Ch 5 infancy

Question 1

Perception

Answer 1

the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information

Question 2

Sensation

Answer 2

the processing of basic information from external world by the sensory receptors in the sense organs and brain

Question 3

Preferential looking technique

Answer 3

a method for studying visual attention in infants that involves showing infants two patterns or two objects at a time to see if the infants have a preference of one over the other (discrimination)

Question 4

Visual Acuity

Answer 4

the sharpness of visual discrimination

Question 5

Contrast Sensitivity

Answer 5

the ability to detect differences in light and dark areas in a visual pattern (infants are bad at this)

Question 6

Cones

Answer 6

light-sensitive neurons that are highly concentrated in the fovea (the central region of the retina) (immature in infants)

Question 7

Perceptual Constancy

Answer 7

the perception of objects as being constant size, shape, colour, etc., in spite of physical differences in the retinal image of the object

Question 8

Object segregation

Answer 8

the identification of separate objects in a visual array (the perception of the boundaries between objects)

Question 9

Optical Expansion

Answer 9

a depth cue in which an object occludes increasingly more of the background, indicating that the object is approaching

Question 10

binocular disparity

Answer 10

the difference between the retinal image of an object in each eye that results in two slightly different signals being sent to the brain

Question 11

Stereopsis

Answer 11

the process by which the visual cortex combines the differing neural signals caused by binocular disparity, resulting in the perception of depth
–example of experience expectant plasticity

Question 12

What is strabismus?

Answer 12

a disorder in which the two eyes do not line up in the same direction. Can occur as a result of not hitting the experience expected in vision, from birth to 3 months of age

Question 13

Monocular depth cues (or pictorial), and when does they develop?

Answer 13

the perceptual cues of depth (such as relative size and interposition) that can be perceived by one eye alone

(develops around 7 months of age)

Question 14

Auditory localization

Answer 14

perception of the location in space of a sound source, becomes better with age as we develop and fine tune our auditory spatial map

Question 15

Perceptual Narrowing

Answer 15

developmental changes in which experience fine-tunes the perceptual system
ex) infants can notice a note change in same key that adults can’t because they are highly sensitive at that point to tiny changes.

Question 16

Intermodal perception

Answer 16

the combining of information from two or more sensory systems- facilitated by sensory experience

Question 17

Do infants prefer consonance or dissonance ?

Answer 17

Consonance, just as even animals and adults do.

Question 18

Reflexes

Answer 18

innate, fixed patterns of action that occur in response to a particular stimulation

Question 19

Stepping reflex

Answer 19

a neonatal reflex in which an infant lifts first one leg and then the other in a coordinated pattern like walking

Question 20

Pre-reaching movements

Answer 20

clumsy swiping movements by young infants toward the general vicinity tog objects they see

Question 21

Self locomotion

Answer 21

the ability to move oneself around in the environment- occurs at about 8 months of age typically in the form of crawling

Question 22

Scale errors

Answer 22

the attempt by a young child to perform an action on a miniature object that is impossible due to the large discrepancy in the relative sizes of the child & object

Question 23

Differentiation

Answer 23

extracting from the constantly changing stimulation and events in the environment the relation of those elements that are constant-invariant, or stable.

Question 24

Affordances

Answer 24

the possibilities for action offered, or afforded, by objects and situations

Question 25

What is the Goldilocks effect? What does it suggest?

Answer 25

The tendency to avoid patterns that are too easy or too hard, while continuing to focus on those that are just right, given the infant’s learning abilities.
-suggets that infants allocate attention differently to different learning problems, preferentially attending to the patterns that are most informative

Question 26

Classical Conditioning

Answer 26

a form of learning that consists of associating an initially neutral stimulus with a stimulus that always evokes a particular reflexive response
ex)Pavlovs dog salivating with bell

Question 27

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)

Answer 27

in classical conditioning, a stimulus that evokes a reflexive response
ex) food causes dogs to salivate

Question 28

Unconditioned response (UCR)

Answer 28

in classical conditioning, a reflexive response that is elicited by unconditioned stimulus
ex) the saliva in dogs caused by food

Question 29

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

Answer 29

in classical conditioning, the neutral stimulus that is repeatedly paired with the unconditioned stimulus
ex) the bell in Pavlov’s experiment

Question 30

Conditioned Response (CR)

Answer 30

in classical conditioning, the originally reflexive response that comes to be elicited by the conditioned stimulus
ex) the salivating caused by the bell

Question 31

Instrumental (operant) Conditioning

Answer 31

learning the relation between one one’s behaviour and the consequences that result from it
ex) learning that pulling a lever gives you sugar candy

Question 32

Positive reinforcement

Answer 32

a reward that reliably follows a behaviour and increases the likelihood that the behaviour will be repeated
ex) the sugar candy given to rat who pulled lever

Question 33

Active Learning

Answer 33

learning by acting on the world, rather than passively observing objects and events
(think Piaget’s theory)

Question 34

Violation of expectancy

Answer 34

a procedure used to study infant cognition in which infants are shown an event that should evoke surprise or interest if it violates something that the infant knows or assumes to be true