Developmental Psychology Flashcards
Developmental Psychology
the study of changes or continuities in an organism between initial conception and death
When do children’s perceptual experiences begin?
in utero
-can hear mother’s voice in last trimester
-speech is low pass filtered (can hear the rhythm but not the phonemes)
How do we know newborns could hear in utero?
They preferred their mother’s voice over another woman’s and their mother’s native language over another language
What three assumptions are infant methodologies based on?
- they will orient to stimuli they prefer or find interesting
- familiarization: they prefer to hear/see stimuli that they’ve heard/seen before
- habituation: if repeatedly exposed to a stimulus, then they should prefer the novel stimuli
High Amplitude Sucking Procedure (HASP)
insert a soother into the child’s mouth. Sucking on the soother control the stimulus. The dependent variable is the infant’s sucking response.
*sucking rate decreases as they are habituated
*changing the stimulus results in dishabituation
How can HASP be used? (2 ways)
- to see if infants can tell stimuli apart
- see what they prefer
Visual Acuity
ability to see things in adult range
When do infants reach visual acuity?
around 6 months
Describe a newborn’s vision
infants see well up close but have bad long distance vision (between 20/200 and 20/800)
Preferential Looking Paradigm
When shown 2 pictures (one on left, one on right), infants will look longer at interesting stimuli than uninteresting stimuli
*invented by Robert Franz
*can be used to test vision
In what way do children show preferences for faces?
By 3 months, they show preferences for their own race. This is based on exposure.
Cognitive Development
the development of thinking across the lifespan
Schema
an organized unit of knowledge that the child uses to try to understand a situation
*Piaget’s theory
Assimilation
new experiences are readily incorporated into child’s existing theory
Accommodation
when children makes a small change to the schema after a new experience
What are the 4 stages of development?
- Sensorimotor
- Pre-operational
- Concrete Operational
- Formal Operational
Key components of sensorimotor stage and when it occurs
-0-2 years
-develop object permanence
-violation of expectations (will look longer at events that violate their expectations)
-recall Mickey Mouse example
Key components of pre-operational stage and when it occurs
-2-7 years
-difficulty with logical reasoning and problem solving (recall conservation task). This is due to centration: tend to focus on one aspect and in doing so, ignore other relevant aspects
-difficulty representing the psychological experiences of others (recall three mountains task)
Arguments against conservation task
-verbally demanding: must understand what you mean by “more”, “less”, and “same”
-primed: might be primed since they saw you change something
-more likely to be correct if you say “is this fair” once at the end or make the change seem accidental
Arguments against 3 mountains task
-relying on spatial abilities
-memory of different perspectives
-verbally demanding
-higher success rates when there is a more distinctive scene
Key components of concrete operational and when it occurs
-7-11 years
-difficulty thinking abstractly and reasoning hypothetically. reasoning is limited to real, present objects
-difficulty with tasks that require mental manipulation
Key components of formal operation and when it occurs
-11+ years
-capable of flexible and abstract thought
Criticisms of Piaget
-underestimated children’s abilities
-undervalues influence of sociocultural environment
-vague with respect to processes and mechanism of change
-stage model doesn’t account for variability in children’s performance
