Lecture 4: Infant Cognitive Development Flashcards
What are the 4 theories of cognitive development?
– Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
– Nativist Tests of Infant Core Capacities
– Dynamic Systems Insights into Cognitive Performance
– Information Processing: the Development of Memory
What is Jean Piagets Constructivist Theory of Development?
Children play an active role in learning and development, and thus “construct” or build an understanding of the world.
What are Schemas?
The concept of schemas was among the central tenets of Piaget’s theory, and are defined as cognitive representations of the world that determine how children of different ages organize and understand information
What is Assimilation?
Incorporation of new experiences into existing schema
What is Accommodation?
Modifying schema to fit new information
What is the sensorimotor stage?
It begins from birth to 2 years of age. Schemas are limited to sensory experiences and motor actions. Piaget divided the sensorimotor stage into six substages reflecting progressive cognitive change during this time
What are the six substages reflecting progressive cognitive change?
- Reflexes
- Primary circular reactions
- Secondary circular reactions
- Coordination of secondary circular reactions
- Tertiary circular reactions
- Mental representation
What are Reflexes?
From Birth to 1 month
Newborns display movements including sucking and grasping and produce a variety of spontaneous and rhythmic actions by moving their fingers, limbs, heads, and torsos.
What are Primary circular reactions?
From 1–4 months
Infants begin to repeat their actions. They combine actions into recurring behaviors organized around the immediate environment of their bodies. For example, infants will repeatedly suck their thumbs or kick their legs.
What are Secondary circular reactions?
From 4–8 months
Infants enjoy watching the effects their actions have on the world, and they often attempt to recreate events by repeating their actions with objects. For example, a baby might swipe at a mobile, watch the dangling parts move, and then swipe again and again to reproduce the effort.
What are Coordination of secondary circular reactions?
From 8–12 months
Infants’ actions now appear to be “goal directed” and intentional. Infants coordinate and combine several actions to accomplish a goal. For example, the infant might try to move a pillow aside to get a toy that is behind it.
What are Tertiary circular reactions?
From 12–18 months
Infants are capable of means-end analysis and can search for new solutions to solve problems. Infants display increased flexibility and creativity, often engaging in trial- and-error experiments to explore the consequences of their actions with objects.
What is Mental representation?
From 18–24 months
Infants are able to mentally represent and manipulate objects and events in their minds, as seen in the use of language, symbolic play, and deferred imitation (such as imitating another person’s action of pulling a mitten off a stuffed animal).
What is Object Permanence?
The understanding that objects continue to exist independent
of one’s immediate perceptual experiences
For example, a toddler who has achieved object permanence might search the house for a favorite teddy, knowing that it still exists somewhere out there for cuddling.
What did Piaget say about mental representation?
Piaget described mental representation as infants’ ability to “hold” and “manipulate” objects and events in their minds, for example by planning behaviors and predicting outcomes before acting.
What is the A-not-B task?
When Piaget changed the location of a hidden object, in what is commonly referred to as the A-not-B task, infants in substage 4 failed to change their search behaviors based on the object’s new location.
What did Nativists claim about Piaget and his theories?
Nativists claim that infants know much more than Piaget credited.
What are core capacities?
Innate, mental capacities that are building blocks to cognitive
development. Allow infants to make sense of their environment. Nativists claim infants are born with core capacities in areas such as
number, object properties, etc.
What is Violation-of-expectation paradigm?
Compares infant looking at “expected” or “possible” events
compared to “unexpected” or “impossible” events. Based on habituation and dishabituation
What is the Principle of persistence?
Nativists propose that infants have an innate understanding that objects retain their physical properties (e.g., height).
What is The “Disappearing Carrot Top” ?
In one such study based on a habituation task, the “disappearing carrot top,” 3.5-month-old infants were familiarized with two events: a tall carrot or a short carrot moving behind a screen…Infants looked longer at the impossible event than at the possible event, indicating that they expected the tall carrot to be visible through the window and were surprised when it did not appear. They did not respond with longer looking to the shorter carrot.
CONCLUDING: the disappearing carrot study suggests that infants kept in mind information about the constant features of the carrot, namely its height
What is the floating box study?
In the “floating” box study infants tended to expect a box to fall as it did not have support
What is Approximate Number Sense (ANS)?
Infants’ ability to estimate the approximate magnitude of items in a set without relying on counting….The ANS explains why an infant might spontaneously choose a pile of 18 cheerios over a pile with only 3 cheerios (a ratio of 6:1), even though they can’t yet count.
What are some Challenges to Nativism?
- Infant looking time patterns may be explained by infants’
attention to perceptual features - Even very young babies have many hours of relevant
experience; this may affect their learning
