4. Infant Perception and Cognition

Question 1

accomodation (of the lens)

Answer 1

In vision, the process of adjusting the lens of the eye to focus on objects at different distances

Question 2

A-not-B object permanence task

Answer 2

Object permanence task in which the enfant has to retrieve a hidden object at one location (B) after having retrieved it several times previously from another one (A)

Question 3

Bayesian statistical inference

Answer 3

A mathematical probability theory that accounts for learning as a process by which prior knowledge is compared to currently observed evidence

Question 4

convergence (of the eyes)

Answer 4

Both eyes looking at the same object

Question 5

coordination (of the eyes)

Answer 5

Both eyes following a moving stimulus in a coordinated fashion

Question 6

core knowledge

Answer 6

Expression used by some infant researchers to refer to the set of knowledge that young infants possess in certain domains, including objects, people and social relations, numbers and quantities, and geometry

Question 7

differentiation theory

Answer 7

Eleanor Gibson’s theory that infants develop the ability to perceive increasingly specific differences between stimuli as the result of experience and exploration. In part, as they learn about the world, the sense of familiarity allows them to distinguish old stimuli from novel ones

Question 8

dishabituation

Answer 8

The tendency to show renewed interest in a stimulus when some features of it have been changed; contrast with habituation

Question 9

explicit measures

Answer 9

Measures of cognition that require the participant to report on the contents of his or her cognition or behave in observable ways that are directly related to the task at hand

Question 10

externality effect

Answer 10

The tendency of young infants (1-month-olds) to direct their attention primarily to the outside of a figure and to spend little time inspecting internal features

Question 11

Goldilocks effect

Answer 11

The phenomenon whereby infants take an active role in sampling their environment, looking longer at stimuli that are neither too simple nor too complex

Question 12

habituation

Answer 12

The tendency to decrease responding to a stimulus that has been presented repeatedly; contrast with dishabituation

Question 13

implicit measures

Answer 13

Measures thought to capture aspects of cognition that are unconscious and cannot be expressed directly or verbally

Question 14

intersensors integration

Answer 14

The coordination of information from two or more sensory modalities

Question 15

intersensors matching (cross-modal matching)

Answer 15

The ability to recognize an object initially inspected in one modality (touch, for example) via another modality (vision, for example)

Question 16

numerosity

Answer 16

The ability to determine quickly the number of items in a set without counting

Question 17

object cohesion and continuity

Answer 17

The knowledge that individual objects are seen as cohesive wholes with distinct boundaries

Question 18

object constancy

Answer 18

The knowledge that an object remains the same despite changes in how it is viewed

Question 19

object permanence

Answer 19

The knowledge that objects have an existence in time and space independent of one’s own perception or action on those objects

Question 20

ordinality

Answer 20

A basic understanding of more than and less than relationships

Question 21

perceptual narrowing

Answer 21

A process by which infants become tuned to sociocultural relevant information as a result of experiences during the first year of life. Infant’s ability to make discriminations among frequently experienced stimuli, such as faces from their own race, increase, whereas they become relatively less effective discriminating among infrequently experienced stimuli, such as faces from other races

Question 22

phonemes

Answer 22

Individual sounds that are used to make up words

Question 23

principle of persistence

Answer 23

The knowledge that objects remain cohesive and cannot undergo a spontaneous or uncaused change in the course of an event

Question 24

schema

Answer 24

An abstract representation of an object or event

Question 25

violation-of-expectation method

Answer 25

Based on habituation/dishabituation procedures, techniques in which increases in infants’ looking time are interpreted as reflecting a violation of an expected outcome

Question 26

visual preference paradigm

Answer 26

In research with infants, observing the amount of time infants spend looking at different visual stimuli to determine which one the prefer (that is, look at more often); such preferences indicate an ability to discriminate between stimuli