2/2 Pg 116-133 Flashcards
Patellar reflex
“knee jerk reflex”; tapping a tendon below the kneecap causes the lower leg to kick
- > maintaing balance and posture by triggering a quick response when a tendon is suddenly stretched
- > Elbow, other joints
Reflexes
noticeable; built-in automatic responses to particular forms of stimulation
-> monitor development of nervous system
Rooting reflex
brushing an object against face causes a newborn to move his mouth toward the object and attempt sucking
- > mother’s nipples
- > shared among mammals
- > eating and surviving
Grasp reflex
touching newborn’s palm causes him to grasp tightly
- > triggers newborns to wrap their fingers around an object after sensing contact
- > Support their own weight
- > Found in early on in many mammals
- > Survival
- > Disappears after few months in human infants
Stepping reflex
gently lowering the baby feet-first to a surface triggers automatic stepping movements
- > Supports development of the rhythmic alternation of the limbs for walking, not just in humans but also in species that walk on all 4 limbs
- > Gradually disappear in first few months
Moro reflex
experiencing lack of support causes a baby’s arms to move out to the sides
- > more complex
- > reflexively grasp caregiver if her feels himself suddenly falling
- > Gradually disappear in first few months
Maturational account
motor development depends on the increasing sophistication of the brain’s motor programs for guiding more and more complex actions
- > William Preyer: own son to walk before 1-> fail
- > Arnold Gesell: emergence of stair climbing ability in identical twin gfirls
Motor Deprivation
Limited motor development
-> Reversible
Dynamic Systems Theory
Development of complex behaviors should be understood in terms of the interactions among all the changing components involved in executing the behaviors, and not just as sets of instructions from the cortex and carried out by the body
Eleanor Gibson and James Gibson:
-> Perception provides a context and a goal for an action, and the action then leads to the modification of a perception
Nikolai Bernstein:
-> physical properties of our body parts and their interactions
Esther Thelen
Changing weights of limbs which inhibit or disappeared reflex
Perceptual-motor development
requires coordinating actions with perceptual information, depend on sophisticated systems to address complex developmental challenges
- > Develop from earliest moments of infancy
- > Feedback loops between actions and perceptions
Prereaching
failed attempts to touch objects
- > younger than 2 months: trouble moving hand horizontally acroos the front of body
- > Until holding things with two hands
Researcher Claus von Hofsten
Fishing lure
- > 4 or 5 months: moved their hands to track and often anticipated the paths of moving objects
- > 4 months: certain distance are not worth reaching
- > 5 months: shapes their hands to fit shapes or orientations of objects
Passive visual experience and action
Richard Held and Alan Hein
- > Passive kittens: less sensitive to depth relations in other situations
- > Visual cliff for passive kittens: no ability to avoid apparent drop-off
- > Unrestricted movement and unobstructed vision must occur simultaneously-> Feedback
- > No obvious critical period
Visual flow fields
at different speeds -> certain visual patterns
- > stream past at appropriate speeds
- > well-balanced posture
