4. Infant Perception and Cognition Flashcards
accomodation (of the lens)
In vision, the process of adjusting the lens of the eye to focus on objects at different distances
A-not-B object permanence task
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)
Bayesian statistical inference
A mathematical probability theory that accounts for learning as a process by which prior knowledge is compared to currently observed evidence
convergence (of the eyes)
Both eyes looking at the same object
coordination (of the eyes)
Both eyes following a moving stimulus in a coordinated fashion
core knowledge
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
differentiation theory
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
dishabituation
The tendency to show renewed interest in a stimulus when some features of it have been changed; contrast with habituation
explicit measures
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
externality effect
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
Goldilocks effect
The phenomenon whereby infants take an active role in sampling their environment, looking longer at stimuli that are neither too simple nor too complex
habituation
The tendency to decrease responding to a stimulus that has been presented repeatedly; contrast with dishabituation
implicit measures
Measures thought to capture aspects of cognition that are unconscious and cannot be expressed directly or verbally
intersensors integration
The coordination of information from two or more sensory modalities
intersensors matching (cross-modal matching)
The ability to recognize an object initially inspected in one modality (touch, for example) via another modality (vision, for example)
numerosity
The ability to determine quickly the number of items in a set without counting
object cohesion and continuity
The knowledge that individual objects are seen as cohesive wholes with distinct boundaries
object constancy
The knowledge that an object remains the same despite changes in how it is viewed
object permanence
The knowledge that objects have an existence in time and space independent of one’s own perception or action on those objects
ordinality
A basic understanding of more than and less than relationships
perceptual narrowing
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
phonemes
Individual sounds that are used to make up words
principle of persistence
The knowledge that objects remain cohesive and cannot undergo a spontaneous or uncaused change in the course of an event
schema
An abstract representation of an object or event
