chapter 5 Flashcards
embryo
The developing human organism from about two weeks after fertilization through the second month. (after zygote)
Zygote
The fertilized egg that enters a two-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo. (fertilized)
fetus
The developing human organism from nine weeks after conception to birth.(after embryo until birth)
teratogens
agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm(harmful)
fetal alcohol syndrome
physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman’s heavy drinking. In severe cases, symptoms include noticeable facial misproportions(FAL = bad)
habituation
decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner(conditioning)
maturation
biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience(growing up)
cognition
all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
schema
A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information
assimilation
interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.
accommodation
adapting our current understandings to incorporate new information.
sensorimotor stage
in piaget’s theory, the stage (from birth to about two years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities.
object permanence
The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived
Preoperational stage
in piaget’s theory, the stage (from about 2 to 6 or seven years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations to concrete logic
Conservation
The principle (which Piaget’s believed to be a part of the concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects
egocentrism
in piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view.