L01 Flashcards
Why do humans have a long childhood compared to other species?
Large brains and bipedalism require early birth to pass through the birth canal, allowing for extended learning.
What is the preferential looking paradigm in infant research?
A method to assess preference by measuring where infants look longer between two stimuli.
At what age do infants typically develop adult-like visual acuity?
Around 8 months.
When does color vision develop in infants?
@ Birth: Gray-scale vision.
@ 2 months: Color vision appears (red first).
@ 5 months: Adult-like color vision.
At what age do infants develop smooth visual tracking?
Around 4 months for slow objects and 8 months for adult-like smooth tracking.
What is the other-race effect, and when does it appear?
Infants find it easier to distinguish faces of their own racial group.
Appears between 3 months (equal recognition of all races) and 9 months (better at own race).
What is perceptual narrowing, and how does it work?
Infants tune their perception to stimuli they frequently encounter, improving familiar perceptions and losing sensitivity to novel stimuli.
What are the two hypotheses for face perception in infants?
Special innate face perception mechanism.
General perceptual bias for top-heavy stimuli.
What is synaptic pruning, and why is it important?
The elimination of unused neural connections (‘use it or lose it’), essential for brain efficiency.
At what age does binocular depth perception develop?
Around 4 months.
Sensitive period: Birth to 3 months.
What is object segregation, and how do infants learn it?
Identifying objects as separate entities, learned through independent movement of objects.
