
In one ingenious study of ______ perception, researchers first gave one-month old infants a bumby pacifier to feel in their mouth and only later allowed them to look at that pacifier--after they had placed it next to a smooth pacifier that they had not explored orally.
Cross-modal
Recent studies of infants' perception of objects suggest that they are able to use all of the following sources of information except: a. accretion and deletion of adjacent patterns and textures. b. movement of objects. c. self-movement d. still photos of objects taken from a single perspective
D. Still photos of objects taken from a single perspective
Auditory localization, the ability to detect the source of sounds, a. improves steadily from birth to the age of about 6 months. b. cannot be tested in infants younger than 3 months. c. functions from birth for the human voice but not for other sounds until the age of about 6 months. d. appears to undergo a U-shaped developmental change from birth to about 6 months of age
D. appears to undergo a U-shaped developmental change from birth to about six months of age
What does the DeLoach and Smith study tell us about the development of symbolic representation?
DeLoach and Smith use model room to show children where toy is hidden in actual room. Requires ability to retain memory of toy and its hiding place, to understand that model is a symbol for the actual room, to make inference about actual based on model room -majority of three-year-olds successfully retrieve toy -Younger children do not understand model is a symbol
Know what EAS stands for (used to define temperament):
E=Emotionality (easy going vs. reactive) A=Activity level (motion) S=Sociability (like to be around others, outgoing vs. shy
Review the handout for the article on emotional communication by Ed Tronick. Be familiar with Tronick's definition of "affective communication systems"—be able to describe it (how it operates, the functions it serves, and how it is best coordinated between parents and infants). Also be familiar with terms like interactive error and repair and self and other regulatory behaviors.
Emotional communication: infant interprets mother's emotions and gives cues of his own emotional (facial expressions, vocalizations, gestures). They mutually regulate each other's emotions. Goals- infants have goals including engaging the environment/objects, maintaining proximity to caregiver, reciprocally happy interactions, maintaining homeostasis Self-directed regulatory behaviors: when an infant isn't achieving their goal and it causes stress. Behaviors infant employs to achieve goals- regulate distress from negative emotions or extreme positive emotions (control emotional state to obtain homeostasis, ex: thumb sucking, turning away from stimulus, loss of posture, rocking) -Other directed regulatory behaviors: infant elicits response from caregiver. Child gives cues to caregiver signal them to help infant accomplish goal. Emotional displays tell caregivers whether infant is accomplishing (negative display, distress)--ex. crying, reaching -Interactive error: uncoordinated interactions, not responding or caregiver does not respond appropriately to cues. Normal. Harmful if repeatedly left unrepaired (letting the infant "cry it out" Repair: fixing interactive error (fixing inappropriate response, responding appropriately). Moving from negative emotion to positive) --It is normal for infants and caregivers to go between interactive error and repair...and it is harmful if it goes back to interactive error and does not get repaired. A lot of interactive error that isn't repaired.
Know the difference between an endogenous and exogenous smile and when they appear.
Endogenous: begins at birth (caused by internal events), sort of random Exogenous: begins around 4-8 weeks (caused by external events) infant is very sociable and willing to smile at most social stimuli; intentional
Be able to distinguish between differing forms of play and roughly when they emerge:
Exploratory play (0-4) repetitive motor movements. Explore with eye, mouth, etc. Relational play: (4-12) infant brings two unrelated objects together (spoon and block) Functional play: (12-18) play becomes intentional (repeated actions like pushing a button to activate a toy) Functional-relational play (12-18) understanding the intended use. Emergence of pretense type of activities (drinking from an empty cup) and bring objects together (bowl-spoon) Gross motor play (12-24) push toys, climbing, swinging (large muscles) Fine motor play (24-36) using fine motor skills-fingerpaint, manipulatives (small muscles) Social play (18-24) pretense/symbolic, socio-dramatic play Pretend play (12-18) reflects cognitive and representational abilities of child as well as social development. When children behave in a non-literal way, acting as if they were performing familiar routines (eating, going to sleep).
Review the Habituation-Dishabituation (Novelty) research design. What does information from habituation studies tell us about infants' intellectual abilities?
Habituation reflects information processiong. Infants who habituate to a stimulus faster. This is highly predictive of later intelligence. Why? Information processing: shorter looking time related to later intelligence (individual children differ, differences stable) -Faster habituation=tend to have higher IQ later on Whether child categorizes objects (habituate category, see whether child gives more attention to new objects outside category and less attention to objects in category) 7-9 month-old infants.
Be familiar with the research methodology that has been commonly used to measure infant perceptual abilities (e.g., Fantz' visual preference technique, the visual cliff, sound conditioning, ERPs, etc.)
Habituation: shown a stimulus repeatedly until the infant's interest is recaptured, showing that they noticed the difference Visual Cliff Parradigm: plexiglass, where experienced crawlers will not cross over the deep side, or glass side, and new crawlers often will. Visual Patterns Preferences: how long the infant looks at image A over image B -Infant presented with two visual stimuli looks longer at one it prefers. This tests ability to detect differences between two stimuli simultaneously presented
What factors influence infants' strategies for emotional regulation?
History of distress remediation and emotional sychrony with caregivers (help child regulate, move to positive state after negative) Going from interactive error to repair -Context of emotional communication systems, co-regulating -Context of conversations (parents labels emotion, talks about it with child, helps child learn how to handle emotion) -Biologically influenced--parenting can influence that biology (being sensitive), they can help it become less intense -Modeled by adults (marital relationship especially)
Touch (when it emerges, the sequencing of when it emerges, and how this is linked to structural maturation of the sensory organs at birth and beyond).
Infants are born with reflexes that respond to touch. This touch helps them grow and thrive. They also are sensitive to pain. Infants held by their parents after a surgery recover more quickly. First sense modality to emerge prenatally.
Research on infant imitation abilities and object permanence from Andrew Meltzoff's article. What does this information tell us about an infant's ability to process information and actively map and store information?
Infants less than one month (neonates) can imitate facial expressions of adults. (Mirror neurons). Attuned to learn by observation (social experience). Infants imitates even when researchers no longer shows the behavior
Taste (when it emerges, the sequencing of when it emerges, and how this is linked to structural maturation of the sensory organs at birth and beyond).
Infants who are breastfed taste the differing things that the mother is eating and usually develops those positive taste preferences to that particular food. Exposure to flavors prenatally and early postnatally enhance infants acceptance and enjoyment of those particular flavors.
Review the "mobile conjugate reinforcement paradigm" and what this research method tells us about infants' category development and memory?
Method: lie child on back with mobile hanging over them, measure baseline kicking. Tie ribbon connecting child's leg and mobile, measure increased kicking. Detach ribbon, kicking decreases. After delay, change mobile and see if child starts at baseline kicking or increased kicking. If baseline, child does not categorize it as a mobile. It they do recognize it, they categorized it as a mobile. If increased, child categorizes novel as mobile too (similarly structured mobiles more likely to be categorized. Similar context also helps).
What does research say about the stability of temperament? What are some common challenges in demonstrating stability over time in temperament? Be able to discuss the difference between homotypic and heterotypic stability when it comes to assessing infants' temperament over time.
NYLS found low correlation (0.19 over 3-5 year period) could be doe to measurement problems and/or environment influences. Suomi's uptight monkeys raised by easy-going mothers became more easy going. Problems: -measures are not always relaible/valid. Ex: parent questionnaires (may not remember accurately), observations (small amount of time in narrow context), interviews... -Cannot always use the same measures across time. HOMOTYPIC STABILITY: Using the same test at time 1 and time 2, they measure the same thing e.g., infant may use arm restraint to illicit distress, and later when the infant is older, and it is HETEROTYPIC when they change the approach or change from arm restraint to something else to calm distress at time 2. If they did the arm restraint at time 1 and time 2 it would be homotypic, but now they use a ziploc bag of candy glued shut to elicit this same emotion. Possible that environment modifies temperament Alongitudinal study can't be homotypical for certain tests because the child is growing and will have different abilities. Stability: consistency over time in relative ranking EX: if an infant is consistent at time 1 and at time 2 then it is stable.
According to Kagan, why are some infants more likely to be withdrawn or shy?
Novel situations bring stronger, unfavorable/overwhelming physiological responses (increased heart rate...) due to activity in the Limbic region of the brain. Easier to withdraw from situation than to deal with the responses.
Be able to describe the development of object permanence. How does recent research contrast with "traditional Piagetian" views of object permanence? Know the main findings from the Ballaregeon article described in class and in the text (thinking moving carrots and cars). What major Piagetian assumption did this study challenge?
Recent Research: 2.5 and 3.5 months is when object permanence emerges. Piaget thought 8-12 months was when object permanence emerges (A not B search task) Assumption: Child must be able to search for toy in order to search for toy in order to demonstrate object permanence. Piaget used the A not B error context to test object permanence. EX: using the cloth to hide a toy in cubby hole and moving it to another cubby role This task relied on motor abilities that young infants do not have yet - (that's why Piaget discovered object permanence later. "Violation of expectation" tasks: (Ballaregeon article used) they show the infant something that is impossible and see how the infant responds to it through heart rate, etc. Trying to see if an event violated the infant's expectations by surprise reaction to "impossible event" e.e. toy car goes down a ramp and through an obstacle.
Timeline of when emotions appear:
Reflexive birth cry: capable of feeling emotions at birth. Can represent anger, pain, fear...crying peaks at 2 months. Primary emotions: present early in life, either innate or develops quickly. Includes interest, joy, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, (shame guilt more debatable), shyness, and affection. Loud noise may bring surprise or fear. Novel stimulus may bring interest. Secondary emotions: emerge during second and third year of life because require more advanced abilities. Needs self-recognition in order to have secondary emotions, includes embarrassment, pride guilt, shame, envy.
How do researchers take advantage of infants' attention abilities to research perception? (Part of the essay prompt)
Researchers make inferences about an infant's ability to perceive visual stimuli based on changes in their heart rate, brain activity, as well as the length and direction of their gaze in habituation or perferential looking procedures. Habituation: if the item is new then it is interesting, then they habituate Preferential Looking Procedures: show preference for curvilinear patterns, like complexity, symmetry, so forth
Be able to compare Piaget's theory with other perspectives such as simple learning, information processing, and habituation approaches. How do they differ? Are there any similarities?
Simple learning: someone else (researcher) is teaching the child, the child is not as active habituation: child becomes disinterested in object he/she is used to, precursor to category formation, used to observe memory. Piaget relies on motor development to mark developmental milestones Classical conditioning: condition child to respond to an unrelated stimulus by pairing it with related stimulus (external teaching forces). Piaget believed child constructed knowledge/perception-- put child in active role (rather than another person) Aversive conditioning: an extreme circumstance/unpleasant experience with something and always remember it, ex. too many oreos story from class Instrumental.operant conditioning: positive and negative reinforcements/punishments. Reinforcer given only when child does something (performs the instrumental response). Child learns association between his response and the outcome (a context, or discriminative stimulus, signals to the child that it's time for the instrumental response and that the IR will lead to the outcome) ex. smile when child smiles. misused: time-outs give extra attention for undesired behavior, if bed=timeout location then bedtime=punishment Piaget sought to explain the process of learning that takes place across childhood. The other techniques focus on learning as an event-- they only explain a single learned thing rather than seeking to explain all of a child's learning. Piaget also explains development in terms of stages. The others do not use stages. Piaget looked at the child as an ACTIVE player instead of someone to be acted upon. He uses motor development as milestones, in direct route. The others used cognitive directly. All are forms of learning Information processing: Differences: lack/presence of stages of development, child's role represented (more active in Piaget's) focus on event of learning or process of learning Similarities: forms of learning The child is a constructivist acting on the environment as problem solvers. In conditioning their active role is give to the caregiver or experimenter or whoever is training the child to respond a certain way so that they have the active role Piaget was trying to overlook and capture development, and cognitive development as a whole. In general, other theorists were looking at single events such as conditioning and habituation. A similarity as that they are all forms of learning. Piaget also has stages in his theory whereas the others did not.
What evidence is there that temperament may change? Think monkeys.
Suomi's uptight monkeys raised by easy-going mothers, infants became more easy-going over time, physiologically and behaviorally.
Depth Perception-how ability is measured and how they commonly differ from that of adults
The ability to perceive depth with cues (tell how far away an object is) -kinematic is first to develop: use of motion to detect distance of an object (like when you are in a car and things closer move faster, and things far away move slower -Optical expansion and contraction - increase and decrease in size of an object's image on the retina - cues about object approaching or moving away -Binocular stereoscopic depth information - they use the discrepancy from both eyes on the image to tell how far away the object is , more disparity=closer -Monocular- provides information about object size (one eye) -Pictorial depth cues-when painting it's the differences in shading and seeing the cues of a vanishing point; infants begin to focus on relative size-texture, shading -Optical-expansion and contraction (size increases as it gets closer)
Short essay prompt: research that examines the role of motion in the development of depth perception
Two cats walk/ride around in a circle. One is active (his body is free to move around), one is passive (he is confined to a box that is moving around). The both see the same things. 21 hours in the dark, 3 hours in the light. Harder for them to detect horizontal likes. Active cat could tell dimensions, behaved appropriately on spatial tasks (better than the passive one). Passive cat had difficulty processing spatial cues, 3D manipulation, maneuvering in 3D space. The take home message is that MOTOR EXPERIENCE IS NECESSARY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERCEPTION. "MOVE IN ORDER TO PERCEIVE AND PERCEIVE IN ORDER TO MOVE."
According to the ________ theoretical view, the visual system perceives meaningful information directly, without any intermediate steps to interpret it. a. ecological b. gestalt c. empiricist d. nativist
a. Ecological
Infant memory is enhanced if: a. enabling relations are present. b. the information to be remembered involves arbitrary relations. c. the information to be remembered is not repeated too frequently. d. verbal labels and cues are not used.
a. enabling relations are present
The depth cue that infants are able to use at the earliest age is ____ information. a. kinematic b. stereoscopic c. pictorial d. foveal
a. kinematic
Hannah, a newborn infant, is coming home from the hospital for the first time. Her parent want her nursery to provide optimal visual stimulation. Reseach would support all the following features except... a. pastel colors b. moving objects, such as mobiles. c. patterns featuring ares of high contrast such as red and white or black and while. d. patterns that resemble faces
a. pastel colors
Contrast sensitivity-how ability is measured and how they commonly differ from that of adults
ability to detect small differences in brightness; infants not very good at his. Infants prefer high contrast patterns, ex. bright red and dark blue. -visual cliff paradigm: experienced crawlers will not cross over the deep side, new crawlers often will. -visual pattern preferences (Fantz 1960's) visual preference technique, how long the infant looks at image A over image B -Forced-choice preferential looking--infants are shown two targets, a screen with grating and a screen that is blank. If the infants are able to perceive the grating the prefer looking at it, but those who cannot perceive it show no difference in preference.
According to Piaget, mental representation contributes to all of the following abilities axcept... a. pretend/symbolic play b. repeated actions to achieve specific outcomes. c. using gestures to communicate ideas d. deferred initation
b. repeated actions to achieve specific outcomes.
All of the following descriptions of newborn infants' sensory and perceptual abilities are correct except: a. they prefer looking at patterns with high contrast. b. they perceive the full range of colors that older children and adults perceive. c. their visual acuity is limited to about 20/400. d. their visual acuity is approximately 20/20 by the age of 8 months.
b. they perceive the full range of colors that older children and adults perceive.
Ecological perspective:
intant perceives perceptions automatically--from birth, doesn't have to be learned. The idea that the visual system perceives meaningful information directly, without immediate steps to interpret it. -the perceptual system perceives information about the world directly and accurately, without any intervening interpretative steps, becasue it has evolved to extract regularityies from the organized patterns that exist in all settings, Infants are able to perceive depth and distance in the world because they are sensitive to a rich array of cues in the environment, such as the receding texture of a floor from near to far or different views of the same object as they move around it.
Smell (when it emerges, the sequencing of when it emerges, and how this is linked to structural maturation of the sensory organs at birth and beyond).
olfactory learning begins prenatally. Infants who love a particular blanket or stuffed animal may love it for the smell as much as the soft touch. Smell can have a particularly important role on mood and behavior during infancy and beyond.
