Test 1: Practice Questions

Question 1

Research on long-term retention phase of the mobile task highlights that:

Answer 1

o Older infants retain information for shorter amount of time than younger infants.
o The cloth pattern of the crib has no effect on infants’ retention because infants are only looking at the mobile’s movements.
o It is impossible to measure infants’ long-term retention because the ankle ribbon is disconnected to the mobile during the long-term retention phase.
o Changes to the features of the items on the mobile disrupts infants’ retention.

Question 2

Imagine that a researcher administers an attentional pre-cuing task to 6-month-olds. First, a pre-cue (a square) appears on the left-side screen. Then the researcher tests the effects of the pre-cue by showing 6-month-olds a target star shape on the left-side screen and a target star shape on the right-side screen. The results would most likely show that:

Answer 2

o 6-month-olds will gaze more at the star on the right-side screen.
o 6-month-olds will gaze more at the star on the left-side screen.
o 6-month-olds will gaze equally at the star on the left-side screen and at the star on the right-side screen.
o No data can be obtained because the attentional pre-cuing task can only be used with adults.

Question 3

Say that examples of the colour blue can fall from an intensity value of 1 (extremely light) to 3 (average) to 5 (extremely dark). Now imagine that a researcher conducts the following experiment. The researcher creates a narrow condition meaning that the researcher habituates infants only to the following example values of the colour blue: 1 and 5. The researcher then administers a test trial to find out which blue colour value will most attract infants’ attention: value 3 or value 5. The researcher will probably discover that the infants will pay more attention to the blue colour of __________. In order for this result to have happened, it would mean that infants during the habituation phase formed ____________.

Answer 3

o value 5; two extreme categories of colour from the habituation examples
o value 5; one average category of colour from the habituation examples
o value 3; two extreme categories of colour from the habituation examples
o value 3; one average category of colour from the habituation examples

Question 4

Please choose between options A, B or C for this question. Imagine that a researcher runs a habituation phase by familiarising baby Suzy to a screen rotating from 0-degrees to 180-degrees. Then the researcher runs a test event. In the test event, baby Suzy sees the screen rotating from 0-degrees and stopping at 112-degrees when the screen contacts and occludes a solid block. Which of the following results about Baby Suzy’s looking time at the test phase would be most UNLIKELY, if we assume that Baby Suzy has an abstract understanding of object permanence?

Answer 4

o Baby Suzy’s duration of looking time in the test phase is greater than her duration of looking time in the habituation phase.
o Baby Suzy’s duration of looking time in the test phase is lower than her duration of looking time in the habituation phase.
o Baby Suzy’s duration of looking time in the test phase is equal to her duration of looking time in the habituation phase.

Question 5

Briefly list three different kinds of research findings to suggest that infants expect perceptual structuring in the physical world. Very briefly list one criticism over such research evidence.

Answer 5

o MODEL ANSWER:
o Infants look longer when a tall toy remains unseen as it moves behind a wall with a cut-out window, suggesting infants expect objects to retain their spatial (height) properties.
o Infants look longer when a toy floats when it has no contact with a platform, suggesting infants expect objects to remain stable only when there is physical support.
o Infants look longer when a drawbridge moves from 0-degrees to 180-degrees to apparently pass through a solid block with block apparently disappearing, suggesting infants expect objects to exist when hidden.
o One criticism is that infants’ looking responses to these “impossible” events may be due merely to lingering visual memory traces.