notes Flashcards
how is knowledge acquired?
complex question
theories
based on preconception
much of dev psych is based on two worldviews
Prenatal Development (fetus)
Earlier development takes place at a more rapid pace than later development
Head develops earlier than areas farther from the head (cephalocaudal dev’t)
brain development happening
Sensitive periods: Period of time when a developing organism is sensitive to the effects of external factors.
Teratogens
prenatal sensitive periods
first 38 weeks of development
first 8 weeks of embryo there is the potential to suffer or get major abnormalities
Example of sensitive periods for prenatal dev’t:
Teratogens:
External agent that can cause damage during prenatal development
only cause damage in sensitive periods
E.g. Smoking, alcohol, stress, environmental pollutants
Mercury
thalidomide – prescribed for morning sickness
Many teratogens cause damage only if they are present during a sensitive period in prenatal development
Sleeper effects = delayed consequences
Fetal Learning
how do we know what a fetus knows?
Prenatal studies (e.g. Eugene Emory)
Ultrasound techniques
fetus movement
Newborn studies
Habituation - decreased response to a continued stimulus. (bored) loss of attention
bored means we’ve learned that thing, ex. voice
classical condition, puff of air
fetus activity
fetus activity differed from depressed, non-depressed mothers
able to use ultrasound and other techniques to understand fetal activity
Methods for studying prenatal learning and infant dev’t
Habituation
VOE (looking time)
Preferential Looking
Habituation
what is it and how do we know if an organism has habituated?
Decreased response to an increased stimulus indicates memory has formed (infants 30w)
How do we use habituation to understand what preverbal infants know?
before they can speak and tell us response
Increased response to a novel stimulus
VoE
violation of expectation
measure we use to determine or identity what infants may expect to happen
gaze behaviour or looking time
possible event or impossible event
Newborn babies prefer mother’s voice over a stranger’s voice
Recognize mothers voice Kisilevsky et al. (2003) p.54
Mother read poem
Test: Mother & stranger (same poem)
Results – heart rate increased to mother and decreased to stranger
Newborn preferred mother
Suggests that babies learn mothers voice in the womb
Fetal Learning (tested in newborns)
recognize rhymes and stories presented before birth.
prefer smells, tastes, & sound patterns that are familiar because of prenatal exposure.
prefer familiar sound patterns at birth
test: two stories, prefer familiar story
Newborns remember scent of amniotic fluid
Marlier et al., 1998
Newborns presented with two pads
One saturated in their own amniotic fluid and the other saturated in that of another baby
Presented with two pads on either side of head
Preference indicated by head orienting toward own fluid scent
Newborns remember scent of amniotic fluid
Marlier et al., 1998
Newborns presented with two pads
One saturated in their own amniotic fluid and the other saturated in that of another baby
Presented with two pads on either side of head
Preference indicated by head orienting toward own fluid scent
Newborns prefer language exposed to (native lang. of mother)
Newborns demonstrate a preference to the language they heard in the womb.
Babies exposed to French language prenatally, preferred French language at birth, compared to Russian
and vice versa for babies exposed to Russian language prenatally
Newborns demonstrate food preferences to foods exposed to prenatally
Experiment and control group
Mothers in experimental group were asked to drink carrot juice during last trimester
Babies (5.5 mos) given preference test (cereal mixed with water or carrot juice)
Babies exposed to carrot juice in womb, preferred it at 5.5 months
newborn states
quiet sleep 8h
active sleep 8h
drowsing 1h
alert awake 2.5h
active awake 2.5 h
crying 2h
colic
Baby colic (also known as infantile colic) is defined as episodes of crying for more than three hours a day for more than three days a week for three weeks in an otherwise healthy child between the ages of two weeks and four months. The cause of the colic is generally unknown.
sleep
REM sleep (not the quiet, deep sleep kind!) constitutes fully 50% of a newborn’s total sleep time and declines rapidly to only 20% by 3 or 4 years of age…
Crying
Early in infancy, crying reflects discomfort or frustration
Crying gradually becomes more of a communicative act
Many effective soothing techniques…moderately intense and continuous or repetitive stimulation
techniques to reduce crying:
Swaddling, soothing, rocking, singing, shhh-ing, repetitive motions and sounds, carrying and increased holding
culture and crying
Crying among a hunter-gatherer group (!Kung San) – Botswana
Bouts of crying same across cultures
Duration of crying different!
frequency was the same across cultures
Newborn Reflexes
Reflexes
Involuntary, unlearned responses
Rooting, sucking, grasp, foot curl, stepping, motor reflexes (twisting/fists), morrow (falling), blinking, sneezing, gaging, pupil dilation\
Low Birth Weight (LBW) Infants
less than 5.5 pds
< 35 weeks is ‘premature’
If birth weight is less than the norm for their gestational age, they are referred to as ‘small for gestational age (SGA)’
Social disparities
Infants born in Nunavut and NWT are 2-3x more likely to die before 1yr than infants born in BC…NS.
Why?
Access to health care
Poverty
SIDS
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
Sudden, unexpected death of an infant less than 1 yr that has no identifiable cause.
Typically healthy, 2-5 mos
5 steps to reduce risk:
Back to sleep
No smoking (before or after the birth)
Firm bedding (no pillow, crib bumpers)
Not too warm (overly warm is associated w/ SIDS)
Breastfeed (when you can!)
Cause of SIDS unknown, but…
Studied babies who died of SIDS in the last two decades
Neurochemical abnormalities in the brainstem
Brainstem regulates breathing, heart rate, temperature
Theory – babies did not wake due to overheating or lack of ventilation
Newborn
Temperament
Individual and group differences
(Aime, Rochat and Broesch, 2020)
Uniqueness of Human Thinking
Guiding questions:
What makes human thinking unique?
How does it develop?
Why study development?
Practical applications (education, parenting, policies, atypical development)
Understanding development means understanding the process that leads to adult human thinking (including perception, emotion, decision making etc.)
Theories (worldviews)
Nativism – emphasis on biology and the unfolding of innate skills and abilities.
Empiricism – the mind is a passive, empty container and content arrives in the mind.
Humans are biological and social.
There is no such thing as a baby. Babies are embedded in a complex social world.
week 3: relations between biology and psychology
Understand the ways we can think about the complex interplay of nature & nurture
Be able to describe epigenetics
Know the structures of the brain and the developmental processes of brain development
Know how early experience can shape development via sensitive periods and plasticity (know examples in detail)
why is Nature and Nurture important
-Key concepts
-What do we mean?
-Why is this a meaningful question in development?
-What is epigenetics and why should we care about it?
important terms week 3
Genes, genotype, heritability, gene expression
Phenotype
Epigenetics & heritability
Innate
Learned
Nativist perspective
Relational perspective
Plasticity
Sensitive periods
nature
refers to genes or genetic material
genes you are born with
genes not just passed down, experiences can shape genetic makeup
can’t consider nature without considering nurture
nurture
early experiences, prenatal experiences
experiences can shape who you are
What do we mean by nature AND nurture?
-How these complex relationships shape/contribute to a developing child.
-NOT usually the independent contributions of each.
-The ultimate goal is to understand the relative contributions of each.
-Not only can we not separate these variables, they are intertwined and overlapping, often influencing each other in complex ways.
-we want there to be a simple explanation but its usually a combination
Nature and Nurture
Genetic and environmental influences
The interplay between genes and experience is very complex.
This model of hereditary and environmental influences can help to simplify this interplay.
How does the environment shape your phenotype?
Your phenotype (observable characteristics) result from an interaction between environment & genotype
Think: gene for long legs? Perhaps this is enhanced with parenting practices w/ motor dev’t?
Child’s Phenotype and Environment
Children are active creators of the environment in which they live.
By virtue of their nature and behaviour, they evoke certain kinds of responses from others.
They also actively select surroundings and experiences that support their interests, talents, and personality characteristics.
How do we study brain development
2 examples:
FMRI
-Functional magnetic resonance imaging
-Magnet detects cerebral blood flow (bowl of jelly)
-Increased blood flow = increased activity
ERP’s (EEG) – EVENT RELATED POTENTIALS
(USING ELECTROENCEPHELOGRAPHIC)
-Recordings of electrical activity in the brain
-Electrodes
-Brain-behaviour relations
Basic development
Neurogenesis
3-4th – 18th week of prenatal life
Synaptogenesis: when synapse are making connections to other synapses
Synaptic pruning: use it or lose it
experience-expectant plasticity
-the general human experience
-theres a certain like of experience that is expected
-gravity, physical movement, love
opposite is non typical development
Experience Expectant H. Neville (2002)
-If an individual is born deaf (congenitally deaf), what happens to the brain region which is normally ‘responsible’ for that area?
-Bavelier & Neville – found that they relied upon peripheral vision for ASL and that
-ERP recordings indicate that brain regions typically responsible for auditory and language processing are now responsible for visual processing
Experience-dependent Plasticity
-Use it or lose it
-Neural connections are created and reorganized throughout life as a function experience
-E.g. Animals raised in enriched environments perform better on a variety of learning tasks
The role of experience – some examples
Visual perceptual processing (Pascalis, deHaan & Nelson, 2002; Kelly et al. 2007)
Auditory processing (Kuhl et al., 1992)
One theory which links these two is:
Nelson’s General Perceptual Processing Theory
Brain damage and recovery
Is there an optimal age for damage to occur?
Timing and plasticity play important roles.
The worst time to suffer brain damage is when neurogenesis and neuron migration are occurring (during prenatal development and the first year after birth).
The greatest plasticity is observed when synapse generation and pruning are occurring during early childhood.
week 4 objectives
-Know why and how theories useful
-Describe Piaget’s perspective on the origins of knowledge
-Describe Vygotsky’s perspective on the origins of knowledge
-Know the criticisms and contributions of Piaget’s theory
Know examples!
-Refer to learning outcomes from each chapter
important terms week 4
Assimilation
Accommodation
Equilibration
Epistemology
Genetic epistemology
Constructivist, action-based
Empiricist theories of knowledge
Reductionist theories
Rich and lean interpretations
Violation of expectation
Habituation
Nativist
Object permanence
Why theories are important and useful
1.Ground research by providing a framework
2.Drive new empirical research
3.Raise crucial questions about human nature
Different perspectives on on child development
-Piagetian theory
-Vygotskian Sociocultural theories
-Information processing theory
-Dynamic-systems theory
What would a 7 month old do?
You’re using your phone and your seven month old sees it, wants it, and grasps for it. So, you decide to put it out of sight, in your purse or pocket and hope she will forget about it. Will she…
a)Search your purse/pocket
b)Stop searching and forget about it (correct)
c)Grab the phone before you have a chance to hide it :)
d)search in other, incorrect locations
An observation grounded in Piaget’s theory of development
-Object permanence
-7 month old thinks that once something is out of sight, its gone
-=Different theoretical perspectives have different explanations for this ability
A not B error
different stages to object permanence
Baillargeon
-What would we learn if we used different techniques/methods to test this ability?
-(Core Knowledge theoretical perspective
-violation of expectation and habituation
(surprise and boredom)
-looking time that they had knowledge of something
Baillargeon
-What would we learn if we used different techniques/methods to test this ability?
-(Core Knowledge theoretical perspective
-violation of expectation and habituation
(surprise and boredom)
-looking time that they had knowledge of something
Piagetian theory
The active child (active learner)
-but also relationships are important
-discovered and wrote about child stages
-different stages with different domains
Piaget and Children’s nature
Children are seen as:
-Active learners
-Learning many important lessons on their own
-Intrinsically motivated to learn
Children’s most important constructive processes
-Generating hypotheses
-Performing experiments
-Drawing conclusions
three processes work together to propel development forward
knowledge structure
new knowlegde
assimilation(translation)
accommodation (adapt current structure)
Equilibrium (stable understanding)
Piaget’s Stage Theory:
- Sensorimotor (0-2yrs)sensory and motor
- Preoperational (2-7yrs)
- Concrete Operational (7-12yrs) logically about events
- Formal Operational (12+) hypothetical situations
Object Permanence (sensorimotor stage)
-Understanding that objects continue to exist when out of sight (think of the cell phone example)
-Incomplete at first:
A-not-B Error
Competing Evidence —Baillargeon
-Different components to Obj. Permanence
-By 2.5 and 3.0 months of age, have some knowledge of object permanence
-things continue to exist as a solid entity
Violation of Expectations Method
technique for measuring infant behaviour
- infants have expectations for the world and that’s measured by looking time
Piaget’s last substage (12 – 24 mos) of sensorimotor period
Mental Representations
-Internal, mental depictions of objects, people, events, information
-Can manipulate with mind
-Allow deferred imitation and make-believe play
Pre-Operational (2 – 7 yrs)
-Symbolic representations (something can represent something), vocabulary expends
-Limitation:
-Egocentric perspective
-Centration
EG. LACK OF CONSERVATION
Concrete Operational (7 – 12)
-Logical reasoning about the world
-Limited to ‘Concrete’ operations
not yet at the level of abstract or hypothetical
Formal Operations (12+)
-Abstract thinking
-Hypothetical reasoning
Information Processing Theories
A class of theories that focus on the structure of the cognitive system and the mental activities used to deploy attention and memory to solve problems.
Emphasis on the processes involved in children’s thinking.
How? Focus on problems and solutions (task analysis).
Distinctive features
-Precise specification of thinking processes (specific mental abilities) over time
-Emphasis on structure (organization of the cognitive system)
-Task analysis
Information-Processing & Children’s nature
-Important changes are viewed as constantly occurring, rather than being restricted to special transition periods between stages.
-Cognitive growth is viewed as typically occurring in small increments rather than abruptly.
Information-Processing Theories: The Child as Problem Solver
Underlying many information-processing theories is the metaphor of the child as a computation system.
-Information-processing theories focus on precise descriptions of how change occurs, especially in the development of memory and problem solving.
Sociocultural Theories
Characteristics
-Learning in an interpersonal context
-Engaging in guided participation
-Using cultural tools
-how we transport knowledge to each other
pass on knowledge
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
Social contexts (other people) contribute to cognitive development,
Zone of Proximal Development – tasks child cannot do alone but can learn to do with help
Sociocultural Theories: Children as Teachers and Learners
Michael Tomasello
-Extended Vygotsky’s theory
-Proposed that the human species has unique characteristics that are crucial to the ability to create complex, rapidly changing cultures
-Included the inclination to teach others of the species and to attend to and learn from such teaching
-inclination to teach and learn
Sociocultural Theories: Children as Products of Their Culture
Sociocultural theorists believe that many of the processes that produce development are the same in all societies.
content changes from culture to culture but process is the same
Intersubjectivity
-Involves mutual understanding that people share during communication
-Serves as the foundation of human cognitive development
-Sets the stage for joint attention
-Continues to develop well beyond infancy
-how do we come to share to this mutual understanding
Sociocultural Theories: Central Developmental Issues
Social scaffolding
-Involves a process in which more competent people provide a temporary framework that supports children’s thinking at a higher level than children could manage on their own
-Tends to increase in quality as people become older and gain experience
-Is particularly important when used by parents to help children form autobiographical memories
-providing further support
Important terms associated with Socio-cultural Theory
Intersubjectivity
-the mutual understanding that people share during communication
Joint attention
– social partners intentionally focus on a common referent
Social referencing
-the tendency to look for social partners for guidance about how to respond to unfamiliar or threatening events
Zone of proximal development
-the range of performance between what children can do unsupported and what they can do with optimal support
Dynamic-Systems Theories
Dynamic-systems theories
-Emphasize how varied aspects of the child function as a single, integrated whole to produce behaviour
-View how change occurs over time in complex systems
-Focus on relations among motor activities, attention, and other aspects of children’s behaviour`
Dynamic-Systems Theories: Problem Solving
-One major insight of this class of theories is that new cognitive abilities emerge with motor capabilities
Overall objectives for chapter 5
-Know the period of development known as infancy
-Know the remarkable developments that occur within this period
-Describe the interplay of biology and experience in achieving these developments (see Ch5)
-Understand and describe the different theories of the development of gestures, specifically pointing, and the explanations for how they develop
infancy
0-2 years
before language
building blocks for cognition
perception and cognition
-babies have a preference for faces, biological stimuli,
Learning
7 different kinds
- Habituation
- Perceptual Learning
- Statistical Learning
- Observational Learning
- Rational Learning
- Classical Conditioning
- Instrumental Conditioning
- Habituation
Babies habituate. So what?
-It means they’ve learned something.
-Highly adaptive; diminished attn. to what is familiar enables infants to attend to – and learn about new stuff.
-measuring boredom in babies
Speed of Habituation
Reflects a general efficiency?
Continuity b/t habituation speed and general cognitive ability.
-Fast habituators (I made that word up) = higher IQ’s when tested 18 yrs later
- Perceptual Learning
-Differentiation
-the extraction from the constantly changing stimulation in the environment of those elements that are stable.
-Think: detecting correlations
E.g. Emotion facial expressions & tone of voice
- Statistical Learning
-Also involves picking up info from environment.
-Detecting statistically predictable patterns.
in interactions
-Think: Regularities in events. Probabilities.
E.g. Contingency detection
-extracting probabilities from the environment.
-active participant in creating contingency
Contingency Relation
Rovee-Collier
-Investigated age-related changes in contingency between infant behviour (kicking) and an external event (moving mobile)
-Concluded infants work to predict and control their experience
- Observational Learning
Observation & Imitation
-Imitation is CENTRAL to early learning
-Imitation (reproducing the action) vs. emulation (getting to the end goal)
-Imitation present very early on
Newborn tongue protrusion (Meltzoff)
Novel actions (6 months)
-Do they pay attention to the adult’s reasoning?
Yes
-Do they pay attention to the adult’s intention?
18 months
-Do they pay attention to WHO is performing the action?
Yes (people, but not inanimate objects)
Imitation
-Meltzoff
-Newborns imitate tongue
protrusions
-Rational imitation
-Understanding intention
Observational Learning
Current research
-Focuses on neural underpinnings of imitative learning
-Addresses mirror neuron system in nonhuman primates
-Uses data from infant brain patterns that may indicate mirror neurons are present
- Rational Learning
Rational Learning
Using prior experiences to predict what will occur in the future.
Involves integrating your prior beliefs and biases with new information.
Making inferences based on ‘data’ you collected.
Xu and Garcia (2008)
Researched infants ability to detect and predict distributional information in the environment.
- Rational Learning
Rational Learning
Using prior experiences to predict what will occur in the future.
Involves integrating your prior beliefs and biases with new information.
Making inferences based on ‘data’ you collected.
Xu and Garcia (2008)
Researched infants ability to detect and predict distributional information in the environment.
sensation and perception
-Sensation – processing by sensory receptors (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin)
-Perception – organizing and interpreting sensory info
Scanning and Tracking
Scanning:
-One-month-olds (a) scan the perimeters of shapes
Two-month-olds (b)scan both the perimeters and the interiors of shapes
Development of Face ‘Categories’ in Infancy
Preference for Face-like configurations
Fagan, 1970
Cassia, V. M., Simion, F., & Umilta, C. (2001)
Preference for Mother vs. Stranger face
Bushnell, 2001
Preference for ‘Attractive’ Face Prototype
de Haan, M., Johnson, M. H., Maurer, D., & Perrett, D. I. (2001).
Faces
-From birth, infants are drawn to faces because of a general bias toward configurations with more elements in the upper half than in the lower half
-From paying attention to real faces, the infant comes to recognize and prefer his or her own mother’s face after about only 12 cumulative hours of exposure
Cognition = Thinking
-Mental abilities or processes
-Research organized by ‘what’ babies know
1. Knowledge about social world
2. Knowledge about physical world
3. Knowledge about objects
- Knowledge about the social world
Contingency detection and predictions based on maternal responsiveness.
Bigelow & Rochat (2001)
Infants learn about the social world rapidly.
Infants preferred contingency style of mother (whether they were low responders or high responders)
still face experience
babies interact with mothers and the mothers keep their face still
babies are confused and try and reengaged their mom
babies are annoyed after when they start to reengage again
babies have a expectation of their social engagement with their caregivers
Early theory of mind (T.o.M.) understanding?
-Can infants think about another’s thoughts, beliefs, ideas, perceptions?
-violation of expectation
looking time techniques
Theories on Motor Development
Early theories
-Concluded motor development to be an element of neurological maturity
Current theories
-Often take a dynamic-systems approach
-Emphasizes confluence of many factors, including neural mechanisms and increases in strength, posture control, balance, perceptual skills, and motivation
