Final Exam (MT1 Topics) Flashcards
The preferential looking paradigm assesses
If baby can distinguish between the two stimulus
If baby has a preference for one stimulus over the other
What do babies tend to prefer visually?
More complex
Higher contrast
More saturated in colour
Familiar or novel, depending on situation
What does the habituation paradigm assess?
If baby can tell the difference between the two stimuli
What is the difference between the habituation paradigm and the preferential paradigm?
Habituation: long exposure, baby gets bored and prefers novelty stimulus
Preferential: short exposure, baby is familiar but not bored, and prefers the familiar stimulus
If baby looks at both stimulus equally in the habituation paradigm testing phase, what could this indicate ?
The baby cannot tell the difference between the two stimuli
How is visual acuity assessed in babies?
Preferential looking paradigm with striped paddles of varying contrast levels. If baby can tell the difference between the two paddles, they will look longer at the paddle with the higher contrast
At what age to infants acquire adult like visual acuity?
8 months old
What does visual acuity look like for infants at birth? and why
They have poor visual acuity (everything is blurry) due to immature cone cells
How does colour perception develop over age?
At birth: gray scale
2 months: colour vison appears with red first
5 months: adult like colour perception
How is colour perception tested?
Habituation paradigm to one colour. And presented with that same colour and a slightly different colour, if baby can distinguish the two colours, baby will look longer at the new colour.
How does visual scanning develop over age?
Birth: scan, pause, look but dont follow
4 months: track slow moving objects
8 months: adult like visual scanning
Why is visual scanning important in development?
It allows the infant to have control over what they look at and what they learn
Do newborns prefer faces? If yes, how? If no, why?
Newborns show a preference for top heavy stimuli.
Discovered by showing infants regular faces, upside down faces, scrambled top heavy faces, scrambled bottom heavy faces.
What do babies look at more? Scrambled top heavy face or upright face? What does this mean?
Equal. Babies have a preference for top heavy images rather than having a specific preference for faces.
When do infants recognize mom’s face?
A few days after birth
At what age do babies become face specialists? What does this mean?
9 months
This means baby has undergone synaptic pruning, giving rise to the race effect. Baby can tell the difference between two people of their familiar race, but struggle with Two individuals of an unfamiliar race
What can be described as evidence that there is perceptual narrowing in face perception?
Infants becoming face specialists
Infants demonstrating the other race effect
What is the other race effect? How was it tested?
When individuals find it easier to tell apart members of their own race better than members of a foreign race.
Habituated infants to both their own race and foreign race faces.
Then presented with a new face from the same race they were habituated to
What did the other race effect test conclude?
Distinguishing faces is not innate but is due to exposure effect.
If infant is exposed to faces of all races at a young age, they will not show other race effect.
Infants at 9 month acquired other race effect.
How does autism affect face perception ?
Toddlers with ASD prefer geometric shapes over peoples faces, and therefore often have difficulty with face perception as they have not had enough exposure
What is perceptual constancy?
How was it studied?
Objects being constant shape size or colour regardless of image in retina.
Studied with habituation to a small cube then showed a larger cube but further away creating the same retinal size image.
Babies looked longer at the new larger further cube.
What is object segregation and how was it tested?
Ability to identify that two objects are separated from each other
Habituation to line moving back and forth behind a block, then remove the block to reveal an intact line and a broken line.
Babies looked longer at the broken line suggesting they understood that the line was continuous behind the block and the severed line was a novelty stimulus.
At what age to infants acquire object segregation and perceptual constancy?
4 months old
What is depth perception and at what age is it perceived?
Binocular disparity in what is seen with both eyes to result in a 3D visual field.
Perceived at 4 months, but monocular depth cues are perceived at 6-7 months
Why is there a sensitivity period for binocular vision?
From birth to age 3, if children do not receive adequate visual input, they may fail to develop normal binocular vision and have lifelong difficulties
How was depth perception tested? What were the results?
Visual cliff:
- 6 months old will not crawl over visual cliff but younger infants will.
Which visual development aspects are innate?
Perceptual constancy
preference for top heavy stimuli
What visual development aspects improve with brain maturation?
Visual acuity
Colour perception
Visual scanning
What visual development aspects are experience dependent?
Object segregation
Face perception
Depth perception
How was vision and touch intermodal perception tested?
Prickly pacifier
Preferential procedure sucking on a pacifier, then shown two images of the pacifier they sucked on and one that was a different shape and texture.
Baby looked longer at the pacifier they sucked on.
How was vision and auditory intermodal perception tested?
Preferential paradigm (4 months)
Two video stimuli, looked longer at the video that matched with the auditory stimulus peekaboo
What are five innate motor reflexes?
Grasping
Rooting
Sucking
Stepping
Tonic neck reflex
Which motor reflex has not been found to have a function?
Tonic neck reflex (when the babies head is turned to one side, the arm and leg of that side extend and the other arm and leg flex
What are the motor milestones in timely order?
Lift head
Chest up
Roll over
Support some weight on legs
Sit without support
Stand with support
Pull self to stand
Walk using furniture
Stand alone easily
Walk alone easily
At what age do babies begin crawling? Why is it not considered a motor milestone?
Age 7 to 8 months old
Because crawling looks different for all babies
What are 4 reasons a baby might skip crawling?
Upper body weakness
Hypersensitivity to the textures on the floor
Tonic neck reflex still present
Insufficient opportunity (ex: always held)
Why is there a cross cultural difference in How long 5 month old babies can sit for?
Related to where infants are placed to sit:
- little postural support (earlier sitting)
- lots of postural support (later siting)
What is the cultural difference in encouragement and motor skills?
Motor milestones are affected by opportunity and if it is actively encouraged
What is the culture difference in diapers and walking?
Diapers may contribute to cross cultural differences in walking.
Infants show more mature walking when naked as opposed to disposable and worse, cloth diaper.
The following is a current theory or an early theory? motor development is governed by cortical maturation
Early theory
What are the factors by which motor development is complexly governed by?
Neural development
Increase in physical strength
Physical abilities
Perceptual skills
Change in body weight proportion
Motivation
How does weight gain change motor development ?
The stepping reflex disappears at 2 months* because infants gain weight faster* than they gain leg muscle. Proven* by stepping reflex reappearing when infant is placed in water. Reflex comes back at 7-12 months
How does motivation affect motor development?
Highly motivated infants achieved motor milestones earlier than low motivated infants
Why is motor development important?
Enables active learning (trial and error as opposed to observing)
Facilitates development of other domains (vision social)
How was motor development and seeing 3D objects tested? What were the results?
Habituation paradigm with 4-7.5 months
Habituated to 3D object with only one side showing
Tested with spinning 3D object and hollow object
Babies who are more advanced in sitting look longer at hollow object
How was motor development and depth perception studied?
Slope study of beginner and advanced crawlers attempting a slope. Both attempted shallow slope but advanced crawlers knew not to attempt steep slope. This accrued again when the same babies started walking.
- infants have to learn from experience to integrate perceptual information with each new motor skill
What is a scale error and until what age do these occur
Attempt to perform an action with an object that is too small for the infant (like getting into a miniature car that they cannot fit in) due tu failure to integrate visual information and action planning.
Present until the age of 2
What study was conducted for motor development and understanding intentions? What were the results? (ages*)
12 month and 6 month old eye tracking of someone putting a ball into a bucket. 12 month looked at bucket but 6 month did not.
What are the three parts of the hearing system? And how does auditory information flow?
Outer / middle ear: sound waves vibrate the eardrum triggering vibration on the incus malleus and stapes
Inner ear: sound waves travel through cochlea, where they are transduced into electrical signals
CNS: electrical signal travels through auditory nerve and into the primary auditory cortex in the right and left temporal lobes
What is pitch?
The frequency of the wave, in Hz
What is melody? why is important?
Pitch intervals with a particular pattern
To convey emotion in speech
What is prosody?
Using melody in speech to convey emotion and meaning
What are beat and rhythm?
Beat is the perception of evenly spaced points (pulse) how you tap your foot to the music
Rhythm is the full pattern of temporal intervals
What is timbre?
The quality of the sound (brassy, squeaky) or instruments (guitar, flute)
What does the fetus hear in the womb?
Low frequency sounds like
- bowel sounds
- maternal heartbeat
- fetal heartbeat
Why cant the fetus hear high frequency sounds?
The cochlea develops tonotopically, from low to high.
How does the auditory system develop in utero?
20 weeks: neural pathway is functional
20-25 weeks: responses to sound can be recorded
35 weeks: cochlea development is mature
40 weeks: basic auditory abilities are functional
What 3 sound perception abilities are present at birth?
Localization
Identification
Discrimination
How does perceptual narrowing occur in the auditory system and for what 2 reasons?
Newborns can hear a wide range of pitches (20-20,000) but range gets smaller as they get older because
1. Auditory system needs to be optimally sensitive to caregivers pitches
2. Infants need to be able to adopt their native language
What kind of singing might an infant prefer its caregiver to sing?
Slower tone and higher pitch
Why might the NICU be an unsuitable environment for proper development of the auditory system in premature newborns?
Preterm infants do not experience gradual transition from low to high frequency sounds
Preterm infants are over exposed to high frequency sounds in the nicu and under exposed to low frequency sounds
Preterm infants are more sensitive to high frequency sounds which is toxic to their development
What did the nicu low frequency sound study indicate?
Auditory plasticity can be evoked in preterm infants as babies in the experimental group showed faster development in the auditory cortex.
What factors influence singing in adolescents?
Musical training
Music listening
Shyness
Puberty
What is absolute pitch
Ability to identify a pitch without reference (1 in 10000)
It cannot be developed without training and training must begin in childhood, and can never fully be acquired after 11.
What is the difference between beat perception and synchronization?
Beat perception: ability to find the beat
Synchronization: ability to move to the beat
At what age can children detect misalignment in the beat?
Age 5
At what age can children synchronize movements to a beat?
Age 4
What factors play a role in beat synchronization variability in children?
They develop slowly
Parts of the development dont fully develop until late adolescence
Cultural familiarity
What is the difference between perceived and felt emotions?
Perceived: features of the music (melody, rhythm, etc)
Felt: how the music makes you feel (sad music can make you happy)
By what age can children recognize happy and sad music?
By age 3-5
At what age do children reach adult age in perceiving musical emotions? what do they still struggle with?
Age 11. They still struggle with recognizing anger and fear in music
By age ___ about 90% of children can dance to music, which proves that ___
1
Children like adults have a pleasurable urge to move to music
What is syncopation?
A pattern or emphasis off of the main beat
Under which groove and tempo conditions are children ages 3-6 likely to dance to?
High groove, slow and fast tempo
High groove is associated with these three things
- More movement
- Better timing accuracy
- Higher pleasure and reward
What are the four stages of cognitive development as described by Piaget (with ages)
Sensorimotor 0-2
Preoperational 2-7
Concrete operational 7-11
Formal operational 12+
How are infants in the sensorimotor stage most likely to gain knowledge about the world ?
Movements and sensations
In the sensorimotor stage, what ages are associated with what particular interests and intentions?
1-4 months - interest in own body
4-8 - interest in the world beyond body
8-12 - actions are intentional
How do 1-4 months, 4-8, 8-12 months interact with the world according to Piaget?
1-4: reflexes and repeating pleasurable actions
4-8: repeat actions to an object to produce a desired outcome
8-12: combine several actions to achieve a goal
What features are key to the sensorimotor stage Piaget
Live in the here and now
Object permanence (8 months)
A not B error (disappears at 12 months)
What did the object permanence test result in? Piaget
Hide an object and
if baby doesn’t look for it or gets upset, no object permanence
If baby looks for object, has object permanence
What might be evidence that a child is losing his egocentrism?
Increase in verbal arguments, child is paying attention to another perspective
What concepts are key to concrete operational stage?
Reversibility
Sériation
Cognitive maps
Cannot think hypothetically
What is key top the formal operational stage?
Think abstract and hypothetically
Can imagine realities different than current one
What does Piaget’s pendulum problem reveal?
Children under twelve came to wrong conclusions as to how the length of the string will affect how long the pendulum will take to swing from side to side
What are 5 weaknesses of piagets theory of cognitive development?
- No scientific method
- Depicts more consistency than there really is
- Underestimates children
- Vague about growth
- Underestimates implications of social world
What are the 6 domains of evolutionary importance I the nativists view of cognitive development?
- Solid objects
- Physical laws
- Numbers
- Categorization
- Understanding the minds of people
- Language
What evidence might a nativist have that object permanence appears earlier than Piaget says?
Infants younger than 8 months will reach for object where they last saw it when the room goes dark.
Piaget’s tasks might be too difficult for the infants who cannot manually search
What is the violation of expectation paradigm and how does it work ?
Infants are habituated to an event, then presented with a possible event and an impossible event.
If baby looks longer at the impossible event, baby has knowledge of what is being studied and is looking longer at the novel stimulus
What were the results of the drawbridge study?
Infants as young as 3.5 months old looked longer at drawbridge going through a box, indicating baby has object permanence.
This suggests that object permanence could be innate
What were the results of the understanding gravity (nativist view)
Violation expectation paradigm with 3 months old, drop a box and it should fall rather than stay where you let it go.
3 months old looked longer at suspended box suggesting infant expects box to fall and understands gravity.
What were the results of the nativists view understanding numbers tests?
6 months old were habituated to 16 dots on a page of different sizes
Tested with 2:1 ratio - 6 months were successful
Tested with 3:2 ratio - 9 months were successful
What does approximate number sense correlate with?
The 6 month score of ANS correlates with later math ability
What categories does a 9 month old have (nativist)
People
Animals
Inanimate objects
What do the superordinate and subordinate levels of categorization categorize?
Superordinate: furniture, vehicles - Europeans, asians - animals, plants
Subordinate: laZ boys, armchairs - Picasso, Cervantes - lions, lynxes
At what age do children form hierarchies of categorization?
Age 2-3
Why might it be difficult to categorize all animals?
Not all animals are the same shape
Ie: they dont all have 4 legs
What are two criticisms of the nativist POV in cognitive development?
Over estimating innate cognitive understanding
Findings could also be explained by infants looking at certain stimuli because they are more visually interesting
What is statistical learning?
Statistical learning: ability to track patterns in the environment
How did “learning from environment” scientists test statistical learning, and what were the results?
Habituation paradigm with 2 months of patterns of shapes and colours
Tested with familiar pattern and randomized pattern
2 months looked longer at the random shape pattern
What does domain general mean (learning from the environment)? as opposed to domain specific
Domain general: mechanism through which children learn in many domains. In general, infants learn with patterns, and it translates to the specific tasks of the nativists view.
HOME scale reflect which two factors?
Parenting quality
Stimulation of environment
Higher HOME scale scores positively predict which 3 things?
IQ
Math and reading comprehension
Language ability
Which 2 factors affect the HOME score
SES - low SES maybe have less time with kids, less money for stimulating toys
Culture - determines what content a child learns.
