Chapter 3 - coming to perceive the world

Question 1

feedback loop

Answer 1

in developmental psychology, the constant interplay between an infant and his environment, in which an experience causes a change in the infant’s state, which in turn influences how the infant’s next experiences are encountered

Question 2

visual acuity

Answer 2

sharpness of visual perception based on the ability to see the contrasts in the world that represent lines, shapes, and shadows

Question 3

preferential looking method

Answer 3

a method to determine whether a subject can detect a difference between two types of displays, implied when the subject looks at one display more than the other

Question 4

habituation method

Answer 4

a method to determine if an infant can distinguish a new stimulus from a familiar stimulus. An infant’s responses will decrease with repeated presentation of a familiar stimulus, but they will increase if the infant perceives that there is a new stimulus

Question 5

habituation

Answer 5

the gradual decline of interest in a display or scene, as shown by a decrease in responses to repeated stimulus

Question 6

dishabituation

Answer 6

the expression of interest in a new display or scene, as shown by increased responses to the novel sitmulus

Question 7

optokinetic nystagmus method

Answer 7

a technique used to measure acuity, in which increasingly thin arrays of stripes are moved across the infant’s visual field and the infant’s spontaneous eye tracking of the stripes is observed

Question 8

visually evoked potential method

Answer 8

a method of measuring at what point of resolution the changing patterns that an infant is watching on a screen no longer cause corresponding changes in his brain’s electrical activity

Question 9

astigmatism

Answer 9

a visual condition that affects the focusing of light and results in stimuli at different orientations being perceived with different levels of acuity

Question 10

hue

Answer 10

the aspect of color that is a consequence of wavelengths of light

Question 11

categorical perception

Answer 11

the tendency to group stimuli that vary along a physical continuum, such as light wavelength, in terms of categories, such as different colors

Question 12

dynamic cue

Answer 12

a cue to the perception of depth that arises from moving objects and surfaces

Question 13

motion parallax

Answer 13

a cue to depth that arises from the relative motion of objects at different distances

Question 14

binocular cues

Answer 14

a cue to the perception of depth that arises from the use of both eyes

Question 15

binocular parallax

Answer 15

a binocular cue to depth that arises from small disparities between the images that reach the two eyes; also called binocular disparity

Question 16

stereopsis

Answer 16

the fusion of an image that is seen with both eyes, a fusion that uses binocular disparity to compute depth and give a sense of three-dimensionality

Question 17

convergence

Answer 17

a binocular cue to depth that arises from the sensation that occurs when the two eyes converge to focus on an object

Question 18

pictorial cue

Answer 18

a cue to perception of depth that arises from information in two-dimensional pictures

Question 19

visual cliff

Answer 19

an apparatus for assessing depth perception in infants. It consists of a large, transparent and non-reflective pane of glass with two similar patterned displays below it. One-half of the glass pane has a pattern directly beneath it, so that the surface appears solid, and the other half of the glass pane has the same pattern roughly 3 feet below, giving the impression of a sudden drop-off. If the infant perceives depth, she will be afraid to crawl over the half of the glass pane that appears to have a drop-off

Question 20

plasticity

Answer 20

flexible abilities that enable a developing organism to be responsive to changing environmental contingencies

Question 21

Gestalt principles

Answer 21

holistic principles of perception that allow viewers to parse up the world into objects and other meaningful units

Question 22

perceptual narrowing

Answer 22

a process in which infants increase their processing ability and precision in a narrow category, but often at the expense of processing outside that category

Question 23

U-shaped developmental curve

Answer 23

a developmental pattern in which an early, rudimentary ability or capacity initially declines with increasing age and then increases, becoming more sophisticated than it was at the start. This patterns is associated with the replacement of an early system with a later-emerging, more mature one

Question 24

sensitive period

Answer 24

a period in development when learning a particular kind of information is much easier. Before or after such a period learning is more difficult

Question 25

intermodal perception

Answer 25

the ability to see objects and events in an integrated manner across different sensory systems, such as vision and hearing