Week 4

Question 1

Sensation

Answer 1

external stimuli activate sensory receptors

Question 2

Perception

Answer 2

interpretation of sensory stimulation by the brain

Question 3

What are the 4 techniques for testing infants

Answer 3

1. Preference paradigm
2. Habituation/Dishabituation
3. Operant Conditioning
4. Violation-or-expectation paradigm

Question 4

Preference Paradigm

Answer 4

-Assesses how much time infant is looking at one stimuli over another

Question 5

Testing Visual Acuity

Answer 5

Use Teller acuity cards to determine if lined pattern is visible based on a consistent increased looking time toward the patterned side

Question 6

Visual Acuity at birth

Answer 6

30x worse than that of an adult

Question 7

Contrast sensitivity at birth

Answer 7

20 to 25 times worse than adults

Question 8

Do newborns prefer to look at fine lines or more contrasting photos

Answer 8

more contrasting photos because fine lines are make it hard to see contrast

Question 9

What aspects of vision do newborns show deficits in

Answer 9

-visual acuity
-contrast sensitivity
-convergence
-coordination
-color perception

Question 10

Do infants prefer face-like stimulus or other stimulus? and what is the functional significance

Answer 10

Bias for top heavy patterns
-babies attend to faces, which improves face perception

Question 11

At what age to babies begin to look longer at average or attractive faces

Answer 11

5-months old

Question 12

What biases are infants born with

Answer 12

-listen preferentially to mom’s voice and familiar story
-look preferentially at face-like stimuli
-turn their head to smell mom’s breast pad over a stranger’s breast pad
-eat foods experienced prenatally

Question 13

Habituation/Dishabituation

Answer 13

-responses decrease to repeated stimuli
-when the stimulus changes, our response changes accordingly
-looking time increases only if infants perceive the difference between stimuli

Question 14

What is the purpose of habituation/dishabituation?

Answer 14

Allows us to test for discrimination
-not a preference

Question 15

Can newborns discriminate shapes

Answer 15

Yes, unless in contour

Question 16

Preference-looking paradigm

Answer 16

Measure infants looking or head turning toward visual or auditory stimuli

Question 17

Preference-looking Paradigm race preference

Answer 17

By 3 months, babies have a preference for faces of their own race
-no preference at younger ages
-perception becomes fine-tuned with experience to match environment

Question 18

Role in experience in discrimination of monkey faces

Answer 18

at 6 months you, 9 months no

Question 19

Purpose of Operant conditioning

Answer 19

shows an overt preference

Question 20

Operant conditioning

Answer 20

-teach infants to do behavior 1 to receive stimulus A, and behavior 2 to receive stimulus B
-compare amount of behavior 1 vs 2

Question 21

Auditory development in infants for language

Answer 21

-preference for mid-frequency tones (Human speech)
-preference for high-pitch speech
-speech over backwards speech
-categorical perception of phonemes

Question 22

Auditory development in infants for music

Answer 22

EARLY PERCEPTURAL BIASES
-natural pauses in music (4 to 6 months)
-consonant over dissonant tones

PERCEPTUAL TUNING (9-12 months)
-musical scales
-musical rhythms

Question 23

Controlled Sucking Behaviour

Answer 23

-Teach infants to suck faster to hear A and suck slower to hear B
-compare how much time infants ended up listening to A or B
-type of operant conditioning

Question 24

Intersensory Redundancy

Answer 24

Infant’s perceptual system is particularly attuned to amodal information presented to multiple sensory modes
-in a young brain signals are redundant allowing for better understanding of the world
-with age/experience, neurons become specialized and babies can interpret the world with single-modality inputs

Question 25

Amodal

Answer 25

not belonging to a single sensory mode

Question 26

Synesthesia

Answer 26

Experience one sense through another

Question 27

Intersensory Redundancy: sight and touch of pacifiers

Answer 27

Infants look longer at pacifiers that match the tactile sensation of what they are sucking on

Question 28

Intersensory Redundany: Emotional expression

Answer 28

-infants watch video of female actress portraying an emotion expressions
-present a difference emotion: 1. audio and visual, 2. video only, audio only
-4 moths could discriminate with both
-5 month could discriminate with just auditory
-7 months could discriminate with just visual

Question 29

Attention

Answer 29

Processes that allow people to control input from the environment and regulate behaviour

Question 30

Types of Attentional Networks

Answer 30

ALERTING NETWORK
Keeps attentional processes prepared, ready to detect and respond to stimuli
ORIENTING NETWORK
Selects which stimuli will be processed further
EXECUTIVE NETWORK
Monitoring thoughts, feelings, behavior

Question 31

ADHD

Answer 31

-3-7% of school aged children
-4:1 boys to girls
-hyperactivity and impulsivity vary in degree
-inattention

Question 32

Inattention

Answer 32

Unable to stay on task, difficulty maintaining prolonged attention

Question 33

Experience-Expectant Processes

Answer 33

brain was waiting for visual input to set up neural architecture for visual preception

Question 34

Experience-Dependent Processes

Answer 34

Brain Specializes in processing information that is in the environment

Question 35

Face perception in monkeys reared with no exposure to faces

Answer 35

-infant monkeys raised in visually rich environments, yet with in exposure to faces
-following deprivation, monkeys selectively exposed to human or monkey faces for 1 month
-during deprivation preference preferred faces over objects
-After month of exposure preferred type of face exposed to

Question 36

Violation-of expectation paradigm

Answer 36

infants will show surprise when witnessing unexpected events