Infancy Flashcards
reflex
inborn, automatic response to a particular form of stimulation
states of arousal
degrees of sleep and wakefulness
rapid-eye movement
similar to that of waking state–eyes dart beneath the lids, heart rate, bp and breathing are uneven, slight body movements occur
non-rapid eye movement
body is almost motionless and heart rate, breathing and wave activity are slow and even
Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale
evaluates the baby’s reflexes, muscle tone, state changes, responsiveness to physical and social stimuli
classical conditioning
form of learning where a neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that leads to a reflexive response; baby make’s connection and new stimulus now produces the behavior by itself
operant conditioning
infants act or operate on the environment and stimuli that follow their behavior change the probability that the behavior will occur again
habituation
refers to gradual reduction in the strength of response due to repetitive stimulation
recovery
new stimulus causes the habituated response to return to a high level
imitation
copying the behavior of another person
mirror neurons
specialized cells that fire identically when one sees / hears an action and when it carries out that action on its own
dynamic systems theory of motor development
mastery of motor skills involves acquiring increasingly complex systems of actions; separate abilities blend together to produce more effective ways of exploring and controlling the environment
prereaching
newborns make poorly coordinated swipes
ulnar grasp
clumsy motion in which the baby’s fingers close against the palm
pincer grasp
infants use the thumb and index finger in a well-coordinated pincer grasp
statistical learning capacity
analyzing speech streams for patterns –> stock of speech structures
visual acuity
fineness of discrimination
visual cliff
used in earliest studies of depth perception
contrast sensitivity
explains early pattern preferences; contrast refers to the difference in the amount of light between adjacent regions in a pattern; babies are sensitive to the contrast in two or more patterns
size constancy
perception of an objects size as the same, despite changes in the size of its retinal image
shape constancy
perception of an object’s shape as stable, despite changes in the shape projected on the retina
intermodal perception
we make sense of these streams of light, sound, tactile, odor and taste infomraiton, perceiving them as integrated wholes
amodal sensory properties
information that is not specific to a single modality but that overlaps two or more sensory systems
differentiation theory
infants actively search for invariant features of the environment (those that remain stable)
affordances
perception is guided by action possibilities a situation offers an organism with motor capabilities