Psy. 412A Ch. 5 Flashcards
Novelty Responsiveness
Following habituation, the process in which a baby looks more at a new stimulus than at a familiar one.
Habituation
The processes in which a baby compares each new stimulus with a developing memory of the stimulus based on previous exposures, thus learning about the stimulus.
Adaptation
The process whereby knowledge is altered by experience. Adaptation involves two complementary processes , ASSIMILATION and ACCOMMODATION.
Assimilation
The process by which information can be incorporated according to what the infant already knows. Assimilation allows the infant to use existing understating to make sense of the world.
Accommodation
The process by which the infant changes to reach new understanding; that is, the modification of existing understanding to make it apply to a new situation. Accommodation allows the infant to understand reality better and better.
Sensorimotor Period
A developmental time, consisting of a six-stage sequence, when thinking consists of coordinating sensory information with motor activity.
Object Permanence
The understanding that an object continues to exist, even though it cannot be sensed.
Mental Representation
The ability to hold in the mind an image of objects (and people) that are NOT physically present.
Categorization
A process that involves grouping and separate items into a set according to some rule.
Infantile Amnesia
The adult recollection of almost nothing of events that took place before the age of three or four.
Deferred Imitation
Reproducing a series of actions seen at earlier time.
Exploratory Play
Children’s play in which activities are tied to the tangible properties of objects.
Symbolic Play
Children’s play that enacts activities performed by the self, others, and objects in pretend it make believe scenarios.
Validity
The degree to which a test measures what it was designed to measure.
Predictive Validity
When performance at one time relates meaningfully to performance at a later time.
Scaffolding
Providing learning opportunities, materials, hints, and clues when a child has difficulty with a task.
Ethnotheories
Parents’ belief systems that motivate them to behave in the ways they do.
Phonology
Sounds in language that are produced and perceived.
Semantics
The meaning of words and sentences, or the content of speech.
Syntax
The rules that define the ways in which words and phrases are arranged to ensure correct and meaningful communications. Also called GRAMMAR.
Comprehension
Understanding language.
Production
Speaking the language.
Morphemes
Units of meaning in a language.
Referential
A linguistic style hallmarked by vocabularies that include a high proportion of nouns and speech that provides information and refers to things in the environment.
Expressive
A linguistic style hallmarked by early vocabularies that have relatively more verbs and speech that uses social routines to communicate feelings and desires.
Infant-Directed Speech
A special speech register reserved for babies that simplifies normal adult-directed speech in many ways.
Holophrasis
The use of a single word for many things.
Induction
The process of using a limited set of examples to draw conclusions that permit inferences about new cases.
Fast Mapping
A phenomenon that refers to how easily children pick up words they have heard only a few times.
Whole Object Assumption
A concept that refers to children’s belief that a novel label refers to the “whole object” and not to its parts, substance, or other properties.
Mutual Exclusivity
A concept that refers to an infant’a assumption that any given object has only one name.
Socioeconomic Status (SES)
The education, occupation, and income of householders.
Universal Grammar
Chomsky’s term for aspects of syntax that are thought to be innate and built into every infant’s brain.
