Chapter 5 Flashcards
Sensation
The processing of basic information from the external world through the sense organs.
Perception
The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information.
Preferential technique
- method for studying visual attention in infants
- showing infants two objects at a time & measure preferance
Habituation
Decline in response to an object.
Visual acuity
Sharpness of visual discrimination
- simple versus complex pattern
Contrast sensitivity
ability to detect differences in light and dark areas in a pattern
Cones
Light-sensitive neurons that are highly concentrated in the fovea.
Colour perception appears at
2 months of age
Visual scanning
- Infants are attracted to moving stimuli.
- faces are the most preferred
- once infants babble, they fixate mostly on the mouth
Face Perception
Preference for top-heavy stimuli (human faces monkey faces) as long as they are presented right side up
Percepual narrowing
infants are better at discriminating amongst the kind of faces that are frequently experienced in their enviroment
Perceptual constancy
tendency to see familiar objects as having standard shape, size, colour, etc regardless of changes in the angle of perspective, distance, or lighting
Object segregation
The identification of separate objects in a visual array.
Optical Expansion
- blinking response at 1 month.
- depends on maturation of the brain.
- cue for depth perception
Binocular Disparity
The difference between the retinal image of an object in each eye that results in two slightly different signals being sent to the brain
Stereopsis
The process by which the visual cortex combines the differing neural signals caused by binocular disparity
- at 4 months.
Monocular Depth
The perceptual cues of depth that can be perceived by one eye alone
Auditory Localization
Perception of the location of a sound source.
- improves as the infant grows.
Music Perception
- infant-directed singing over infant-directed speech.
- consonant music over dissonant music.
Taste and Smell
sensitivity to taste develops prenatally.
Touch
- oral exploration is dominant in infants.
- 4 months, infants rub, touch and bang objects.
Intermodal Perception
The combining of information from two or more sensory systems.
Infants raised in ______ homes tend to show habituation faster.
bilingual
Differentiation
when a skill becomes more sophisticated and broken into subsets
Statistical learning
picking up information from the environment and detecting statistically predictable patterns.
Unconditioned stimulus
evokes a reflexive response
ex: food
Unconditional response
A reflexive response that is elicited by the UCS
- ex: salivation
Conditioned stimulus
The stimulus that is repeatedly paired with the UCS
ex: bell
Conditioned response
The originally reflexive response that comes to be elicited by the CS
ex: salivation
Instrumental/ Operant Conditioning
Learning the relation between one’s own behaviour and the consequences that result from it
Positive Reinforcement
A reward that reliably follows a behaviour and increases the likelihood that the behaviour will be repeated
At what age do babies imitate facial expressions and start to imitate novel actions?
By 6 months
Rational Learning
ability to use prior experiences to predict what will occur in the future.
Active Learning
learning by acting on the world, rather than passively observing.
Infants have ____ acuity, as cones are not fully _______.
low; developped
infants prefer ______ hues over ______________
unique; hue combinations.
Colour categorization is present before __________
language acquistion
Is there evidence of colour categories in infants’ brains?
Yes
fovea
the central region of the retina
At what age do infants track moving objects smoothly?
By 4 months
empiricists
maintain that all knowledge arises from experience
Can children have size constancy?
Yes
_______ as a cue help to indicate boundaries between objects.
Motion
Relative size
A retinal image of a smaller person is considered to be distant.
Parallel lines
The convergence of lines in the distance
Interposition
nearer objects block ones farther away.
Regarding taste and smell, newborns prefer _____ flavours and the smell of _______.
sweet; breast milk.
Infants can connect between ______ and _________.
sights; sounds
Goldilocks effect
infants prefer patterns that have some variability over patterns that are very simple/complex.
through positive reinforcement, infants work hard at learning to __________________.
predict and control their experience.
Mirror neuron system
A brain area that is a potential locus for imitation
- brain activation = mu rhythm.
Imitation is based on an analysis of the person’s ______. Infants consider the ________ of the person.
intentions; credibility
Violation-of-expectation paradigms
uses infants’ “surprise” at unexpected outcomes to draw inferences about their expectations.
nativists
argue that key aspects of knowledge are innate.
