Developmental Psychology

Question 1

Developmental Psychology

Answer 1

the study of changes or continuities in an organism between initial conception and death

Question 2

When do children’s perceptual experiences begin?

Answer 2

in utero
-can hear mother’s voice in last trimester
-speech is low pass filtered (can hear the rhythm but not the phonemes)

Question 3

How do we know newborns could hear in utero?

Answer 3

They preferred their mother’s voice over another woman’s and their mother’s native language over another language

Question 4

What three assumptions are infant methodologies based on?

Answer 4

1. they will orient to stimuli they prefer or find interesting
2. familiarization: they prefer to hear/see stimuli that they’ve heard/seen before
3. habituation: if repeatedly exposed to a stimulus, then they should prefer the novel stimuli

Question 5

High Amplitude Sucking Procedure (HASP)

Answer 5

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

Question 6

How can HASP be used? (2 ways)

Answer 6

1. to see if infants can tell stimuli apart
2. see what they prefer

Question 7

Visual Acuity

Answer 7

ability to see things in adult range

Question 8

When do infants reach visual acuity?

Answer 8

around 6 months

Question 9

Describe a newborn’s vision

Answer 9

infants see well up close but have bad long distance vision (between 20/200 and 20/800)

Question 10

Preferential Looking Paradigm

Answer 10

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

Question 11

In what way do children show preferences for faces?

Answer 11

By 3 months, they show preferences for their own race. This is based on exposure.

Question 12

Cognitive Development

Answer 12

the development of thinking across the lifespan

Question 13

Schema

Answer 13

an organized unit of knowledge that the child uses to try to understand a situation

*Piaget’s theory

Question 14

Assimilation

Answer 14

new experiences are readily incorporated into child’s existing theory

Question 15

Accommodation

Answer 15

when children makes a small change to the schema after a new experience

Question 16

What are the 4 stages of development?

Answer 16

1. Sensorimotor
2. Pre-operational
3. Concrete Operational
4. Formal Operational

Question 17

Key components of sensorimotor stage and when it occurs

Answer 17

-0-2 years
-develop object permanence
-violation of expectations (will look longer at events that violate their expectations)
-recall Mickey Mouse example

Question 18

Key components of pre-operational stage and when it occurs

Answer 18

-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)

Question 19

Arguments against conservation task

Answer 19

-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

Question 20

Arguments against 3 mountains task

Answer 20

-relying on spatial abilities
-memory of different perspectives
-verbally demanding
-higher success rates when there is a more distinctive scene

Question 21

Key components of concrete operational and when it occurs

Answer 21

-7-11 years
-difficulty thinking abstractly and reasoning hypothetically. reasoning is limited to real, present objects
-difficulty with tasks that require mental manipulation

Question 22

Key components of formal operation and when it occurs

Answer 22

-11+ years
-capable of flexible and abstract thought

Question 23

Criticisms of Piaget

Answer 23

-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