Lecture 4 Infancy: Filling in Some Gaps

Question 1

Why Use Developmental Theories

to Understand Cognition?

Answer 1

Developmental theories raise crucial questions about the nature of “mind” and the nature of the “starter kit”

Question 2

sounds

Answer 2

-Fetuses can hear and learn sounds during the last two months of pregnancy and can recognize their mother’s voice at birth
-Newborns:
Cannot hear soft sounds as well as adults
Are fairly good at determining the location of a sound

Question 3

Overview Sensorimotor Stage (to 2 years)

Answer 3

Substage 1 (birth–1 month)
Modify reflexes
Centered on own body

Substage 2 (1–4 months)
Organize reflexes
Integrate actions

Substage 3 (4–8 months)
Repetition of actions resulting in pleasurable or interesting results
Substage 4 (8–12 months)
Begin searching for hidden objects 
Fragile mental representations
A-Not-B Error (Video to follow)

Substage 5 (12–18 months)
Active exploration of potential use of objects

Substage 6 (18–24 months)
Enduring mental representations

Question 4

Simple Hiding Problem: A Review

Answer 4

-0-5 months
an attractive toy is shown to the baby and then is placed under a towel as the baby watches
-Infants typically follow the toy with their eyes as it disappears under the towel
but no active search
Mastered between 6 and 9 months

Question 5

Object Permanence:

Answer 5

the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched

Question 6

Changed Hiding Place

Answer 6

-8-12 months
-the toy is first placed under towel A for a series of trials and the baby retrieves it each time
then the toy is a hidden under towel B, next to the first, in plain view of the child
despite having watched the object disappear under the new napkin, the baby reaches under the original napkin
Mastered between 10 and 12 months

Question 7

Invisible Displacement

Answer 7

-12-18 months
-the infants watches as the researcher’s hand closes around the toy, hiding it from view
-the researcher’s closed hand then moves under a napkin and deposits the toy
-when the hand is brought back into view, the infant looks in and under the hand, but not under the napkin
Mastered by 18 months

Question 8

What Piaget Left

Answer 8

Positives
A good overview of children’s thinking at different points
Broad spectrum of development and ages
Fascinating observations

Negatives
Stage model depicts children’s thinking as more consistent than it is
Infants and young children are more cognitively competent than Piaget recognised
Piaget’s theory is vague about the cognitive processes that give rise to children’s thinking and about the mechanisms that produce cognitive growth hence information processing accounts of developmental change.

Question 9

Core-Knowledge Theories!!

Answer 9

-Areas of cognition relevant in human evolution
Children are born with many specialized—not only general—learning abilities
-Domain Specific
-Infant informal theories (object, actions, biology, number, space, psychology)

Question 10

Possible versus impossible events

Answer 10

In a classic series of tests of object permanence, Renée Baillargeon and her colleagues first habituated young infants to the sight of a screen rotating through 180 degrees. Then a box was placed in the path of the screen. In the possible event, the screen rotated up, occluding the box, and stopped when it reached the top of the box. In the impossible event, the screen rotated up, occluding the box, but then continued on through 180 degrees, appearing to pass through the space where the box was. Infants looked longer at the impossible event, showing they mentally represented the presence of the invisible box.

Question 11

Core knowledge

Answer 11

systems are limited in a number of ways: They are domain specific (each system represent only a small subset of the things and events that infants perceive), task specific (each system functions to solve a limited set of problems), and encapsulated (each system operates with a fair degree of independence from other cognitive systems.

Question 12

Spelke

Initial knowledge: Six suggestions

Answer 12

• Knowledge emerges early in development
• Initial knowledge is domain specific
• Initial knowledge is constrained
• Initial knowledge is innate
• Initial knowledge constitutes the core of mature knowledge
  Initial knowledge is task specific

Question 13

the brain

Answer 13

Brain continues developing past infancy
Brain imaging technologies cannot typically be used with babies
EEGs show regular spurts in the brain’s electrical activity
Spurts may coincide with important changes in cognitive development
At birth, the brain is 25% of its adult weight; at 2 years of age, it is 75% of its adult weight