Conceptual Development

Question 1

empiricist argument about infants’ conceptual knowledge

Answer 1

• Infants are born with general-purpose, evolutionarily adaptive learning mechanisms
• They use these learning mechanisms to very quickly discover properties of the physical world

Question 2

nativist argument about infants’ conceptual knowledge

Answer 2

• Infants know a great deal about the physical world from birth
• This knowledge is specialized into specific modules (core knowledge)
• experience elaborates upon this knowledge

Question 3

domains of core knowledge

Answer 3

• 4-6 domains of knowledge present from about 3 months/earliest age tested:
  1) Objects
  2) Geometry
  3) Number
  4) Agents
  5) Social groups
  6) Morality

Question 4

Violation of expectations paradigm (Renee Baillargeon)

Answer 4

• Infants as young as 3.5 months of age look reliably longer at the impossible event
• Infants continue to track the objects even when they are hidden -> they mentally represent the object’s existence, height, and trajectory even when the object is hidden
• This shows that infant’s object permanence may emerge earlier and be more complex than Piaget initially believed
• Ex. Drawbridge and box, short vs. Tall carrots in the window

Question 5

object cognition (3 concepts)

Answer 5

• In addition to tracking objects, infants recognize from a young age that objects are:
  1) Cohesive: objects move as connected, bounded wholes
  2) Continuous: objects move along connected, unobstructed paths
  3) Contact: objects require contact to change each other’s motion
• Violation of expectation paradigms show evidence of this knowledge in infants as young as 3 months of age

Question 6

geometry

Answer 6

• How distance, angle, and directional relationships between surfaces and objects function
• Adults, children, and non-human animals all use geometric features of space to reorient themselves when they are disoriented
• Geometric features of space appear to be more important to young infants and adult non-human animals than landmarks are
• Humans are not adept at using subtle landmarks until after infancy (are only good with landmarks if they’re quite salient)
• Ex. If babies are put to the blue wall test, they only succeed 50% of the time because they only use geometric landmarks (wall length) and not the colour of the wall

Question 7

number

Answer 7

• Infants also appear to possess knowledge about number
• Infants’ numerical cognition appears to be comprised of 2 systems:
• • Discrete (small) number system
• • Approximate (large) number system

Question 8

discrete number system

Answer 8

• Works on quantities of 1, 2, and 3 objects
• Evidence for this comes from infants’ ability to track objects
• When infants watch one object disappear behind a screen, they exhibit surprise (violation of expectation) when 2 objects emerge from the screen -> they do this will quantities up to 3, but then lose track if more objects go behind the screen

Question 9

approximate number system

Answer 9

• Works on approximations of quantities greater than 3
• Works according to Weber’s law:
• Large number system functions in terms of ratio rather than absolute quality
• Adults can detect differences in large quantities at about a 7:8 ratio (ex. Discriminating between red and blue dots -> you can do this as long as it’s within the 7:8 ratio)
• Infants’ Weber ratio is lower – 2:3 (need a greater relative difference between quantities to tell difference)

Question 10

agents

Answer 10

• Infants, like adults, have knowledge about agents
• Babies expect humans to have agency and goals, but not robots (ex. Arm reaching study – babies expect humans to grab the object they were looking for, but expect robot to keep reaching for same place)
• This only occurs after infants can successfully reach (6 months), unless they have used sticky mittens (then it’s 3 months) -> suggests that this may not be core knowledge; it may be based on experience

Question 11

unlike objects, agents produce actions that are…

Answer 11

• Goal-directed: agents will not violate their goals
• Efficient: agents want to complete goal as efficiently as possible
• Reciprocal: actions must have reactions (ex. If you push someone, they should move slightly)
• Gaze-directed (when they have eyes): we will look towards our goal while we’re fulfilling it

Question 12

concepts

Answer 12

general ideas or understands that can be used to group together objects, events, qualities, or abstractions that are similar in some way

Question 13

3 informal theories children organize things into

Answer 13

1. theory of physics (inanimate objects)
2. theory of psychology (people)
3. theory of biology (other living things)

Question 14

category hierarchy

Answer 14

• categories that are related by set-subset relations

- ex. category “furniture” includes all chairs, category “chair” includes all La-Z-Boys

Question 15

perceptual categorization

Answer 15

the grouping together of objects that have similar appearances

Question 16

levels in a category hierarchy

Answer 16

1. superordinate level: the most general level, such as “animal” in animal/dog/poodle
2. basic level: middle level, often the first level learned, such as “dog” in animal/dog/poodle
3. subordinate level: most specific level, such as “poodle” in animal/dog/poodle

Question 17

naive psychology

Answer 17

a common-sense way of understanding other people and yourself

Question 18

theory of mind

Answer 18

an organized understanding of how mental processes such as intentions, desires, beliefs, perceptions, and emotions influence behaviour

Question 19

false-belief problems

Answer 19

• task that test a child’s understanding that other people will act in accord with their own beliefs even when the child knows those beliefs are incorrect
• ex. the Smarties/pencils box task

Question 20

Theory of Mind Module (TOMM)

Answer 20

a hypothesized brain mechanism devoted to understanding other human beings

Question 21

pretend play

Answer 21

make-believe activities in which children create new symbolic relations, acting as if they were in a situation different from their actual one

Question 22

object substitution

Answer 22

• during pretend play, using an object as something other than itself (ex. using a broom to represent a horse)
• emerges around 18 months

Question 23

sociodramatic play

Answer 23

• activities in which children enact mini dramas with other children or adults, such as “mother comforting baby”
• emerges around 30 months

Question 24

essentialism

Answer 24

• the view that living things have an essence inside them that makes them what they are
• one of the most basic aspects of children’s biological beliefs

Question 25

egocentric spatial representations

Answer 25

• coding of spatial locations relative to one’s own body without regard to the surroundings (ie. if you put a toy to their right and turn them around, they’ll still look to their right)
• in sensorimotor stage

Question 26

numerical equality

Answer 26

the realization that all sets of n objects have something in common (ex. two dogs -> they both have something in common)

Question 27

subitizing

Answer 27

perceptual process by which adults and children can look at a few objects and almost immediately know how many objects are present