Week 3 - Infants (B) - Cognitive Development

Question 1

mental structure

Answer 1

in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, the cognitive systems that organise thinking into coherent patterns so that all thinking takes place on the same level of cognitive functioning

Question 2

cognitive-developmental approach

Answer 2

focus on how cognitive abilities change with age in stage sequence of development, pioneered by Piaget and since taken up by other researchers

Question 3

maturation

Answer 3

concept that an innate, biologically based program is the driving force behind development

Question 4

schemes

Answer 4

cognitive structures for processing, organising and interpreting information

Question 5

assimilation

Answer 5

cognitive process of altering new information to fit an existing scheme

Question 6

accommodation

Answer 6

cognitive process of changing a scheme to adapt to new information

Question 7

4 Stages of cognitive development (Piaget)

Answer 7

0-2 Sensorimotor
2-7 Preoperational
7-11 Concrete operations
11-15 Formal operations

Question 8

Sensorimotor (age + def + stages)

Answer 8

0-2 Capable of coordinating the activities of the senses with motor activities

1. Simple reflexes (0-1 months)
2. First habits and primary circular reactions (1-4 months)
3. Secondary circular reactions (4-8 months)
   4, Coordination of secondary schemes (8-12)

Question 9

Preoperational (age+ def)

Answer 9

2-7 Capable of symbolic representation, such as in language, but with limited ability to use mental operations

Question 10

Concrete operations (age+ def)

Answer 10

7-11 Capable of using mental operations, but only in concrete, immediate experience; difficulty thinking hypothetically

Question 11

Formal operations (age + def)

Answer 11

11-15 Capable of thinking logically and abstractly; capable of formulating hypotheses and testing them systematically; thinking is more complex; can think about thinking (metacognition)

Question 12

object permanence

Answer 12

This is the awareness that objects (including people) continue to exist even when we are not in direct sensory or motor contact with them.

Question 13

A-not-B error

Answer 13

The infants were used to finding the object under blanket A, so they continued to look under blanket A, not blanket B, even after they had seen the object hidden under blanket B.

Question 14

‘violation of expectations method’

Answer 14

This method is based on the assumption that infants will look longer at an event that has violated their expectations, and if they look longer at an event violating the rule of object permanence this indicates some understanding of object permanence, without requiring any motor movements.

Question 15

information-processing approach

Answer 15

approach to understanding cognitive functioning that focuses on cognitive processes that exist at all ages, rather than on viewing cognitive developing in terms of discontinuous stages

Question 16

habituation

Answer 16

gradual decrease in attention to a stimulus after repeated presentations

Question 17

dishabituation

Answer 17

following habituation, the revival of attention when a new stimulus is presented

Question 18

Rates of habituation

Answer 18

neonates - several minutes
4-5 months old - 10 seconds
7 - 8 months old - only a few seconds

Question 18

Rates of habituation

Answer 18

neonates - several minutes
4-5 months old - 10 seconds
7 - 8 months old - only a few seconds

Question 19

Joint attention

Answer 19

In the second half of the first year, infants’ patterns of attention become increasingly social. They direct their attention not just to whatever sensations are most stimulating, but also to what the people around them are attending to, engaging in joint attention.

Question 20

distinction between recognition memory and recall memory

Answer 20

“The infants recognised this clue and began kicking again to make the mobile move, up to a month later, even though they had been unable to recall the memory before being prompted.”

From infancy onwards, recognition memory comes easier to us than recall memory

Question 21

Bayley Scales of Infant Development

Question 22

Developmental quotient - Gesell (4 subscales and def)

Answer 22

Obsolete tool in assessments of infant development, the overall score indicating developmental progress

Subscales:
Motor skills (such as sitting)
Language use
Adaptive behaviour (such as exploring a new object)
personal-social behaviour (such as using a spoon)

Question 23

Bayley Scales of Infant Development (age of use, and 3 scales)

Answer 23

Widely used assessment of infant development from ages 3 months to 3½ years

Cognitive Scale
Language Scale
Motor Scale

Question 24

Language developmental milestones

Answer 24

2 months Cooing
4-10 months Babbling
8-10 months First gestures (‘bye-bye’)
10-12 months Comprehension of words and simple sentences
12 months First spoken word

Question 25

babbling

Answer 25

Repetitive consonant–vowel combinations such as ‘ba-ba-ba’ or ‘do-do-do-do’

Question 26

Japanese infants recognize ___ at 6 months but don’t at 12 months

Answer 26

‘r’ vs ‘l’ distinction

Question 27

infant-directed (ID) speech

Answer 27

special form of speech that adults in many cultures direct towards infants, in which the pitch of the voice becomes higher than in normal speech, the intonation is exaggerated and words and phrases are repeated.

infants show a preference for it by the time they are 4 months old