Chapter 5 Flashcards
Behaviorist approach
Study of cognitive development that is concerned with basic mechanics of learning
Psychometric approach
Study of cognitive development that seeks to measure intelligence quantitatively
Piagetian approach
Study of cognitive development that describes qualitative stages in cognitive functioning
Information-processing approach
Approach to the study of cognitive development that analyzes processes involved in perceiving and handling information
Cognitive neuroscience approach
Study of cognitive development that links brain processes with cognitive ones
Social-contextual approach
Study of cognitive development that focuses on environmental influences, particularly parents and other caregivers
Classical conditioning
Person learns to make a reflex, or voluntary, response (blinking) to a stimulus (camera) that originally did not bring on the response
Operant conditioning
Focuses on the consequences of behaviors and how they affect the likelihood of that behavior occurring again
Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development
Standardized test of infants’ and toddlers’ mental and motor development - 1 month to 3.5 years
Tests: Cognitive
Language
Motor
Social-emotional
Adaptive behavior
Separate scores (developmental quotients) calculated for each scale - most commonly used for detection of emotional disturbances and sensory, neurological and environmental deficits
Early intervention
Systematic process of providing services to help families meet young children’s developmental needs
Early educational intervention can help offset environmental risks and provide significant benefits even if the striking early gains that are often seen do not persist
Most effective early interventions:
Start early and continue throughout the preschool years
Highly time-intensive (occupy more hours in a day or more days in a week, month, or year)
Center-based, providing direct educational experiences, not just parental training
Take a comprehensive approach, including health, family counseling, and social services
Tailored to individual differences and needs
Object permanence
John Piaget’s term for the understanding that a person/object is still there even if it is out of sight
Develops gradually during sensor motor stage
Object permanence at 4-8 months
They will look for something they have dropped, but if they cannot see it, it no longer exists
Object permanence at 8-12 months
They will look for an object in a place where they first found it after seeing it hidden, even if they later saw it being moved to another place (A-not-B error)
Object permanence at 12-18 months
They will search for an object in the last place they saw it hidden, however they will not search for it in a place where they did not see it hidden
Object permanence at 18-24 months
Object permanence is fully achieved, toddlers will look for an object even if they did not see it hidden
Habituation
Type of learning in which familiarity with a stimulus reduces, slows, or stops a response - familiarity breeds loss of interest
Researchers study habituation by repeatedly presenting a stimulus and then monitoring responses - gauge efficiency of infants’ information process by measuring how quickly babies habituate to familiar stimuli
Dishabituation
Increase in responsiveness after presentation of a new stimulus
Liking to look at new things and habituating to them quickly correlates with later signs of cognitive development
Visual preference
Tendency of infants to spend more time looking at one sight than another
Babies 2 days old prefer curved lines vs straight lines
Visual recognition memory
Ability to distinguish a familiar visual stimulus from an unfamiliar one when shown both at the same time
Babies stare at novel stimulus (new) longer than familiar stimulus because it is exciting
When shown two sights at the same time, infants who quickly shift attention have better recognition memory and stronger novelty preference
Speed of processing increases rapidly during infants ______ year
1st
Continues during 2nd and 3rd years, toddlers become able to distinguish new information from information they have already processed
Cross-modal transfer
Ability to use information gained by one sense to guide another
(ex: when a person negotiates a dark room by feeling for the location of familiar objects)
Joint attention
Fundamental importance to social interaction, language acquisition, and the understanding of others’ intentions and mental states - develops between 10 and 12 months, when babies follow adults gaze by looking or pointing in the same direction
Innate learning mechanisms
Violation of expectations theory that infants are born with reasoning abilities that help them make sense of the information they encounter - or they acquire these abilities very early