Exam 2 lecture notes Flashcards
infant learning
- habituation
- perceptual learning
- statistical learning
- classical conditioning
- instrumental conditioning
- observational learning
habituation
- infants tend to respond less to a stimulus they have already experienced
- e.g. looking time measures
- can be done with hearing as well
- basic phenomenon that we can experience: stare at image and then look at white paper- see inverse of that image.
- eating same snack for awhile- no longer tastes as good
- if our brains didnt habituate our brain could like melt and explode from too much excitement- transformer movies
Perceptual learning
- differentiation and affordances
- by 3.5 months, infants learnt hat their mother’s face goes with her voice
- idea that we learn from being perceivers of the world
- as we see things, we begin to form expectations as to what these things are.
- Affordances: learning that your mothers face goes with her voice
o These things go together / expectations that these things go together
o Angry voice goes with an angry face - Differentiation: kid learns that you can pick up a cup and pour things out of it
o Cup vs. mug vs. bowl
o Might learn that if it has a handle, it’s a mug, has a nipple it’s a bottle
o Can differentiate between things they have seen and haven’t seen
statistical learning
- infants learn the statistical regularity of events
- 8-month-olds can learn a novel language in 2 minutes, just from word transition probability
- 2-8 month old’s look longer at shape sequences that appear in a different sequence from a sequence they were original shown
- Children thrive off having a predictable
classical conditioning
- ## associating an unlearned stimulus with one that yields a response
instrumental conditioning
- learning basic consequences of behaviour
- positive reinforcement and contingency
- learnable by 2 months
- the younger the infant, the closer together the response and reinforcement need to be for learning
- negative consequences- infant may learn lack of control over their own environment
observational learning
- newborns imitate tongue-sticking out
- by 6 months, imitate specific behaviours
Jean Piaget
- sensorimotor
- preoperational
- concrete operational
- formal operational
Assimilation
new experiences incorporated into a child’s existing schema
accommodation
child’s theories are modified based on experience
Sensorimotor
birth-2 years - huge variety of new sensory experiences - core facets of intelligence expressed through experimentation with developing motor faculties examples: - tracking objects visually - grasping objects near hands - placing objects in mouth - turning head towards sounds
sensorimotor
- object permanence
objects continue to exist regardless of whether we continue to see them or not
preoperational
2years-7years
- interaction with world not limited to physical movements
- development of symbolic representations
preoperational
- centration
focusing on a single feature among many when making decisions about objects
preoperational
- egocentrism
- difficulty in perceiving the world from another’s point of view.
concrete operational
7-12 years
- more likely to consider multiple dimensions/povs
- difficulty with abstract reasoning and hypotheticals
formal operational years
12 years- ????
- able to think abstractly and reason hypothetically
caveats to piaget
- children’s mental strategies do not generalize across problem types within a given stage
- infant struggles with object permanence may be overstated by measurement technique
- underestimates impact of the social word
- doesn’t explain the underlying cognitive processes or mechanisms of change
Beyond the Piagetian
- information processing
- core knowledge
- sociocultural
- dynamic systems
information processing
- child as limited-capacity processing system
- multiple memory systems subserved by multiple disparte regions of the brain
- working memory- severe capacity limit) —> 3/4 items
sources of variability
- encoding and retrieval
- strategy use
- speed of processing
- selective attention
- content knowledge
core knowledge
- children must have specialized language learning mechanisms to grasp the immense
dynamic systems
- development does not occur in a bubble
- each developmental changes impacts the way a child interfaces with their environment
- crucial to consider with the acquisition of new skills in development
nativist view
nature/ nurture
nature
- children are born with innate knowledge
- grammar, objects, time and space, causality, number and the human mind
- children have specialized learning mechanisms to acquire this knowledge quickly
nurture
- experiences shape knowledge beyond the initial level that all children are born with
- but initial knowledge is present at birth
Empiricist view
nature/ nurture
Nature
- children are born with general learning mechanisms to acquire knowledge
- ability to perceive, make associations between objects, generalize, remember
nurture
- exposure to different experiences results in knowledge about various topics
- grammar, time and space, causality, number and the human mind
perceptual categorization
- grouping objects with similar appearance
- by 3-4 months, infants categorize along numerous dimensions- color, shape, size, movement
- may also categorize based on the prominent feature or function- presence/absence of legs
categorical hierarchies
- social environment critical for refining categories
- an infant might not think these are all the same animal, but if they lived with these animals they would see common features amongst them- barking, tail wagging
- children use cause and effect to make categories
- 4-5 year olds told about features of wugs and gillies
Native psychology
- an understanding of other people and oneself
- major developments in infancy
- joint attention
- intentionality
- understanding others emotions
nativists vs empiricists
nativists: children born with intrinsic understanding of human psychology
empiricists: experiences with other people and processing capacities influence how we understand others’ actions
theory of mind (ToM)
- basic understanding of how the mind works and how it influences behaviour (desires, beliefs, emotions)
- by 12 months, connection between desires and actions
- by 2 years, cant yet connect beliefs with actions
- by 3 years, can connect beliefs and actions- yet still struggle with false-belief problems (performance improves up to ~5 years)
theory of mind (ToM)
Nativist/ Empiricist
nativist - theory of mind module develops in 1st 5 years- amygdala and brainstem atypical in Autism
Empiricist
- more interaction and experiences with others
- children with siblings develop ToM earlier
- particularly if older siblings of opposite sex
- increased general processing skills
- improved complex reasoning
- ability to inhibit one’s own reactions
Imaginary friends
- 63% of children report imaginary friends at 3-4 years, 7-8 years, or both
- —- 30% of children 3-7 years
- characteristics of kids with imaginary friends
- —- more likely to be first born or only-children
- —- watch relatively little TV
- —- verbally skillful
- —- advanced theory of mind
Egocentric representations
Coding of object location relative to self without regard to surroundings
Self-locomotion improves understanding of space beyond one’s self
Use of landmarks helps navigating through space
Development of spatial skills depends on cultural importance
By ~12 months, infants can
replicate
the order of events shown in a series of two pictures
By ~20 months, toddlers can replicate
the order of events shown in a series of three pictures
First, middle, last
Sense of duration by ~4 months
Habituated to 5 seconds of light, 5 seconds of darkness
Heart-rate changes observed .5 seconds before light went off
- Preschoolers can discriminate longer intervals (weeks, months)
- Precision with time discrimination continues to develop into middle childhood
Development of past/future concepts by
~6 years of age Likely related to class experiences
Children experience passage of time illusions like adults
Attending closely to time passing — seems longer
Being very busy — shorter
Children rely on causality to
understand why
physical and psychological events occur
Taking apart toys; flipping lights
Children and adults have better understanding of
psychological than physical causality
- We can tell you how someone decides to change the channel better than we can describe how the remote works
Children have higher recall for events with
causal relationship
9-11 months will only reproduce actions with causal relationship
By 20-22 months, will replicate unrelated sequences
Preschoolers expect consistency in cause-effect relationships
If petting dog, should wag tail
If dog growls, not b/c petting
Magic tricks start to become interesting by
~5 years
Understanding of numeracy varies by culture and language
Infants understand numerical equality by 5-6 months
Recognize similar quantities
At least for small numbers (1-3)
Working Memory capacity also severely limited (1-3 items)…
Young infants (6 mos.) can discriminate between sets of numbers with 2:1 ratio
If numbers are large 16 vs. 8 Not 4 vs. 2 But not 1.5:1 ratio.. More precise with age
Counting
By age 3, most children can count to 10
Preschoolers understand counting principles
counting principles
- 1-to-1 correspondence — each object can only have a single numbered label
- Stable order — recited in same order
- Cardinality — number = last of the set
- Order irrelevance — when counting
- Abstraction — anything can be counted
