Devo/evo (MC) Flashcards
How do young children and nonhuman animals demonstrate impressive physical cognition?
They show an understanding of objects, number, causality, and tool use.
What are the complexities of social life that make social partners unique?
Social partners are self-propelled, unpredictable, have hidden psychological motivations
(e.g., goals, desires, beliefs), and may have competing or deceptive intentions.
Why is social cognition useful for children?
Social-emotional and prosocial skills in nursery help predict adult outcomes :
- number and quality of friendships,
- success in school/work,
- lower risks of crime and substance abuse.
What social skills contribute to positive life outcomes in adults?
Empathy, perspective-taking, communication, cooperation, and social problem-solving.
What social behaviours are common in nonhuman animals?
Nonhuman animals engage in:
-communication,
-competition,
- dominance hierarchies,
- social learning, and sometimes teaching.
In what ways do humans go beyond nonhuman animals in social complexity?
Humans develop cumulative culture :
(e.g., marriage, group identity, institutions)
and have advanced language.
Why do human infants need to facilitate bonds with caregivers?
Human infants are:
- especially helpless
-completely dependent on caregivers, so they are equipped with traits that encourage bonding, such as “babyness” features.
What are “babyness” features, and how do they aid in bonding?
Traits like:
- a large head,
- prominent forehead,
- and big eyes,
which appeal to adults and encourage caregiving behaviours.
Why was bonding initially thought to be a critical period after birth?
Early research suggested that the first hours post-birth were crucial for bonding, but later studies showed that bonding quality is influenced over a longer period.
What is imprinting, and which species is it commonly observed in?
imprinting is when some species (mainly birds) attach to and follow their mother shortly after birth.
This behavior aids in protection, food acquisition, and learning.
What was Konrad Lorenz’s study on imprinting with geese?
Lorenz divided goose eggs into two groups: one hatched with their mother and the other with him as the first moving object they saw, demonstrating imprinting.
Why do human infants need to tune into the social world?
Human infants must learn a vast amount of social information, so they need to focus on and engage with their social environment.
What was the early perception of newborns’ capabilities?
Until the 1950s, newborns were thought to be passive and incompetent.
This view shifted in the 1960s when research showed infants are capable of learning, remembering, and social responses.
How do newborns show sensitivity to important social stimuli?
They seek relevant stimuli, respond socially, and remember important social cues.
How quickly do infants recognize their mother’s voice after birth?
Within 2-3 days, infants can distinguish and prefer their mother’s voice over a stranger’s using an operant sucking paradigm.
Is infants’ recognition of their mother’s voice a result of prenatal or postnatal learning?
It may be prenatal, as fetuses respond to sound in the third trimester, and infants don’t initially show the same preference for their father’s voice.
: What study showed prenatal learning of sounds by infants?
Decasper and Spence (1986) found that babies recognized and preferred a story read by their mothers during the last six weeks of pregnancy.
Why is a newborn’s recognition of the mother’s voice significant?
It aids in bonding, which is essential for the infant’s early social and emotional development.
What types of information do faces provide that are important for infants?
- identity,
-group membership,
-emotions,
-gaze direction - characteristics like trustworthiness.
How well can newborns see at birth?
Newborns are near-sighted and can see clearly only about 7-12 inches away. Their vision improves to near-adult levels between 6-12 months.
What was Robert Fantz’s contribution to understanding infant face perception?
In the 1960s, Fantz used the preferential looking method to show that infants as young as 2 days old prefer faces over other stimuli.
Do infants prefer faces because they recognise them or due to patterns?
Studies show that even newborns (as young as 43 minutes old) will track a face-like pattern more than other patterns, suggesting a preference for faces.
When do infants start recognising and preferring their mother’s face?
infants as young as **1-3 days old ** can recognise and prefer their mother’s face over a stranger’s.
What preference do newborns show regarding facial expressions?
Newborns prefer happy faces over fearful ones and direct gaze over averted gaze, which helps them connect socially.
How do chimpanzees show similar face perception abilities to humans?
Young chimpanzees **(1-month-old) ** prefer their mother’s face,
and older ones (10-32 weeks) prefer direct gaze, similar to human infants.
What is neonatal imitation, and who studied it?
Meltzoff & Moore (1977) found that newborns, as young as 42 minutes old, imitate facial expressions, although it’s challenging to replicate consistently.
Is neonatal imitation universally observed in newborns?
No, about 50% of infants show imitation, mainly in lab settings, and it’s difficult to elicit.
Most reliable evidence is for tongue protrusion.
What are the key social abilities that newborns have at birth?
Newborns can:
- detect socially relevant stimuli (faces, eye contact, emotional expressions),
-recognise mother’s voice and face, and may imitate simple behaviours.
Why are newborns’ social abilities crucial from birth?
These abilities support bonding, attract attention from caregivers, and enable early social learning and interaction.
/ What is the difference between newborn and social smiles?
- Newborn infants (and fetuses) smile due to internal causes (e.g., wind) and often during sleep.
-**Social smiling ** begins between 1.5 and 2 months in response to social stimuli like faces and voices.
What evidence suggests that social smiling is linked to neurological development?
- Babies born prematurely smile socially later, indicating it’s tied to *age since conception * rather than postnatal experience.
- Some blind infants smile socially around the same time.
Do animals display behaviours similar to the human social smile?
Yes, apes exhibit a “play face,” similar to a smile or laugh, during tickling and rough-and-tumble play.
- but it’s not exactly a social smile
What is primary intersubjectivity?
It refers to mutually responsive face-to-face interactions between infants and caregivers, starting at around 2 months of age. (2-month- revolution)
What are the characteristics of primary intersubjectivity?
- **Dyadic **(between two people)
- Sharing and aligning emotions through eye contact, smiling, and movement
- Reciprocal, bi-directional, and involves turn-taking
What are “proto-conversations”?
Early interactions where infants and caregivers share emotions and take turns in facial expressions or vocalisations.
What is the still-face experiment by Tronick?
- After normal interaction, the caregiver presents a neutral, unresponsive face.
- Infants become distressed, showing they actively engage in social interactions.
Do animals engage in mutual gaze like human infants?
Yes, mutual gaze increases in baby chimpanzees between 0-2 months, similar to human infants (Tomonaga et al., 2004).
What is secondary intersubjectivity?
A psychological relation where the focus shifts to the outside world,
involving triadic interactions (person-person-object).
At what age does secondary intersubjectivity begin?
** Between 9 and 14 months**, infants start to share and align attention and attitudes about the external world. (9 MONTH REVOLUTION).
What are the key skills involved in secondary intersubjectivity?
- Coordinating attention to people and objects
- Sharing goals
- Engaging in triadic interactions
What is joint attention, and why is it important?
- It is the coordination of attention with others to an object of mutual interest.
- It is critical for language learning, cooperation, and social interaction.
How do infants demonstrate joint attention?
-They start by looking where others look or pointing to objects.
- By 12 months, they follow gaze or pointing in real-world settings.
What is gaze following, and how does it help infants?
- Infants look where others are looking, helping them learn about objects, language, and social cues.
- By 3-6 months, infants look at a puppet an adult is focused on.
Can other species follow gaze?
Yes, chimpanzees, tortoises, and ravens follow gaze direction and can even follow gaze around barriers.
How does gaze following differ from joint attention?
Gaze following lacks the **“mutual knowledge” ** required for joint attention, where both parties know they are sharing attention.
When do human infants begin point following?
Around 11-12 months, infants start following others’ pointing gestures.
What is social referencing?
- infants seek emotional information from others about new or ambiguous situations.
- By 10-12 months, they use cues like facial expressions (e.g., happy or fearful) to decide how to act.
What experiment demonstrates social referencing?
- infants decide whether to approach a toy or cross a “visual cliff” based on the caregiver’s emotional cues.
- Chimpanzees also exhibit similar behaviors.
Why is the “9-month revolution” significant?
it marks the beginning of coordinated social interactions involving:
shared goals, which are fundamental for cooperation and communication.
At what age do infants begin imitating actions on objects?
Around 9 months, infants begin imitating others’ actions on objects,
even after a 24-hour delay between model and response (Meltzoff, 1988).
Do apes imitate like humans?
This is debated: some researchers argue that apes imitate, while others disagree.
However, humans imitate much more than apes.
What are the three social learning mechanisms?
Imitation: Copying both the action and its goal (means + end).
Emulation: Reproducing the goal but in one’s own way.
**Mimicry: ** Copying actions without understanding the goal.