Lecture 5

Question 1

Information Processing Approach

Answer 1

• Ability to systematically convert input to output

- emphasises basic mental processes: attention, sensation, perception, memory

Question 2

Methods of Studying Infant Sensory-Perceptual Abilities

Answer 2

• Habituation
– discrimination learning
– ‘learning to be bored’

• Preferential looking
– duration of looking at one of a pair

• Physiological responses
– heart rate
– observation of eye movements

• Evoked Potentials
– electrical conductivity of the brain

• Operant Conditioning
– response to one stimulus in a pair following reinforcement

Question 3

Infant Vision

Answer 3

• basic capacities are present at birth
– can detect changes in brightness
– track a slow-moving object

• lack visual acuity
– ability to perceive detail

• visual accommodation
– ability to focus on objects at different distances

• optimal distance: about 20-25 cms

• takes 6 months to 1 year before can see as well as an
adult

• colour vision present at birth
– mature at 2 to 3 months

Question 4

Pattern Perception

Answer 4

•Visual preferences
--> •patterns that have
light-dark transitions;
contour
--> •displays that contain
movement
--> •moderately complex
patterns

•the human face

Question 5

Depth perception

Answer 5

– newborns appear to have object constancy (i.e.,
perception of the object stays the same despite changes in
sensations)
• shape constancy
• size constancy

Question 6

The visual cliff

Answer 6

– the visual cliff: Gibson & Walk (1960)
• a crawler (7 mo) will not cross the cliff
• can perceive the cliff by 2 months
• fear of drop-off requires crawling

• infants have intuitive theories – organised systems of
knowledge – that allow them to make sense of the
world

Question 7

Infant Hearing

Answer 7

• can hear well before birth
• can recognise their mother’s voice, even in utero
• newborns discriminate sounds that differ in loudness, duration, direction & pitch
• a little less sensitive to soft sounds than adults
• infants respond to human speech & prefer speech
over non-speech sounds
• early differentiation between tones (e.g., happy &
sad)

Question 8

Infant Taste

Answer 8

newborns can distinguish between sweet,
bitter & sour tastes
– show a clear preference for sweet

Question 9

Infant Smell (olfaction)

Answer 9

– works well at birth
– will turn head away from unpleasant smells
– all babies prefer the smell of human milk over formula, even if
previously consumed formula
– at 1 to 2 weeks, breast-fed babies can recognise the smell of
their mother
– mothers can identify their newborns by smell

Question 10

Infant Touch

Answer 10

• senses of touch & motion develop before birth
– sensitivity to tactile stimulation develops in a
cephalocaudal direction
– touch soothes a fussy baby
– massage helps premature infants to gain weight, be more
relaxed, & develop more regular sleep patterns
• at birth sensitivity to warm & cold

Question 11

Infant- integrating sensory information

Answer 11

• 2 important accomplishments from infancy to childhood
– cross-modal perception: recognising through one sense an object
familiar through another
– a coupling of perception with action, leading to purposeful movement

Question 12

Infant- Importance of early experience

Answer 12

sensitive periods
– a period during which an individual is more affected by
experience & has has a higher level of plasticity than at
other times of life
– certain sensory experiences are vital in determining the
organisation of the brain

Question 13

Infants- Development of attention

Answer 13

• infants are “captured by” something
– they have an orienting system

• children are “directed toward” something
– they also have a focusing system that seeks out &
maintains attention to events

• from infancy:
– increases in attention span
– better able to concentrate on a task
– attention becomes more selective
– better able to ignore distractions
– more systematic perceptual searches in order to achieve
goals & solve problems

Question 14

Problems with sensation and attention

Answer 14

Autistic Spectrum Disorder
• sensory sensitivity & integration difficulties
• attention problems

Question 15

Adolescent- attention

Answer 15

– ability to sustain attention improves considerably
(myelination)
– more efficient at ignoring distractions
– can divide their attention systematically between two tasks

Question 16

Adolescent- Hearing

Answer 16

– optimal acuity

– potential for damage

Question 17

Adolescent- Taste

Answer 17

– slight decline in preference for sweets & an increased
sensitivity to sour tastes
– more likely to develop an acquired taste for previously
disliked or avoided foods

Question 18

Adolescent- smell

Answer 18

• women generally demonstrate greater sensitivity than

men

Question 19

The Adult

Answer 19

• Sensory and perceptual capacities decline gradually
– begins in early adulthood, becomes noticeable in 40s, &
typical by age 65 +
– can compensate for the deficits
• Losses take 2 forms
i) sensory thresholds are higher
• sensitivity to very low levels of stimulation is lost
ii) perceptual abilities decline
• difficulty in processing or interpreting sensory
information

Question 20

The adult- sensory perceptual problems - Vision

Answer 20

Vision
– pupils become smaller & do not respond as much
when lighting conditions change
– lens becomes denser & less flexible
• can’t accommodate to bring objects at different
distances into focus
• presbyopia: decreased ability to accommodate
objects close to the eye

Question 21

The adult- sensory perceptual problems - Hearing

Answer 21

– most have at least mild hearing loss

– presbycusis: loss of high-pitched sounds
• more common & earlier in men

– some difficulty with speech perception
• may be cognitive or sensory
• background noise a problem

– novel & complex tasks problematic

Question 22

The adult- sensory perceptual problems - Smell and Taste

Answer 22

– general decline in sensitivity to taste
• more so older men
– ability to perceive odors typically declines with age

Question 23

The adult- sensory perceptual problems - Touch

Answer 23

– sensitivity for touch is gradually lost from middle
childhood, few implications
– less sensitive to changes in temperature

Question 24

Memory Systems *******

Answer 24

Memory processes
– encoding: getting information into the system

– consolidation: processing & organising information

– storage: holding information in long-term memory

– retrieval: information is obtained from long-term
memory

–> constructive, not static process

–> Long Term: explicit or implicit

Question 25

The Infant- memory

Answer 25

• can habituate at birth
• can imitate actions
• by 6 mths can imitate a novel action after a delay
• operant conditioning - make a mobile move with
their leg 2 to 4 weeks later
•cue dependant & context specific

Question 26

The Child- memory

Answer 26

Improvements in Basic Capacities
• maturation of the hippocampus & other parts of
the brain involved in consolidation of memory
• short-term memory capacity improves,
particularly between ages 6 to 13 years

Question 27

Developmental changes in short term memory

Answer 27

• speed & efficiency of mental processing improves
– allows simultaneous mental operations
– basic mental processes become automatic;
frees working memory
– greater knowledge of a domain increases the
speed with which new, related information can
be processed

Question 28

Improvements in memory strategies (mnemonics)

Answer 28

1. increased use of rehearsal at about 7 years
2. master organisation (i.e., classifying items into
   meaningful groups) by 9 or 10 years
3. elaboration (i.e., actively creating meaningful links
   between items) is the last strategy to develop

Question 29

Improvements in knowledge about memory

Answer 29

• metamemory: knowledge of memory & understanding how to monitor and regulate memory processes
– present in young children
– gets better with age

Question 30

Improvements in world knowledge

Answer 30

• children’s knowledge of a content area (i.e.,
knowledge base) affects learning & memory
performance
– expertise allows children to form more & larger
mental chunks, which allows them to remember
more

Question 31

Autobiographical Memories

Answer 31

childhood amnesia: few autobiographical memories from
1st years of life
• limited working memory capacity
• lack sufficient language skills
• lack a sense of self
• early verbatim memories are unstable & likely to be lost

Question 32

The adolescent - memory

Answer 32

• new strategies emerge (e.g., elaboration;
approach to study)
• strategies are used deliberately & selectively
• basic capacities increase (e.g., processing speed)
• knowledge base increases
• metacognition improves

Question 33

The adult- memory

Answer 33

• Domain specific knowledge base increases
(expertise)
– think more effectively
• remember more new information
• solve problems effectively & efficiently
• automaticity

Question 34

The older adult- memory

Answer 34

some change is inevitable
• cross-sectional research
• declines typically not noticeable until 70’s
• individual & task variability

Question 35

Explaining memory decline

Answer 35

• changes in basic capacities
– decline in capacity to use working memory to operate actively &
simultaneously on multiple pieces of information
– more difficulty ignoring irrelevant information
– attention becomes more effortful (motivation)
• older adults learn new material more slowly, learn it less
well, remember less
– timed, unfamiliar tasks
– more so recall than recognition
• sensory abilities
• education, health & lifestyle
• negative beliefs affect memory skills

Question 36

Autobiographical memories #2

Answer 36

personal significance
• distinctness
• emotional intensity
• life phase
– ‘memory bump’; ages 15 – 25 years