Conceptual Development: The Physical World

Question 1

Categorisation of objects: What are the three general categories that are evident from infancy?

Answer 1

1. Inanimate objects
2. Animals
3. People

Question 2

Categorisation of objects: what are the concepts behind inanimate objects, animals and people? What do these concepts allow?

Answer 2

Inanimate objects: No self-propelled movement.

Animals: Eat, drink, grow, breathe, move, act.

People: As animals, plus ‘similar to me’, mental states, people-specific behaviours.

Concepts:
Mental representations of properties. Allows the properties of unfamiliar category members to be inferred. More detailed with age.

Question 3

People and animals: Give a brief overview of Ricard and Allard (1993) study.

How old were the participants?

What were the different behaviours for the conditions?

What idea do the results support?

Answer 3

. 9 - 10 month old infants
. Behaved differently in different conditions:
Approach and touch the toy rabbit, smile at the person, attend more to person than rabbit.
. Supports the idea of separate categories.

Question 4

How do children understanding of category hierarchies grow?

Answer 4

As their language develops.

Question 5

How do parents aid children understanding of category hierarchies?

Answer 5

Help explain relationships between basic level categories and more specific and more general categories.

Question 6

What are the 3 types of categories in a category hierarchy? Give example of category hierarchy.

Answer 6

Basic level categories are formed before superordinate and subordinate categories.
e.g.,

Breeds of dog (subordinate)

Dog (basic)

Pets (superordinate)

Question 7

By what age can infants perceive causal connections between physical events?

Give a study re this.

Answer 7

6 months.

Oakes and Cohen (1995).
. Habituate to a moving object colliding with a stationary object and causing the stationary object to move.

Question 8

By what age can infants take into account the probability of the object having a causal effect.

Give a study re this.

Answer 8

24 months.

Waismeyer et al., (2015).

Question 9

Explaining conceptual development: What do nativists believe?

Answer 9

. Innate understanding of fundamental concepts related to objects, space, time and number.
. Important in our evolutionary history.
. Specialised modules in the brain might explain early emergence and rapid development.
. Limited evidence; strongest for spatial processing.

Question 10

Explaining conceptual development: What do empiricists believe?

Answer 10

. Understanding comes from experience, teaching and advances in information processing.
. Supported by cultural differences.

Question 11

How is ‘Theory of Mind’ defined?

Answer 11

The term Theory of Mind used as a more sophisticated ability to explain, predict and interpret people’s behaviour by attributing mental states to self and others.

Question 12

What evidence does Theory of Mind require?

Answer 12

Evidence that children are making judgements based on invisible mental states and not based on the state of the real world.

Question 13

What is the ‘Maxi test’ (Wimmer & Perner, 1983)?

Answer 13

. Child puts chocolate in green cupboard then goes and plays outside.
. Mother moves chocolate from green to blue cupboard while may is away, then goes into the garden.
. Max goes back inside for his chocolate, where will Max look for his chocolate?

Question 14

What do children need to understand to pass the ‘maxi test’?

Answer 14

. Another person can have a false belief about the state of the world.
. Behaviour is explained by a persons beliefs rather than reality.

Question 15

What were the results of the ‘Maxi test’?

Answer 15

. Most 3 year olds fail.
. Some 4-5y/o pass.
. Nearly all 6-9y/o pass.

Question 16

False belief test: What is the Smarties test (Gopnik & Astington 1988)?

Answer 16

1. Show child closed tube - what’s inside?
2. Reveal pencils - Childs surprised.
3. When mum comes in what will she think is in the tube?
4. Pencils! (<4yrs) / Smarties! (+4yrs).

3y/o performance improved to some extent when they were asked to switch contents to trick someone else.

Question 17

What uses are there of Theory of Mind tests?

Answer 17

To understand individual differences in theory of mind performance between the ages of 3.5 to 6 years.

Question 18

What factors can theory of mind correlate with (6)?

Answer 18

1. Attachment security
2. parents mental state talk
3. Siblings/family size.
4. Imagination
5. Language
6. Executive functions.

Question 19

Later theory of mind development: give an example of second-order false belief tasl/

Answer 19

• John and Mary are in the park and want to buy an ice cream.
• Mary forgets her money.
• Ice cream man tells Mary he will be there all afternoon, so she can buy an ice cream once she has gone home to get money and come back.
• Mary goes home.
• Ice cream man tells John, bc there are no people in the park, he is going to drive to the church.
• When the ice cream man goes past Marys house, Mary sees him and he tells her he is going to the church.
• Later Mary gets some money and goes to buy an ice cream.
• John turns up at Marys house and Marys mum says that she has gone to buy an ice-cream.
• Where does John think Mary is?

Question 20

Later theory of mind development: What do children need to be able to pass a second-order false belief task?

Answer 20

• Reason about the mental state of 2 other people.

- Understand that a second person can have beliefs about a third persons beliefs, and those beliefs may be false.

Question 21

When do higher-order beliefs develop?

Answer 21

From middle childhood onwards.

Question 22

What do higher-order beliefs take into accoun when interpreting actions?

Answer 22

Beliefs, desires, intentions, personality, attitudes and social scripts.

Question 23

What do you begin to understand during the development of higher-order beliefs?

Answer 23

That 2 people can interpret the same situation in different ways for valid reasons.

Question 24

When do higher-order beliefs performance improve?

Answer 24

Perfomance gradually improves with age, but individual differences in theory of mind remain in a adulthood.

Question 25

What are the 5 precursors to Theory of Mind?

Answer 25

1. Perceptually-based awareness.
2. Desire-based reasoning.
3. Pretend play
4. Deception
5. Talk about beliefs.

Question 26

what are early sociocognitive skills based on?

Answer 26

Attention to others e.g., proto-conversations, gaze following, joint attention.

Question 27

Perceptually based awareness of others: What can an infant do by 18months?

Answer 27

Follow another persons gaze to find hidden object.

Question 28

Perceptually based awareness of others: What can an infant do by 24months?

Answer 28

Interpret another request based on understanding of what the other person can and cannot see.

Question 29

Perceptually based awareness of others: What can an infant do by 30months?

Answer 29

Take into account what another person has seen or not seen in the past.

Question 30

Give a brief overview of the Violation of Expectation method? (Onishi & Baillaregon, 2005).

What kind of test is it?

What does the infant expect from the woman?

When does the child look for longer and what does this indicate?

How can these results be explained?

Answer 30

• A non-verbal unexpected location test.
• 15 month olds seem to expect the woman to reach into the box where the woman last saw the toy.
• Look longer when woman reaches into the other box indicating surprise.
• Perhaps infants have a mental representation of the others persons false belief. Pr perhaps infants are just using situational cues and applying behavioural rules.

Question 31

Why might desires be easier to understand than beliefs?

Answer 31

Because they can be interpreted from the persons actions.

Question 32

What do desires cause people to do?

Answer 32

To act in certain ways; can be fulfilled or unfulfilled.

Question 33

How are beliefs interpreted?

Answer 33

In relation to events in the world; either true or false.

Question 34

What age do infants understand that peoples desires guide their actions?

Answer 34

12months. Infant will expect a person to want an object that is novel to them, even if not novel to the child.

Question 35

What is the food sharing experiment (1997)? (Repacholi & Gopnik, 1997).

What were the results?

Answer 35

• Experimenter expresses disgust or delight to different foods.
• Ask child to ‘give me some food’.
• 18 month olds, but not 14 month olds, understand that a persons desired food can differ from their own.

Question 36

What type of play supports the developing understanding that beliefs are different from reality?

Answer 36

Pretend play.

Question 37

What does pretend play help.a child distinguish?

Answer 37

Internal thoughts from reality.

May need to process 2 representation simultaneously - reality and pretend.

Question 38

How do adults support developmental progression when the child is:

a) 1-2.5 years old?
b) 2.5-3 years old?
c) 4-7 years old?

Answer 38

A) object substitution, pretend properties, imaginary objects.
B) sociodramatic play.
C) peak of sociodramatic play; other children rather than adults.

Question 39

At what age can a child deceive adults? and how do they do this?

Answer 39

3 years old.

By masking their emotional expressions.

Question 40

Deception: what is the hidden treasure study?

Chandler, Fritz & Hala, 1989.

Answer 40

• Hide and seek board game.

- Even 2.5 year olds engages in various deceptive strategies such as wiping away footprints, laying falsie trails.

Question 41

What age do children start to talk about the difference between beliefs and reality?

Answer 41

3-4 years old

Question 42

How do children talk about the difference between beliefs and reality?

Answer 42

Use of belief language.
E.g., think, know, expect, believe.
Communicate about pretend play e.g., “ill pretend to be the mummy”
Language skills predict theory of mind abilities.

Ambiguous figures.
Can explain that they see the same object in different ways.
Simpler than explaining that different people hold different beliefs.