perceptual and motor development

Question 1

perception

Answer 1

the psychological process of organizing and interpreting sensory input

Question 2

gestalt

Answer 2

humans have a natural ability to organize visuals and patterns meaningfully and as whole objects

Question 3

ecological theory

Answer 3

perception improves with experience, the acquisition of new means of exploration and the development of new perception-action systems
- gibson

Question 4

perception-action feedback

Answer 4

using feedback from trying new things
- trying to reach for objects helps practice depth perception and motor feedback for their senses

Question 5

affordances for action

Answer 5

an individuals interpretation of which actions are possible, and which are not possible based on their perceptions
- learning things through perception-action feedback loops

Question 6

ways of testing infants

Answer 6

1. preferential looking
2. habituation
3. contigent reinforcement

Question 7

preferential looking

Answer 7

showing a baby 2 stimuli to measure attention to both. if they pay more attention to one they notice a difference, and prefer one stimuli over another

Question 8

habituation-recovery

Answer 8

show one stimulis until they get bored and then show another one. if child pays more attention to the new stimuli, then they notice a difference

Question 9

contingent-reinforcement

Answer 9

• operant conditioning
• infants increase a specific behaviour in response to certain stimuli to obtain a reward
• ex: baby is shown a dancing bunny while listening to music, the song changes and they look over at the bunny, which shows their exitment meaning that they can tell a difference
  ex: infants sucking behaviour to hearing moms voice

Question 10

how to measure attention

Answer 10

• overt behaviours: how long they look
• physiological measures: heart rate

Question 11

what does vision include

Answer 11

• how babies learn to look at what they want
• tracking objects
• recognizing familiar faces

Question 12

visual acuity

Answer 12

• sharpness of vision
• babies dont have good vision, so if they look at two patches, one that filled in a and one thats striped, they wont be able to tell the difference from far away

Question 13

development of acuity

Answer 13

• newborns can see 20 feet whereas adult see 60
• they are leaglly blind
• 6 months: 60/100
• 12 months: 20/50
• 6 years: 20/20

Question 14

color perception

Answer 14

• newborns see colours but have trouble distinguishing blue, green and yellow from white
• by 4 months they have a full range of colours and can discriminate hues
• they show categorial perception: grouping together colours

Question 15

visual scanning

Answer 15

tracking motion: newborns move their heads in response to moving stimuli
- jerky eye movements until 2 months
- anticipatory eye movements at 6 months

Question 16

perceiving objects as whole

Answer 16

good continuations: gestalt principle that claims a natural tendency for individuals to view objects or stimuli as continuous or whole

Question 17

depth perception

Answer 17

kinetic cues (approaching): 1 month
stereopsis: 4 months
sensitivity to pictorial (monocular): 6-7 months

Question 18

visual cliff

Answer 18

• infants crawled across the shallow side of the cliff but not the deep side, suggesting depth perception

Question 19

face perception

Answer 19

• infants view faces 25-50% of waking time
• prefer mother’s face
• prefer faces to objects
• they like top heavy features
• like faces that move and have high contrast

Question 20

perceptual narrowing

Answer 20

• phenomenon that occurs in face, music and speech perception
• a dmiminished ability to distinguish among less frequently-encountered stimuli
• babies can distinguish languages, and music but loose the ability as they hear more english

Question 21

own-species vs other-species

Answer 21

• adults: can distinguish humans but not monkeys
• newborn - 6 months: can distinguish both
• after 6 months: can no longer distinguish monkeys

Question 22

audition in babies

Answer 22

• newborns hear quite well but need it to be loud and they can hear human voices the best
• start to hear in the last 3 months before birth
• rapid development in the first year

Question 23

absolute threshold

Answer 23

minimum sound level to detect a sound

Question 24

relative threshold

Answer 24

minimum difference in loudness or pitch to discriminate between sounds

Question 25

music perception

Answer 25

seems to be a strong biological foundation for music perception
- can respond to variation in rhythm and they like sounds that go together well
- perceptional narrowing: infants prefer music of their own culture and by 12 months they have difficulty discriminating rhythmic structures of other cultural music

Question 26

auditory preferences

Answer 26

• prefer speech more than non-speech sounds
• like mothers voice over a strangers
• baby-talk over adult-directed speech
• native language over others

Question 27

william theirry preyer

Answer 27

• english physiologist who documented changes in his sons motor skills from birth to 3 years old
• proposed a common and universal sequence of motor development across species

Question 28

gesell

Answer 28

american child psychologist who tracked motor behaviours and growth of 107 infants between 4 to 56 weeks

Question 29

maturation

Answer 29

genetically determined process that controls and preserves the order of behaviours and skills as children develop
- when maturationally ready, will learn faster (Gesell- co-twin study)

Question 30

myrtle mcgraw

Answer 30

• trained one twin on specific twin
• trained twin showed early performance on specific motor skills that were trained but not on those that were untrained

Question 31

dynamic systems

Answer 31

considers the many interacting forces that influence infant motor skills, beyond top down brain explanations

Question 32

stepping reflex

Answer 32

• esther thelen
• shown from birth, if the baby’s feet are near a surface they move their feet but it disappears at 2 months
• babies put on more weight then, and the weight of their legs make it difficult to lift weight –> not actually a complicated brain skill

Question 33

posture

Answer 33

• the positio in which a person holds thei rhead and body and their ability to stably maintain the body’s position
• stable posture facilitates action –> critical to all motor skills

Question 34

sitting

Answer 34

includes muscles in the neck, torso, legs and hips to help with balancing
- its impacted by opportunities to practice
- differes in cultures

Question 35

crawling

Answer 35

infants develop unique ways to get about, they will find ways to move around. they can start with butt scooting before crawling.
- practice with crawling permits infants to estimate accurately if different surfaces are safe or risky to crawl across

Question 36

cruising and walking

Answer 36

• 7-13 months babies start using furniture to pull up to a standing position and the cruise sideways while holding on. different than walking because relying on hands, not legs
• at 1 year, they begin walking and with experience they get better

Question 37

experience in particular postures

Answer 37

• babies can judge and see gaps while sitting, but when starting to crawl they just go over it. has learned affordances for sitting but not for crawling. after more experience crawling they will mind the gap.
• experienceed walkers will know not to walk down a steep platform because they have those affordances from experience

Question 38

maturational viewpoint

Answer 38

unfolding of a genetically programmed series of events

Question 39

experiential viewpoint

Answer 39

opportunities to practice are important

Question 40

role of experiences

Answer 40

infants growing up in different parts of the word are exposed to different opportunities to practice motor skills.