Lecture 4: Infant Cognitive Development

Question 1

What are the 4 theories of cognitive development?

Answer 1

– Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
– Nativist Tests of Infant Core Capacities
– Dynamic Systems Insights into Cognitive Performance
– Information Processing: the Development of Memory

Question 2

What is Jean Piagets Constructivist Theory of Development?

Answer 2

Children play an active role in learning and development, and thus “construct” or build an understanding of the world.

Question 3

What are Schemas?

Answer 3

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

Question 4

What is Assimilation?

Answer 4

Incorporation of new experiences into existing schema

Question 5

What is Accommodation?

Answer 5

Modifying schema to fit new information

Question 6

What is the sensorimotor stage?

Answer 6

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

Question 7

What are the six substages reflecting progressive cognitive change?

Answer 7

1. Reflexes
2. Primary circular reactions
3. Secondary circular reactions
4. Coordination of secondary circular reactions
5. Tertiary circular reactions
6. Mental representation

Question 8

What are Reflexes?

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

What are Primary circular reactions?

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

What are Secondary circular reactions?

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

What are Coordination of secondary circular reactions?

Answer 11

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.

Question 12

What are Tertiary circular reactions?

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

What is Mental representation?

Answer 13

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).

Question 14

What is Object Permanence?

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

What did Piaget say about mental representation?

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

What is the A-not-B task?

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

What did Nativists claim about Piaget and his theories?

Answer 17

Nativists claim that infants know much more than Piaget credited.

Question 18

What are core capacities?

Answer 18

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.

Question 19

What is Violation-of-expectation paradigm?

Answer 19

Compares infant looking at “expected” or “possible” events
compared to “unexpected” or “impossible” events. Based on habituation and dishabituation

Question 20

What is the Principle of persistence?

Answer 20

Nativists propose that infants have an innate understanding that objects retain their physical properties (e.g., height).

Question 21

What is The “Disappearing Carrot Top” ?

Answer 21

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

Question 22

What is the floating box study?

Answer 22

In the “floating” box study infants tended to expect a box to fall as it did not have support

Question 23

What is Approximate Number Sense (ANS)?

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

What are some Challenges to Nativism?

Answer 24

• 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

Question 25

What is Contemporary Perspectives: Developmental Systems Theory?

Answer 25

Developmental systems theorists focus on the multiple forces, inside and outside the child, that give rise to children’s thoughts and actions. Developmental systems theorists reject Piaget’s idea of top- down mental “schema” determining what babies understand and can do. They also reject of the nativist idea of innate, core capacities.

Question 26

What happens if you modify the A-not-B task slightly?

Answer 26

When examiners slightly modify Piaget’s traditional A-not-B task, they change infants’ success. For example, if a researcher increases the number of times an object is hidden at location A before switching to location B, infants are more biased to search and reach for the object at location A than at the new location B. This is because with each successful search at location A infants experience positive feedback that reinforces their reaching.

Question 27

What is Recognition memory in infants?

Answer 27

Recognition that a specific stimulus had been experienced in the past

– Infant pays more attention to a new stimulus vs. a familiar stimulus

Question 28

What were the Memory & Conjugate Mobile Studies?

Answer 28

The infant’s leg is tied to a mobile; kicking causes the mobile to move. After the tie is removed, infants kick
in response to the familiar mobile. Infants do not kick in response to mobiles they had not encountered

Question 29

What is deferred imitation?

Answer 29

Deferred imitation refers to the reproduction of another person’s actions hours or days later. Piaget claimed that deferred imitation is not seen until sometime during the second year, because it requires storing and then retrieving a memory of what had been observed

Question 30

What did Researchers use to measure the home environment for the infant?

Answer 30

Researchers used the HOME checklist, such as does the kid have more then 3 puzzles, do they have enough toys, and has at least 10 children books.

Question 31

How does Poverty affect infants?

Answer 31

Poverty places infants at risk for later cognitive delays

Question 32

What is the Carolina Abecedarian Project?

Answer 32

This is one of the most widely cited intervention programs for children growing up in poverty

– Children between infancy and 5 years attended full-time day care with activities focused on cognitive stimulation, language development, and social growth
– Children showed sustained academic and cognitive achievements years later compared to individuals who did not receive the intervention

Question 33

What did Pierre Dasen examine?

Answer 33

He examined the interplay between cultural universals and cultural specificity by testing West African and French infants on their actions related to object permanence

– Infants’ actions with objects were related to their cultural
experiences