Infant cognition

Question 1

What is dishabituation?

Answer 1

Longer looking time at a new object – showing awareness of novelty.

Question 2

What is a familiarity preference?

Answer 2

When an infant has not fully habituated to an object, he will continue to examine a similar object in a test trial –erroneouslysuggesting a novelty preference. The more complex the object, the longer the familiarity preference will persist.

Question 3

What does it mean if an infant generalises habituation?

Answer 3

They don’t regard the test stimulus as different from the habituation stimulus.

Question 4

The habituation paradigm allows test of whether infants are capable of learning particular _______, not just whether they can discriminate between individual _______.

Answer 4

The habituation paradigm allows test of whether infants are capable of learning particular patterns, not just whether they can discriminate between individual stimuli.

Question 5

What are cognitive modules?

Answer 5

Specialised innate capabilities in a particular domain (e.g. faces, objects). Given specific perceptual input, the module takes over and applies its core knowledge (e.g. those features constitute an object).

Question 6

Nativism: Domain-_______ Learning ________ & ____ _______

Constructivism: Domain-_______ _______ _________

Answer 6

Nativism: Domain-Specific Learning Mechanisms & Core Knowledge

Constructivism: Domain-General Learning Architectures

Question 7

What is the constructivist account of learning? What are we born with and how does that allow us to acquire knowledge?

Answer 7

We are born with a domain-general processing system that detects low-level featural information, such as colour and motion.

Higher-level units formed from relationships among these, and then even higher-level units built from these units. Learning is hierarchical and constructive.

Question 8

What is the difference between object unity and object permanence?

Answer 8

Object unity – representing parts of objects you cannot see.

Object permanence – objects exist even when you cannot see them.

Question 9

What did Kellman and Spelke’s (1983) occluded rod study demonstrate?

Answer 9

Co-motion is input to the object module. With co-motion, 4-month-old infants can understand object unity, without it they cannot.

Question 10

What evidence did constructivists furnish in reply to Kellman and Spelke (1983)?

Answer 10

Newborns show novelty preference to whole rod – i.e. don’t perceive object unity despite co-motion.

2-month-olds show same pattern UNLESS only a small part of the rod is occluded. Then they dishabituate to two separate rods.

It looks the relationship between co-motion and object unity is gradually being acquired.

Question 11

How does Carey make the case for the object module in the rod study debate?

Answer 11

Before 4 months old, infants cannot detect co-motion, so don’t have access to the cues that would activate the object module and allow core knowledge to be applied.

Question 12

What is Baillargeon’s (1987) Violation of Expectation paradigm to test object permanence? And what were the results?

Answer 12

Child habituates to drawbridge fully opening and closing. Test stimulus either 1) drawbridge closing fully over a box –perceptually familiar motion but physically impossible; 2) drawbridge being stopped by box –perceptually novel but possible.

Child dishabituated to the impossible event, demonstrating that infants represent the object occluded by the drawbridge.

Question 13

What are two criticisms of Baillargeon’s drawbridge study?

Answer 13

1. Could be a familiarity preference. Baillargeon included infants in the analysis who didn’t fully habituate.
2. Could be a preference for a richer, more complex movement (which would also require longer habituation and result in more of a familiarity preference).

Question 14

A ball rolls behind an occluder. A square appears on the other side. What is this supposed to test, and what is the problem with it?

Answer 14

It is supposed to test object permanence.

The problem is that it may just reflect a perception-memory mismatch. 5-9 month-olds show surprise to the shape change, but they might just be reacting to something not reflecting their memory. They have knowledge of specific features (ball/square), but this does not mean they understand object permanence.

Question 15

How did Meltzoff and Moore (1998) overcome the perception-memory mismatch confound in their test of object permanence? What were the results?

Answer 15

They used one ball and two occluders. If the ball rolls behind one and from behind the second, but fails to appear in the middle, this would violate understanding of permanence –that objects should reappear when no longer occluded.

9 month-olds can pass this test –they show surprise to violation.
5 month-olds do not.

Question 16

What evidence, supporting constructivism, is there of the piecemeal development of object unity and permanence?

Answer 16

Object unity –as infants grow older, less of an object needs to be visible (unoccluded) for them to infer unity.

Object permanence –memory for specific object features pre-dates a more complete understanding of permanence.

Question 17

If something is innate, does that mean it’s present at birth?

Answer 17

No. Puberty is innate. It may just come online at a certain time.

Question 18

What kind of emergence of knowledge would support nativism?

Answer 18

If different aspects of a whole system of core cognition (e.g. object unity, permanence) came online simultaneously.

Constructivism would predict this would happen gradually.

Question 19

Infants tend to use the highest-level units available at their disposal. But what happens if the system is overloaded?

Answer 19

They revert to a lower level of processing.

Question 20

Why is building categories important?

Answer 20

Given that no two experiences are ACTUALLY alike, building categories is necessary to make sense of the world.

Question 21

How are objects typically categorised?

Answer 21

According to their common features. e.g. birds – feathers, wings, fly…

Question 22

At what age can children detect feature correlations (Younger & Cohen, 1986 - animals)? And what happens when they can’t?

Answer 22

10 month olds can recognise feature correlations; 4 month olds can habituate to feature sets, but not to correlations.

7 month olds can recognise simple correlations – e.g. animals where 3 features always co-occur. But not more complex ones –e.g. with only 2 co-occurring features. In this case they revert to simple feature processing and dishabituate to novel features, but not uncorrelated ones.

Question 23

In Younger & Cohen (1986), if infants learned the feature ___________, then the uncorrelated exemplar should also elicit __________.

Answer 23

In Younger & Cohen (1986), if infants learned the feature correlations, then the uncorrelated exemplar should also elicit dishabituation.

Question 24

How did Leslie (1984) demonstrate that 6 month old infants can perceive causality?

Answer 24

Infants habituate either to causal (1) or non-causal event (2). Test trial is perceptually different non-causal event.

Looking time not sig. different in non-causal group 2, but significantly different in group 1. Infants in group 1 dishabituate to non-causal event. Infants in group 2 generalise habituation over two non-causal events, despite differing spatial and temporal features.

Question 25

How did Oakes and Cohen (1990;1993) provide evidence against Leslie’s suggestion there is an innate module allowing infants to perceive causality?

Answer 25

Using more complex objects, they found that 10 month olds could understand causality, but 6 month olds get fixated on the objects/features and do not respond systematically in terms of causality.

When they switched object on every trial, 10 month-olds also reverted to feature-based processing, showing novelty preference to new toy, regardless of causality.

Question 26

Two points in Oakes and Cohen’s study contradicted Leslie’s idea of an innate causal module…

Answer 26

There should be no progression in causal learning from 6 to 10 months. The causal module should come online as soon as the relevant input can be perceived.

Increasing object complexity should not derail the causal module.