perceptual development

Question 1

what is perceptual development

Answer 1

the newborn’s readiness for life

Question 2

what are newborn reflexes

Answer 2

involuntary automatic responses to a stimuli

Question 3

what are the two newborn reflexes

Answer 3

-survival reflexes: adaptive value, satisfy needs e.g breathing sucking swallowing
-primitive reflexes: not as useful, tend to disappear in first year e.g swimming, grasping and babinski (foot curls)

Question 4

what is sensation

Answer 4

detection of sensory stimulation/raw sensory info

Question 5

what is perception

Answer 5

interpretation of sensory input

Question 6

what are the 4 ways to study perceptual abilities

Answer 6

preference technique
habituation
high amplitude sucking
operant cond

Question 7

what is the preference technique

Answer 7

-technique to study perceptual abilities
-Frantz 1956
-baby shown two items and researcher tracks how long the baby looks at each item
-if the baby looks at one longer than the other we conclude: the baby sees a difference between the two objects and something about one object captures the babies attention

Question 8

what is habituation

Answer 8

-technique to study perceptual abilities
-baby presented with sight/sound repeatedly until they habituate, familiarity of stim leads to lack of response
-researcher presents new stim to see if they show renewed interest (dishabituation)

Question 9

research to support habituation

Answer 9

Baillargeon and DeVos 1991
-habituation of small or tall carrot passing behind a screen
-then shown a new screen where tall carrot is taller than the screen
-testing to see if infant looks at tall carrot longer than short carrot, suggests they know it is impossible for the tall carrot to pass behind this screen

Question 10

what is high amplitude sucking

Answer 10

-technique to study perceptual abilities
-babies given pacifier/dummy and baseline sucking level measured
-babies shown stimuli
-sucking harder means stimuli kept on screen
-stopping sucking means the presentation stops
-shows preference and discrimination

Question 11

what are the principles of operant cond

Answer 11

-stimulus increases reoccurrence of response = reinforcer
-baby can be trained to turn toward an object/ toy when they hear a new sound, uses toy as reinforcer

Question 12

what is visual acuity

Answer 12

ability to discriminate shapes and details

Question 13

vision in infants

Answer 13

-much poorer visual acuity compared to adults
-limited power of accommodation so vision is blurry
-least mature sense of infants
-can detect changes in brightness
-limited ability to detect colour
-can see as well as adults at 2 years of age
-visual tracking improves rapidly over 1st year (Askin 1981)

Question 14

depth perception

Answer 14

-visual cliff illusion (Gibson and Walk 1960)
-90% infants 6 1/2 months + perceived depth and avoided crawling over perceived drop
-Campos 1970 measure HR in 2 month olds and found that when placed on cliff babies HR drops suggesting they may be able to perceive depth

Question 15

audition in babies

Answer 15

-can discriminate sounds based on loudness, duration, direction and frequency
-babies turn to the location of a sound
-can recognise sound patterns and their own name at 5 months

Question 16

research supporting audition in babies

Answer 16

DeCasper + Spence: babies prefer sounds heard prenatally in the 3rd trimester, babies suck harder on a dummy when hearing familiar sounds

DeCasper + Fifer 1980: babies prefer mother’s voice to other women’s

Question 17

universality of babies audition

Answer 17

-at 6 months babies are more sensitive to phonemes than adults if it’s not the adult’s first lang
-babies able to learn any language when born and can distinguish phonemes from other languages
-infants 1 year+ lose this ability

Question 18

taste

Answer 18

-babies can distinguish tastes e.g preference for sweet over sour, bitter or salty
-can detect umami as contained in breast milk

Question 19

smell

Answer 19

-babies tend to avoid unpleasant odours
-Doty 2003 babies can detect smell of mother at 1 week old

Question 20

touch

Answer 20

-enhances development + allows for exploration of environment
-sensitive to touch and temp
-sensitive to pain
-may be best developed sense

Question 21

babies and preference for faces

Answer 21

Frantz 1961: babies have a preference for faces but literature is mixed
-Pascalis 1995: babies look at edges of faces first
-Langlois 1987: 2 month olds have a preference for attractive faces
-as infants get older they show a preference for real faces

Question 22

what is intermodal perception

Answer 22

integration of info from 2 or more senses e.g can baby look in the direction of a sound, can they reach for objects they have seen etc

Question 23

when is the intermodal perception developed

Answer 23

Piaget: believed this develops late in 1st year of life
Gibson believes some intermodal abilities are present at birth and developed based on experience