Contemporary methods in cognitive development + WEIRD problem

Question 1

Violation of expectation task

Answer 1

• Capitalised on infants preference to look at novel/interesting items BUT also assesses for something that is surprising
  ○ Babys are shown even that is either surprising or interesting and if It violates something the baby knows or assumes to be true, it is expected that it would be more intriguing (looking time becomes an indictor of it the baby has experience with something that violates the expectation of the world)

Question 2

What is the VOET based on

Answer 2

*VoET are based on the dishabituation/habituation studies but it differs based on the fact that they are 2 different events that the violation of expectation studies are looking for (habituation studies only look for the 1 event)
VoET asking if the baby has preference for something new and if the baby has detected that the change is impossible given their understanding of the world

Question 3

Drawbridge studies

Answer 3

• Measured object permeance
• Watched a screen flip back and fourth on 180°, reduce looking time to predetermined looking time
• Expect that the baby’s looking time would increase from habituation for c and d but if baby has object permeance looking time for impossible event would be longer
• Results: Babys looked longer at the impossible event where bridge crossed through block
  ○ The 3 1/2 olds that were fast at habituating were concluded to be faster learners had object permeance

Question 4

Occlusion experiment

Answer 4

Habituated to a mouse going behaving a square barrier and out the other side - baby’s showed surprise (mouse doesn’t disappear and reappear)

Question 5

Containment experiment

Answer 5

Checker board pattern going into a cylinder then moves it to the side - put into the cylinder (impossible) or behind the cylinder (possible)

Question 6

Covering experiment

Answer 6

Duck on onside of platform, covered with a box and move box to other side then the duck is on the other side - when there was a platform and duck came out other side (impossible)

Question 7

What does it mean when they say babys understand numbers

Answer 7

• Addition condition: mouse placed in a case and a screen comes up, then a second mouse it put behind and the hand leaves (possible = see 2 objects) (impossible = see 1 or more than 2 objects)
  *Looked linger at inaccurate outcome because it violates their expectation

Question 8

Goal-directed action

Answer 8

• Idea that baby’s can understand that humans have goals and will end up enacting behaviour to achieve them
  hand wanting the ball = habituation
  test phase = new goal/old path or new path/old goal

Looking time is significantly more when there is a goal change but only seen with a hand
More looking time when there was a new path but only with the inanimate objects

Question 9

Compare and contrast children and adults learning of causal events

Answer 9

• Blicket detector: Learning what shaped objects turn on the machine
  ○ Disjunctive (each cause has independent probabilities of being about an effect) e.g. fever from virus
  ○ Conjunctive (combination of things that need to happen to cause a particular outcome) e.g. microwave
• Expect in the disjunctive condition should learn that individual objects are blickets and conjunctive learn that the combination are blickets
  ○ Adults still think it’s a disjunctive relationship regardless of their assigned group

Question 10

What is the WEIRD problem

Answer 10

• 96% of participants of come from countries that only have 12% of the worlds pop (north America and Europe)
  Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD)
• As a scientific community should make it known when the data isn’t representative of pop. outside of WEIRD group (limitation = diversity)
• Should prioritise grants for research of diverse samples

Question 11

Why does the WEIRD problem exist

Answer 11

• Recruiting non-WEIRD samples is difficult and expensive (convenience sample e.g.)
• Incentives are weak (cross-cultural studies aren’t popular)
• Barriers are strong (translated = looses rigor)
• Theoretical (assume that we uncovering universal truths about the root of human behaviour) > assume that the truths about the WEIRD population will transfer to all populations
• Empirical problems (high risk of failing to generalise/replicate)
• When we think we are exploring human universal truths it could just be culturally specific

Question 12

Over-imitation

Answer 12

Psychological phenomenon (type of observational learning) where humans observe adults demonstrating an action but will imitate every single action even if some of the actions are integral to achieving the goal (only happens in human snot animals)

Question 13

Over-imitation study with kids from Brisbane and africa

Answer 13

• Children from Kalahari Bushman tribe in Africa vs from Brisbane
  ○ 3 different boxes, shown:
• Completely irrelevant action
• Used object to open box (not the most efficient)
• When not shown how to open box, they didn’t do either (swipe or pop stick)
  In demonstration group over-imitation occurred in most cases
• Hypothesised that children in western counties parent should show them how to interact with theses objects
  Results: Children who grew up in the bushman tribes were just as likely to over-imitate as the Brisbane children