Development I Flashcards
What is development?
Changes and continuities that occur within the individual between conception and death
What are the two processes that lead to developmental change?
Maturation
Learning
What is maturation?
Biologically timed unfolding of changes within the individual according to the individual’s genetic plan
What is learning?
Relatively permanent changes in our thoughts, behaviours, and feelings as a result of our experiences
How do learning processes help you?
Allows you to acquire new info and guide optimal strategies to respond to events and stimuli
What is the interactionist perspective?
The view that maturation and learning interact during development
How does biological maturation affect the timeline of learning from the environ?
Essential bio systems must be in place before learning proceeds
Ex. You won’t learn to walk until you’ve developed muscles in your torso/limbs
How does learning from the environ affect maturation? Give an example
Maturation is absent or delayed without some level of input from the outside world
Ex. If you gave a child proper nutrition but isolated them in a dark room, there would be problems in the development of normal vision, speech, social skill, etc.
Which changes are more dramatic, those that occur early in life or those that occur later in life?
Early
What are the four methods of measuring abilities in infants?
Habituation
Event-related potentials (ERP)
High amp sucking
Preference
What is the habituation procedure used for?
Det if infant can detect difference between two stimuli
Describe the habituation procedure
Repeatedly present the infant with the same stimulus while measuring changes in physiological responses
How will the infant typically respond to the habituation procedure?
Initial burst of activity
Responses return to normal level as the same stimulus is repeatedly presented
What is habituation?
Decrease in responsiveness to a stimulus following its repeated presentation
Once the infant has habituated to the stimulus, does it still recognize it as a stimulus?
Yes— it’s just no longer important or interesting
What is dishabituation?
Increase in response to a stimulus that is DIFF from the habituated stimulus
What are event-related potentials (ERPs)?
A measure of the brain’s electrical activity evoked by the presentation of a stimulus
How do they measure ERPs?
Cap with electrodes placed on scalp
Detects changes in electrical activity across a pop of neurons in the brain
Particular behaviours will evoke changes in various brain regions of interest
If you presented a visual stimulus to an infant hooked up to ERPs, which region would show changes in activity?
Occipital lobe (responsible for visual processing)
Describe the hypothesis behind the high-amp sucking method
The rate of sucking indicates the level of preference
Describe the high-amp sucking method
First, measure baseline sucking rate with no stimulus
Infant given control over presentation of a stimulus
Sucks faster than baseline –> switch in pacifier causes the stimulus to be presented
Stop sucking —> stops presentation of the stimulus
Describe the preference method
Infant put into a looking chamber to simultaneously look at two diff stimuli
Level of attention towards one stimuli relative to the other indicates preference
What images do infants tend to prefer?
Big patterns with black and white contrasts
Faces
What is the competence-performance distinction?
An individual may fail a task bc they are UNABLE to demonstrate those cognitive abilities, not bc they lack them
What is the difference between developmental studies and other psycho studies?
Developmental studies look at how certain abilities change over time
What is longitudinal design?
Developmental research design
Same individ are studied repeatedly over some subset of their lifespan
Disadvantages to longitudinal design?
- Expensive
- Time consuming
- Selective attention (loss of participants; leaves a diff sample size than when you started)
- Practice effects (changes in responses due to repeated testing)
What is the cross-sectional design?
Developmental research design
Individ from diff age groups are studied at the same point in time
Disadvantages to cross-sectional design?
- Can’t distinguish age effects from generational effects (maybe the 50 year old had less training with numbers due to lack of phone numbers to memorize)
- Can’t directly assess individual developmental change
How many chromosomes do humans have?
46
Why is the male the one responsible for the gender of the child?
Women always pass on an x chromo but men can either pass on a y or x chromo
Four main patterns of genetic inheritance? Give an example for each
Simple dominant recessive (hair type)
Polygenetic (eye colour)
Codominance (blood type)
Sex-linked
What is the simple dominant recessive pattern of inheritance?
Expression of trait det by a single pair of genes called alleles (i.e. Rr and rr)
What is Polygenetic inheritance?
Expression of trait det by multiple genes
What is codominance?
Expression of trait det equally by two dominant alleles
Give an example of codominance in humans
ABO blood type
A, B = dominant
O = recessive
When both dom alleles present, blood type is AB
What is sex-linked inheritance?
Expression of trait det by genes on the X chromo
Describe sex-linked inheritance and why females rarely express sex-linked inheritance disorders in their phenotypes
Some recessive genes on X chromo responsible for disorders
Females have two X chromo; unlikely that recessive gene will appear in both
Males only have one X chromo, there has to be expressed
What did the behaviourist, Watson, suggest in terms of nature/nurture?
With proper environ training, anybody can become anything
What does the Canalization principle state?
Genotype restricts phenotype to a small number of possible outcomes
Another way of viewing the Canalization principle?
Some developmental processes are buffered against environmental variability
Example of the Canalization principle?
Infant babbling
All infants babble in same way; independant from their envrion
Only later do cultural influences shape the final phonemes (i.e. Korean babies lose /ra/ sound unless exposed to English)
What does the range of reaction principle state?
Genotype establishes a range of possible responses to diff kinds of life experiences
Example of the range of reaction principle?
Height
FINAL height det by various environ factors
RANGE of potential heights is det by genetic factors
Three ways genes influence environ experiences?
Passive correlations
Evocative correlations
Active correlations
What are passive genotype/environ correlations?
Environ that parents choose to raise kids in is influenced by the parent’s own genes
Ex. Intellectual parents may bring kids to the library a lot
What are evocative correlations?
Traits that we have inherited affect how others react towards to us
Ex. Children with a sunny personality may evoke more positive responses
Genes and environment can also interact thru active geno/environ correlations. What are these and give an example
Genotype influences the kinds of environment that we seek
Ex. Person with sensation seeking temperament may actively choose environ that satisfy these thrill seeking urges
How do ACTIVE geno/environ correlations change their influence throughout your lifespan?
Play a larger role in childhood and adult years
When do PASSIVE correlations have the greatest influence?
Early in life (when you can’t choose your own environ)
When do EVOCATIVE correlations have the greatest influence?
Throughout your lifespan
Why are twin studies useful?
Unveil the relative contributions of genes and their environ
Bc both types of twins develop in the same environ at the same time, you can assume that if mono twins are more similar than di twins, the diff is due to genes
Mono twins raised far apart have a similar intelligence than di twins raised together? What might this suggest?
Genetic factors play a larger role than environ
What are critical periods?
Specific time period in development in which a particular stimulation is necessary in order to reach developmental changes in specific abilities
After CP, the same stimulus will not have the same effect
How does the visual deprivation of kittens demonstrate critical periods?
After being visually deprived for the first few weeks of its life, kitten 1 was never able to discriminate visual patterns
Kitten 2 was deprived for the same amount of time but at a later age. Was able to regain its vision
Suggests there is a critical period in visual development in the first 4-6 weeks of its life
Describe another example of research on critical periods involving rats
Rats raised in an enriched environ with lots of toys and social stimulation have more connections between neurons than rats raised in a deprived environ
Are some implications of overthinking critical periods?
Leads parents to overstimulate their children before and after birth
Affect adoption
Public policy on child intervention
What are some problems with critical period evidence?
Doesn’t look at enriched environments
Extra stimulation not always better
Number of synapses are malleable throughout the lifespan
Why is extra stimulation not always better?
Child exposed before they’re ready may lose interest and withdraw from it instead
