Chapter 6: First Two Years- Cognitive Development

Question 1

Primary Circular Reactions

Answer 1

This is involving infants body. Stage one (birth to 1 month), stage of reflexes. Stage two (1 to 4 months), first habits.

Question 2

Secondary Circular Reactions

Answer 2

Interaction between baby and something else. Stage three (4-8 months), making interesting things last. Stage four (6-12 months), expecting a behavior to follow the action the infant put out.

Question 3

Object Permanence

Answer 3

Realization that people and objects still exist if they can’t be seen or touched.

Question 4

Tertiary Circular Reactions

Answer 4

Involving exploration and experimentation. Stage five (12-18 months), active exploration. Stage six (18-24 months), experimentation and imagination.

Question 5

Little Scientist

Answer 5

Stage five toddler experimenting without balancing the results, trial and error.

Question 6

Deferred Imitation

Answer 6

Where an infant sees someone else perform something for them and then performs the same action hours or days later.

Question 7

Habituation

Answer 7

Process of becoming used to an event through repeated exposure, also allowing them to be less interested in it.

Question 8

fMRI

Answer 8

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. To see how infants respond and get excited to stimulus.

Question 9

Information-Processing Theory

Answer 9

Comparing human thinking with thinking of a computer. Input-Software Program-Output/ Sensation-Perception-Cognition.

Question 10

Affordance

Answer 10

Opportunity for interaction offered by a person, place, or object in the environment. a cover or blanket for example.

Question 11

Visual Cliff

Answer 11

Illusion of a drop-off between two surfaces.

Question 12

Dynamic Perception

Answer 12

Perception focused upon movement and change.

Question 13

People Preference

Answer 13

Infant perception, and attraction to other humans.

Question 14

Reminder Session

Answer 14

Experience that helps a person recollect an idea or experience.

Question 15

Child-Directed Speech

Answer 15

High-pitched voice parents use for their infants.

Question 16

Babbling

Answer 16

Child’s repetition of syllables like ba-ba. Happens around 6 and 9 months.

Question 17

Holophrase

Answer 17

Single word used to express a meaningful thought.

Question 18

Naming Explosion

Answer 18

Increase in infants vocabulary especially in nouns. Happens at about 18 months.

Question 19

Grammar

Answer 19

Methods of word order and verb forms languages use to communicate meaning apart from words themselves.

Question 20

Mean Length of Utterance

Answer 20

Average number of words and sounds in a sentence, children don’t usually talk in sentences so they use this.

Question 21

Language Acquisition Device

Answer 21

Chomsky’s term for a mental structure that allows people to learn language and all the terms with it.

Question 22

Piaget’s Theory (Basic Principles)

Answer 22

• Children are active learners.
• Adaptation is core of intelligence.
• Cognition happens in four stages.

Question 23

Piaget’s Theory (Sensorimotor Intelligence)

Answer 23

• How infants think during first stage of cognitive development.
• They use senses and motor skills.

Question 24

Adaptation: Assimilation and Accommodation

Answer 24

• Assimilation is new experiences into old ideas.

- Accommodation is old experiences into new ideas.

Question 25

Circular Reactions

Answer 25

Baby’s reinforcement encourages repetition of action. Thumb sucking is good, so keep doing it. Reactions keep going because infant finds pleasure in them at each stage.

Question 26

Cognitive Milestones

Answer 26

Goal-directed behavior must have purposeful action, cause and effect, and using memory.

Question 27

Evaluating Piaget’s Theory

Answer 27

Strengths- Infants active learners, several ways of thinking, infants process info different than adults.
Weaknesses- Small sample size, cognitive development is continual, motor and cognitive development may get confused.

Question 28

Affordance (Gibson and Gibson)

Answer 28

Perception requires selectivity. We see what we are trained to see. Four factors of how it is perceived: sensory awareness, immediate motivation, current development, past experience.

Question 29

Language Development

Answer 29

• Noises, gestures, and facial expressions are first signs of language.
• Timing to learn language varies, but it is unique in every culture.

Question 30

Basics of Language

Answer 30

• 6 months infants are able to distinguish sounds and gestures in own language.
• 10 months they lose recognition of sounds in other cultures.

Question 31

Cooing

Answer 31

First few months, repetition of vowel sounds (ahhh).

Question 32

Gestures

Answer 32

Gestures are there before speech, and are at about 10 months.

Question 33

Vocabulary

Answer 33

Words are learned dramatically: few words in first year, 6-15 months 10X what they knew, and 12 months holophrases.

Question 34

Language Learning (B.F. Skinner)
#1: Infants Need to be Taught

Answer 34

• Babbling is usually reinforced. Caregivers and parents must show them how to speak.
• Repetition of words is important, especially delightful ones.

Question 35

1 Evidence

Answer 35

• Well taught infants become great speakers.

- If parents want infants who are well-educated, they must show them how to speak.

Question 36

Language Learning (B.F. Skinner)
#2: Social Impulses Foster Infant Language

Answer 36

• Infants communicate from humans evolving.

- Emotional messages of speech, not the words, bring early communication.

Question 37

2 Evidence

Answer 37

• Each culture furthers social interaction through practices like talking.
• Babies learn whatever their culture provides.

Question 38

Language Learning (Noam Chomsky)
#3: Infants Teach Themselves

Answer 38

• Language learning is in born

- Language is experience-expectant.

Question 39

3 Evidence

Answer 39

• Language is too complex to learn step-by-step.

- Language acquisition device (LAD) is in born.