Chapter 6 - Cognition in Infants and Toddlers Flashcards
a childs brain develops primarily as a result of what
repeated stimulation to sensory pathways and synaptic connections in the brain
Jean piaget was took a different approach in research in development psychology and what was it
to investigate not as a philosopher (discussions an debates) but by doing experiments with children
according to piaget, childrens engagement with the world helps thme develop what and describe it
schemas
-psychological strucutres that organize experience
during infancy, most schemas are based on what
an infants own actions
as children develop, their basis for creating schemas shift from physical movements to what
functional, conceptual and abstract propteries fof objects, events and ideas
childrens schemas change with increasing experience and as a result of what 2 procceses working together
assimilation
accomodation
when does assimilation occur
when new experiences are incorporated into existing schemas
-understanding about the world that is then applied to other new situations
describe accommodation
occurs when schemas are modified based on experience
-as a result of an experience, changes previously held understanding about the world
assimilation and accomodation are usually in what
balance/equlibrium
what happens if someone spends more time accomodating then assimilatin and vice versa and what must be done
balance becomse upset
-state of disequilibrium
-reorganize their schemas to return to state of equilibrium
what year does the sensorimotor stage occur
birth to 2
characterisitcs of trh sensorimotor stage
infants knowledge of the world is based on senses and motor skills
age preoperational thouth stage occurs
2 to 6
characterisctcs of preoperational stage
child learns how to use symbols
-words, numbers, to represen aspects of the world
age concrete operational thought occurs
7 to 11
characteristics of concrete operational thought
child understand and applies logical operations to experiences
age formal operational thought occurs
7 to 11
characteristics of formal operational thought
adolsecnt or adult thinks abstractly
infants perceptual and motor skills imrpove quickly during what ag
first year
why do they use basic sensorimotor skills to explore surroundings
while still in infancy, cannot rely on language
name the 4 substages of sensorimotor and around what age they occur
1 - excerising reflexes (birth to 1 month)
2 - learning to adapt (1 to 4 months)
3 - making interesting events (4 to 8 months)
4 - using means to achieve ends (8 to 12 months)
5 - experimenting (12 to 18 months)
6 - mental representation (18 to 24 months)
describe substage 1 of sensorimotor
newborns initially rely on reflex responses to stimuli
describe substage 2 of sensorimotor
reflexes are modified by experience
what is the chief mechanism for change and describe it and what stage of sensorimotor is this found in
primary circular reaction
-when ifnants use their bodies to accidentally produce a pleasing event and then try to recreate the event
-substage 2
describe substage 3
infant shows greater interest in the wolrd, objects become incorporated into circular reactions
novel actions that are repeaed with objects are called what does it represent
secondary circular reactinos
-represents and infants first efforts to ecplore properties and actions of objects in the environemnt
describe substage 4 of sensorimotor
marks the onset of deliberate, intentional behaviour because means and ends of activities become distinct
what is the first indication of purposeful behaviour during infancy and in what stage does this occur
using one action as a means to achieve a particular end
-substage 4
descirbe sustage 5 of sensorimotor
active experimenter with new objects
what is tertiary circular and in what substage of sensorimotor does it occur
infant will repeat old schemas with objects as if trying to understan why different objects yield different outcomes
-substage 5
describe substage 6 of sensorimotor
most infants are able to think about what is happening around them without having to physically exmpolore a situation
-become more able to mentally work through simple problems that present themselves
at what substage of sensorimotor do we see infants form early capabilities at make believe play and what does this often result from
6
-deferred imitation
-childrens abilitiy to imiate actions that they have observe at an earlier time
what marks the end of the sensorimotor thought
ability to mentally represent the world internally
what substage of sensorimotor would thumb sucking be
2
what substage of sensorimotor would moving an obstacle to reach a toy
4
what substage of sensorimotor would sucking a nipple
1
what substage of sensorimotor would shaking a toy to hear it rattle be
3
what substage of sensorimotor would shaking different toys to hear the sounds they make
5
what is object permanece
understanding that objects exist independently of oneself and ones actions
what did piaget believe when it came to object permanence in 1 to 4 month olds
believe that objects no longer exist when they disappear from view
what did piaget believe when it came to object permanence in 8 to 10 month olds
when see an object hidden under one contain and then see it hidden under a second, they routinely look for toy under first container
-infants search for objects but their understanding of object permanence remains incomplete
what did piaget believe abnout object permanence in 12 month olds
rather than accepting that an object has disappeared, infants will look fo rmissing object in several different locations
according to paiget, at what age do infants have full understanding of object permanence
18 months
what did aspect of piagets beliefs did researchers question and because of what
his view on infants object permanence
-minor changes can affect 8-10 months old in hidden object task (infants who are unsuccessful on taks might be showing poor memory rather than inadequate understanding of nature of objects)
-investigators have shown that babies understand objects much earlier than piaget claiems
describe the experiment done that proved babies understand object permenance much earlier than piaget claimed
-infants saw silver screen that was rotating back and forth with an orange box that would appear every now and then
-from infants perspective appeared as if box vanished behind hte screen only to reappear
-this violates idea that objects exist permanently
-those who understand object permenance would found this to be s novel stimuli and look at it longer
-found that 4 and half months looked longer at event showing some understanding of object permanence
why are childrens theories called naive theories
unlike scientific theories, not created by specialists, rarely evaluated by formal experimentation
in relation to naive physics, what do infants know by 3 or 4 months
objects move along connected continuous paths and cannot move through other objects
in relation to naive physics, what do 6 month olds know
expect a stationary object to move following a collision
-understand the distance travelled by that object depends on size of the colliding obejct
when does naive understanding of physics takes place
throughout preschool years and lateer
Slaughter and her team found that infnats understand their bodies in what 3 ways
- short-term mental representations of the body based ons ensorimotor experiences
- long-term knowldge of the physical location and interrelationships of body parts (viuospatial knowledge)
-semantic understanding that comes bgy learning the names of body parts, (lexical semantic knowledge)
what is sensory memory
where info is held in ra, unanalyzed form very briefly (no longer than a few seconds0
what is working memory
site of ongoing cognitive acivity includes
-ongoing cognitive processes
-information they require
system of components that holds a limitied amount of info temporarily in a heightned state of availability for use in ongoing processing
what is long-term memory
limitless, permanent storehous of knowledge
-includes facts, personal events and skills
-info is rarely forgotten but can be hard to access
what is working memory similiar to in a computer
random-access memory
-load programs we want to run and temporarily store the data the programs are using
long term memory is similiar to what of a computer
hard drive
what is procedural memory
memory for how we do things
what is semantic memory
memory for particular facts
what is autobiographical or episodic memory
memory for specfic events that have occured for a person
impairments in episodic memory have benn noted in children who have what
-born very prematurely
-experienced low levels of exygen at birth (hypoxia)
describe the steps of mental softeware
-undeerstand question
-search memory for list
-compare question with list
-respond
how can children improve perfomance of certains tasks according to information processing
altering the attention and memory strategies they use
researchers studying way finding in children and adults found what
-self-rating prior to an experience of route reversal was a weak predictor of actual performance
-children and adults could improve their route reversal performance if they were told to take a look back while learning the route
researchers studying way finding in children and adults came to what conclusion
-beliefs about sense of direction are based on a persons recollecting the effectiveness of the attention and memory strategies they used during past way-finding situations
Robbie case combined asepcts of what 2 theories and reffered to it as neo-piagetian approach
information proccesing and piagetian theory
what is neo-piagetian approach
movemnt from one stage of piagets stages to the next was due to advances in information processing related skills and abilities
-not simply to maturation
what did case argue in neo-pagetian approach
as childrens memory capacity and ability to mentally manipulate info improves, so too did childrens overall cognitive ability and understanding of hte world
what is an orienting response
a physical reaction to a strong or unfamiliar stimulus
what is habituation
state of diminished responding to a stimulus as it becomes mroe familiar
what is dishabituation
state of reorientation, when a person becomes aware of a stimulus to which the person previously had habituated
an infants habituation and visual recognition abilities are part of brain involving what 3 parts of brian and they beign to emerge at what age
-anterior cingulated gyrus
-prefrontal cortex
-basal ganglia
second half of an infants first year
infants who are more efficient at processing info tend to have what
higher executive function throughout early childhood
in classsical condition gives infants what and whay do they learn
a sense of order in their worlds
-a stimulus is a signal for what will happen enxt
-learn to associate events in their environment
what are4 examples of how a child might learn
habituation
classical conditioning
operant conditioning
imitation
what comes first, names of numbers or basic number skills
the ladder
describe how we know infants understand basic number skills
-show many pictures with same different objects shown twice
-look at it for a while and eventually habituates and looks away showing no more interest
-once this occurs, show a pitcure of a single object or of three object and they dishabituate looking at it with renewed interest
can infants distinguish between objects based on number and quantity
yes
at 6 months, infants can distinguish between objects in a 1:2 ratio but not a and what does this mean
2:3 ratio
-would be able to tell difference between 1 and 2 objectrs or between 2 and 4 objects but not between 2 and 3 or 4 and 6 objects
what is an egocentric frame of reference
thinking o objetcs in space exlusively int erms of their relationship to the childs own body position
what is objective frame of reference
thinking of objects in space relative to the position of objects or persons other than oneself
in the bayley scales of infant developmet what does the mental scale assess
infants adaptive behaviour
in the bayley scales of infant developmet what does the motor scale assess
infants motor control, coordination, and abiltity to manipulate objects
in the bayley scales of infant developmet other than motor and mental, what are 3 other scales assessed
habituation
memory
problem solving
what is a challenge to some psychological tests such as the bayley scales of infant developmet
often do not validly assess people from cultures not represented in the origincal standardized sample upon which the test was based
-might not be sensitive to cultural or socioeconomic differences
are score from infant intelligence tests related to intelligence score obtain in later life
no
what abilities in a baby can be predictive of IQ through adolescence
ability to habituate and dishabituate
what steroid hormone has an impact on learning and memory and it comes from what gland
coritsol
-adrenal gland on the kidney
basic building blocks of language are called what and describe
phonemes
-sounds that are joined to create words
can infants distuinguash phonemes
yes
-some as ealry as one month
describe study that looked to see if babies responded differently to distinct sounds
-a rubber nipple was connected to a tape recorder
-everytime baby would suck, sound would play
-first sound baby would suck often to ehar ut, eventually habituated and sucked less often
-if tape shanged to different sound, baby would suck rapidly again
-recognize that the souynds were different
babies growing up in homes where only english is spoken have no regular experience with nasal versus non-nasal vowels but can still what
hear the diffreence between them, unlike parents, who cannot
when it comes to an infants first birhtday whta happens in terms of recognizing sound
-become in tune with langague exposed to daiy
-can no longer recognize difference in native language sounds
by 6 months, what can infants do when it comes to perceiving speech
look at the correct parent when they hear mommy or daddy
when 7 to 8 month olds hear a word repeatedly in different centences, they later pay more attention to this word compared to oens they havent previously head what does this show
they can listen to sentences and recognize sound patterns that they hear repeatedly
in order to pick out where individual words begin and end in a flow of conversation, what do infants pay attention to
linguistic stress
what do infants pay more attention to, stressed or unstressed syllables and what is this good for
stressed
-strategy for identifying beginnigns of wordswh
what type of linguistic stress does the english language have
many 2 syllable words that have stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable
ex; pup-py, tooth-paste
is linguistic stress a foolproof sign
no, many two syllable words have stress on second syllable
-so infants need other methods to identify words in speech
in middle infancy, children concentrate less on phonemes and more on what
speech stress
by late infancy, both speech stress and phonemes become what
intergrated with each other
what is infant directed speech
speaking slowly in exaggerated changes of pitch and loudness whne connmincating with babies, formerly called motherese
by 2 months babies can produce what type of language
sounds that are languaged based
-like vowel sounds, known as cooing
what is babbling
speech-like sound that has no meaning
at around 7 months, an infants babbing includes what
intonation
-pattern of rishing or falling pitch, similar to the rising and falling pattern of speech in normal conversation
whta is the intonation in english like
pitch firsth rises and then falls toward end of sentence
what works to activate the auditory cortex in people who are profoundly deaf and what does this suggest
sign language
-neural mechanisms exist in the human brain for processing language not just speech
why do children with cerebral palsy have difficulty with babbling
normal control of breathing is essential to produce soeech related sounds
-they may have mroe difficulty controlling air expiration
what do infants tend to leanr fisrt, verbs or nouns
nouns
using habituation-dishabituation what did janet werker and athena vouloumanos discover when it came to ifnants detecting differences betwen normal speech and nonsense speech and what did they conclude
ifnants listened longer to real speech sounds
-bias toward actual human speech envourages rapid development of speech in infancny
when does a childs vocabulary grows slowly at first
once they have insight that a word can symobolixe an object or action
around how many words would a 15 month old learn each week
2 to 3 new words
what is naming explosion and when does this occur
18 months
-learn new words, particularlyy objects, much more rapidly than before
what is fast mapping
ability of children to rapidly conenct new words to their referents
toddlers are more likely to learn an objects name when what
adults look at the object while saying its name
what are 4 rules when it comes to children learning new words
-name refers to a whole object
-if object already has a name, and another name is presented, new name denotes a subcategory of orginal name
-a word applied consistently to only one of similiar category members, is a proper noun (occurs between 16 and 20 months)
what is underextension
when a word is defined too narrowly
what is overextension and when is this a common mistake in children
defining a word too broadly
-1 to 3 years
overextension error occurs less frequently qhen children are comprehending words compared to what
producing words
what is referential style
a childs intial tendency to learn primarily words thar name objects, person, or actions instead of social phrases
what is expressive style
childs initial tendency to learn primarily social phrases in language rather than object names
how do children with referential stle use language as
intellectual tool - means od learning and talking about objects
how do children with expressive style use language
social tool - way of enhancing interactions of others
