Chapter 5: Infant Perception, Motor Development and Learning Flashcards
Methods to test infant visual acuity
Habituation, preferential looking, psychophysiology (heart rate, EEGs, etc.)
Acuity in infants
Sharpness of vision; most babies average around 20/120; develops very quickly
Visual scanning in infants
Tracking eyes across an environment. Babies lack smooth pursuit tracking skills due to underdeveloped muscles. Scanning pattern becomes more feature focused with age
Sticky perception
Babies have trouble disengaging their attention due to low eye motor control and lack of smooth tracking skills
Color vision in infants
Develops during the first year; newborns can only see high contrast, color develops around 2-3 months old
Facial processing in infants
Scan outer parts of the face at one month, then inner features at 2+ months. Prefer parents faces, faces of the same gender as the primary caregiver, and attractive people. Babies will focus on eyes before speech development, and mouths after
Other race effect
Babies cannot discriminate between faces of different races until about 9 months. Prefer the race of their caregiver or whoever they are most exposed to.
Other species effect
Babies cannot discriminate between animal and human faces until about 9 months old. 6 month old can differentiate monkey faces (tell the difference between animal faces)
Perceptual narrowing
Our perception of differences decreases over time as we mature; rate of decline is faster for less exposed stimuli. Possibly due to synaptic pruning
Familiarity preferences
Preference for faces you see often, usually parents. Occurs because 25% of all visual input for a newborn is other’s faces. Percentage decreases as the baby gains mobility
Visual benefit of babies’ short arms
The object they are holding takes up more of their visual field, helping them pay attention to it (substitutes endogenous attention)
Object segregation
Differentiating objects in an image
Perceptual constancy
Objects being perceived as the same shape and size despite the retinal image changing (occurs in infants; proved by the fact that they dishabituate a larger object that takes up the same amount of retinal space)
Object permanence
An object is not present in the mind when it leaves the visual field; age prediction possibly inaccurate as babies will reach for items in the dark AND they are confused when a solid wall occludes an object but does not contact the object (passes through as if it wasn’t there)
Kellman and Spelke rod and block experiment
Habituate babies to a rod hidden by a block. Rod is either moving or still. Showed babies image of full or split rod. Measured dishabituation. Found no difference in still group, but difference in moving group. Split rod caused more dishabituation. Argued babies understood that items moving together sound be one object. Found in 2 month olds, not in newborns
Depth percpetion
Ability to see how far away objects are. Possibly maturational, but we see blinking reflexes in 1 month olds at looming objects
Stereopsis
both eyes converging to track an object. Develops around 4 months old, experience-expectant. Studied by Hubert and Weisel
Auditory localization
Perception of the spatial location of a sound source, improves with age
Music perception in infants
Prefer being sung to than spoken to; pay attention to consonant tones and are sensitive to melodic and rhythmic changes. Experiences perceptual narrowing
Development of taste and smell
Occurs before (and directly after) birth through amniotic fluid. Important for nutrition
Development of touch
First experiences are from the mouth, hand manipulation begins around 4 months old.
Visual cliff experiment
Illusory drop off is made using clear glass and a box. Tested if children will crawl across it. 6-14 month olds will not cross it. 1.5 will see it but not be afraid of it. Age of crossing depends on how long you’ve been crawling.
Visual/motor matching
Integrating the skills of looking/perception and moving (multi-modal input is key)
Pacifier study (Multzof)
Babies habituate to sucking on a smooth or bumpy pacifier. Then visually shown either the smooth or bumpy pacifier. Track visual preference. Babies will look at the pacifier they are sucking on. Supports visual/motor matching occurs at a young age
Visual/Auditory matching
Integrating visual perception skills with listening skills
Spelke bouncing animal experiment
Videos are shown alongside an audio clip. One video matches, the other does not. Babies will look longer at the video that matches the audio sound (measuring preferential looking). Supports that visual/auditory matching occurs at a young age.
Strabismus
Lack of stereopsis, can be corrected during the sensitive period
Congenital cataracts
Clouded lenses, can be medically reversed, sensitive period of removal where visual acuity can be restored
Motor development
Milestones are culturally dependent; babies generate their own motor experience/practice; parental input can facilitate development (stretching and movement)
Sticky mittens experiment
Gave babies velcro gloves that they could use to pick up items before their grasping skills were developed yet. Kids exposed to sticky mittens had more sophisticated reaching skills and object exploration skills at an earlier age
Thelen study of stepping reflex
Hypothesis: disappearance of stepping reflex is due to increase in weight before increase in muscle strength
Test: Put non-walking babies in water (decrease gravity) and put weights on walking babies (increase gravity)
Found: Walking increased in water babies and disappeared in weighted babies.
Supports competence vs. performance: babies know how to step but they cannot perform the knowledge due to bodily restrictions
Diaper impact on walking
The bulk of the diaper can affect the natural gait of a child and delay walking. Proof that environmental factors (clothes) can affect development
Adolf slopes research
Tested new crawlers and experienced crawlers on slopes of different angles. Found that trepidation of crawling down a slope for experienced crawlers did not extend to walking in those same children. Proves experience in motor control may not transfer between pathways/actions
Meltzoff and Moore facial experiment
Made facial expressions at newborn babies and found that they copied them. Suggested this was due to mirror neurons (will activate when observing another’s actions). Controversial conclusion/findings
Types of learning in newborns
Classical conditioning, habituation, statistical learning, observational learning, operant conditioning, rational learning, active learning
Mobile studies of memory (Rovee and Callion)
Babies tethered to a mobile. Let them explore and figure out that they can control the mobile. Brought back a week later to see if they kick faster than before. Found yes and that it improves with age. If the stimulus changes shape the memory will not transfer (but not with color).
Deferred imitation
imitating something you have seen before, thus requiring memory
Imitation preference in infants
At 18 months, babies will prefer to imitate actions of humans over robots, because they ascribe intention to human actions but not robots. Will prefer to imitate trustworthy people
Statistical learning in infants
Babies prefer probable events. Tested with made up language habituation, then presentation with probable and improbable syllable combinations. Babies would dishabituate to improbable combinations.
Rational learning
Integrating prior belief with what occurs in the environment; using prior experience to predict an event outcome. Proved by the colored ping-pong ball experiment.
Active learning
Learn by acting on the world. Driven by seeking explanations to surprising outcomes
