Perception and Action in Development Flashcards
What is the role of action in perception?
Its clear there is a cycle but what does it have to do with development
What is suspected about the environment and perception?
We suspect that movement through the environment is vital to the coupling of perceptions and purposeful movements in the environment
What is teh ideal experiment to determine the role of action in perceptions?
Deprive one group of movement
Allow another to have movemnet
compare the changes in perceptual abilities
Why would the ideal experiment never work?
Highly unethical
Older research is performed on animals
Newer techniques use imaging tech
What is the historical view of perception adn action in development?
Supported teh idea that perception assisted in the development of both motor and cognitive area
Research is flawed
lead to the development of perceptual-motor programs
What are perceptual-motor programs?
PRograms could remediate deficits and overcome perceptual deficiencies Evaluations failed to show theses programs improved intelligence, class room achievement or language
What are the contemporary views of perception and action on development?
Most phys. ed, cirricula devote significant time to perceptual-motor activites
They give children experience in performing skills based on perceptual information
Reinforce concepts such as shapes and direction
What is a recent hypothesis of action and perception?
Physical activity triggers brain activity which time facilitates learning for a time after the rperiod of activity
What is Diamonds study? (Motor and cognitive development are fundamental intertwined)
Both the prefrontal cortex adn the cerebellum take a prolonged period to develop
Many complex cognitive skills and complex motor skills are only developed in adolescence
Both the prefrontal and cerebellum are activated during different cognitive tasks
Dopamine involved
Cognitive deficits tend to lead to motor deficits
Why should we think improving perceptual motor skills would alter cognitive skills?
Coactivation of prefrontal cortex and contralateral neocerebellum in motor adn cognitive tasks
Dopamine invovled in neural circuits in motor and cognitive functions
What is Brain -Derived Neurotropic Factors (BDNF)?
Protein involved in building and maintaining the infrastructure of the nervous system
Stimulates growth of neurons and protects against neuron loss
Animal studies: BDNF ins increased in animals that were exercised
What are growth factors?
Groups of hormones released with increased circulation
Works with BDNF to stimulate capillary growth in brain
What does research say?
Perception develops ahead of movement skills
Movement skills are acquired with guidance from perceptual information
New actions make new information
Exercise stimulates brain activity that facilitates learning and memory
All this indicates greater interdependence of the brain on cognitive adn motor tasks
What is the key point to theory of self produced locomotion?
If action facilitates perceptual development, ten some type of perception would be evident only after performing a specific action
What was the experiment Held and Hein did about self produced locomotion?
Kittens placed in a merry go round One able to walk The other in a gondola Visual experience is IDENTICAL Same visual sensations but only one able to move
What were the results of Held and Hein’s study?
Control kitten (passive) failed to accurately jude depth and failed to exhibit eye blinking when on object approached More brain growth and nervous system function in experimental kitten Self - produced movement related to development of behaviour
What is Bertenthals study?
Experimental: locomotion experience was provided to pre-walkers
Control: baby walker not provided
Experimental group responded to heights control did not
Conclusion: Perception of spatial relationships was enhanced by locomotr experience. Self produced locomotion appears to facilitate depth perception development
What was Gibson’s study?
How does experience influence infants on a different surface?
What was Gibsons methodology?
Infants with crawling experience
Infants with walking experience
Two different surfaces
-Rigid and deforming
What were the results of Gibson’s study?
All infants crossed the surfaces
Walkers hesitated to cross deforming surface
Stopped to explore
Eventually crossed
Conclusion:
-Increased self produced locomotion = increased sensitivity to surface
How does self-produced locomotion affect cognitive skills?
Increased locomotion = increased cognitive skills
What is the perception of affordance (ecological view)?
Perception and action is based on direct perception of environment, rather than indirect perception
Directly perceive what objects in the environment permit us to do stuff
Perrceive affordance
What is the perception of affordance (body scaling)?
We perceive affordance rather then object characteristics we must be sensitive to the scale of our bodies
How are affordances incorporated into body scaling?
Body scal e is and individuals size relative to the environment
Body scales change ove r teh life span
What are properties of objects that can be perceived for affordance?
1) size and temperature
2) Texture/hardness
3) Weight and shape
What is tool use in the first year according to Lockman?
Infants tool use originates in repeated perception -action routines
Infants use trial and error exploration relating objects to other objects and surfaces
Infants detect affordance
Not affordance of individual tools, but of relationships between objects
What did greenough hypothesize about how movement facilitates perceptual development?
Initial excess number of synapses forms in CNS
Some survive
Connections activated by sensory and motor experience survive
Unused connections are lost
What does Greenough’s hypothesis mean?
Synaptic proliferation prepares an organism for experience
Undergoing experience during development promotes survival of the synaptic connections
What is posture and balance as a perception -action ecosystem?
To control posture we continually change our motor response according to perceptual information
Perceptual information is specific for the environment and our orientation in it
What are the perceptual systems?
Visual (about position relative to the environment)
Kinestheitc ( somatosenors- limb positions and vesitbular apparatus - head position)
Auditory (contribute to environmental information)
What is balance in childhood?
Improves throughout
Nature of improvement is task specific
Rely more on kinestheticinfo and less visual info
How do we balance during locomotion?
We use two frames of reference -Supporting surface -Gravity Another challenge is to cnontrol degrees of freedom -stabalize heads on our trunks -Stabalize head position in space
What is the assistance model?
Identifies 4 time periods
1) Birth-standing : Cephalocoudal direction
2) Standing to age 6: coordination of upper and lower body
3) Age 7 through adolescence: refinement of head stabilization
4) Adulthood: refined control of degrees of freedom in neck
How do you assess postural control adn balance?
Observe responses
- force plate
- when balance is perturbed
- perceptual info form one system conflicts with another
- one source of info is taken away
What are balance changes with aging in younger adults?
Movable platform = ankle muscles to regain balance
observations with EMG
What does the EMG for the ankle strategy look like?
Muscles recruited distal to proximal
Head strategy : fixed relative to hips and trunk
What are balance changes with aging in older adults?
They use hip strategy to regain balance after larger, faster perturbations
What does the EMG of the hip strategy look like?
Muscles recruited proximal-distal
Common for unstable surfaces
Head strategy: not with hip /trunk
What are differences in balance between older and younger adults?
Older adults take longer to initaite a response to perturbation
They sometimes use the opposite pattern of younger adults
What are system changes contributing to balance difficulty in older adults?
Changes in sensory receptors
Loss of strength
Arthritic conditons in joints
Slower nerve conduction speed
What is balance training for older adults?
Balance improves with practice in response
Programs that stress balance and strength reduce falls
