Week 4: Sensation & Perception Flashcards

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1
Q

What was John Locke’s view on newborns?

A

Thought they were born with the mind like a white page. All ideas and abilities developed through learning and experiences of the world

Nothing -> things develop

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2
Q

What did William James suggest about newborns?

A

That babies can’t distinguish between sensations ‘one great blooming, buzzing confusion’

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3
Q

What is today’s view on infants?

A

They are born with many skills, and actively learn many more rapidly as they explore the world.

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4
Q

What is sensation?

A

The detection and discrimination of sensory information from sensory organs

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5
Q

What is perception?

A

Interpretation of those sensations, including recognition and identification

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6
Q

What is the most important sense?

A

Vision - takes up nearly half of the cerebral cortex (massively over represented in the brain)

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7
Q

Vision in newborn babies?

A

Infants are born with well developed vision which improves rapidly

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8
Q

Popular vision testing methods?

A

Preferential looking tasks
Habituation
Conditioned head turn (also used for hearing)

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9
Q

What is a preferential looking task?

A

Measure looking time between two similar visual stimuli

If they look at one for longer, they have a preference for it

If equal - can’t discriminate or they find both equally interesting

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10
Q

What is habituation?

A

A gradual decrease in response to/interest in a repeated stimulus

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11
Q

Why is habituation useful?

A

Means you won’t continuously notice things that are there all of the time

Allows us to be alerted to things that we may need to pay attention to (self-preservation)

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12
Q

What is novelty preference?

A

Human preference for anything new or different

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13
Q

Habituation experimental design for visual assessment?

A

Present infant with stimuli: attention/interest
Keep on presenting it: declines
Infant = habituated
Present a different stimuli - if attention increases, assume they can distinguish between the two

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14
Q

Visual acuity at birth?

A

Infants can see (20-25cm), but lack visual acuity

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15
Q

When is an infants visual acuity comparable to adults?

A

About 6 months

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16
Q

How do we test visual acuity in infants?

A

Preferential looking: narrow stripes over plain field

Change the width of stripes, infants prefer the stripes as they are more interesting. When they don’t have a preference it means they don’t perceive the stripes anymore and it looks more like a plain field to them.

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17
Q

Colour vision in infants?

A

Initially very limited - begins to develop as cones mature.

By 2-3m start to perceive adult like colour categories
By 4-5m have colour preferences

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18
Q

Pattern vision?

A

As infants get older, they prefer complex patterns

Infants look longer at a patterned surface more than a plain surface.

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19
Q

What do edges and contrasts provide?

A

Information on object boundaries
Depth and how to grasp objects
Greater neural activation - developing neural pathways of pattern recognition

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20
Q

Children prefer looking at faces over pattered displays. Explain.

A

May be genetically preprogrammed to prefer faces (eg. Attached to adults who will look after you)

They are 3D, move and have areas of high and low contrast

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21
Q

How does social learning affect face preference?

A

Infants prefer faces of those the same sex as their caregiver

Have a preference for faces matching those of their own race - more familiar

By 3 months, infants prefer sailing faces over non-smiling

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22
Q

What is the still face paradigm?

A

Three minutes with an expressionless mother the baby initially attempts to interact with the mother and then this face to the baby being sober and wary and don’t know how to deal with it eventually the baby becomes withdrawn and hopeless

After this normal interaction restores joy and normality

23
Q

What broader implications does the still face paradigm have

A

Babies of mothers with depression so what happens if it’s chronic

24
Q

Explain object constancy

A

Perception or belief that an object remains constant despite changes in the way that it looks

25
Q

Why is object constancy important

A

Helps to maintain a stable perceptual world and you don’t have to constantly try and figure out the world

26
Q

Conditioning studies suggest that infants have innate object constancy of what type

A

Shape and size constancy

27
Q

Explain the conditioned head turned Paradigm

A

rewarded for turning their head to one side towards something
Then rewarded for only turning their head towards particular stimulus
If a child can consistently recognise that stimulus they should turn their head only to that one in particular
child begins to turn the head in anticipation when stimulus but not alternative is shown

28
Q

What is evidence that object constancy develops relatively early in children

A

The conditioned head turn paradigm

29
Q

Explain a study of object continuity

A

Four month old habituated to a rod behind a block

Preferential looking choice of a whole or a broken rod they prefer to look at the broken rod which was novel this suggests they had seen initial bits of the rod as part of a whole

30
Q

How long does it take for infants to gain depth perception

A

It takes time to gain depth perception or to get it right and that’s okay because they’re not running around for a lot of this time

31
Q

Explain the visual cliff experiment

A

There is a chequered surface with a drop-down or cliff with a sheet of glass on top so the babies are safe

Infant should be unwilling to cross the cliff if they can perceive depth
Two-month-old are simply curious where are 6 to 14 month old won’t crossed despite coaxing from parents.

32
Q

How are infant heart rate changes similar to adults

A

Will decelerate in response to novel/attractive stimuli, and interesting but not exciting

Will accelerate in response to potentially dangerous or aversive stimuli or something very stimulating

33
Q

How else can we perceive depth?

A

Kinetic cues (1-3m)

Binocular depth cues (4-6m)

Pictorial distance cues (5-7m)

34
Q

Explain kinetic cues

A

They are produces as a person or object moves

  • motion parallax: closer objects move faster, further objects move slower
  • interposition: closer objects obscure further objects
  • shadows: cast by closer objects on further objects
35
Q

What are binocular depth cues?

A

Inter-eye disparity greater for closer objects than further objects

36
Q

What are pictorial distance cues?

A
  • linear perspective: two lines in parallel tend to appear to converge in the distance
  • texture gradient
37
Q

How can we test auditory perception

A

Can use habituation with: turning head or eyes to the sound, changing heart rate, change in breathing or sucking rate

38
Q

Explain high amplitude sucking experiments

A

Dummy wired to the computer to get a baseline sucking rate

Sound played - initially sucking rate increases

Sucking/interest gradually declines as habituation occurs

Then change sound

If increased sucking = discrimination

39
Q

At what age can a foetus respond to sounds?

A

As early as 24 weeks in utero

Eg. Prefer native language

40
Q

How do we know infants can hear at birth?

A

They respond with startle reflexes, fists and crying

41
Q

By 3 days of age, infants can…

A

Orient to the direction of sound

Can distinguish: 2-3 syllable words, happy-negative speech, ascending vs. descending sounds

42
Q

Which part of auditory sensation continues to develop until age 10?

A

Pitch discrimination

43
Q

At what age can infants locate sounds?

A

2 months

44
Q

Smell and taste development?

A

Well developed in the last few months in utero, highly developed at birth

45
Q

Food taste preferences?

A

Change with age

Foetus prefer sweeter

By 4 months, they start preferring salty over sweet

46
Q

Touch in infants?

A

Foetus can respond as early as 8 weeks

47
Q

What is touch sensitivity important for?

A

Exploring the environment (knowing how to hold things)

Positive emotional development (hugs)

48
Q

Haptic perception?

A

The use of touch to explore objects (because vision is still developing)

Oral manipulation is most informative
Manual manipulation is also used

4-6 months: manual exploration tailored to object
3 years: adult like exploration

49
Q

How do infants respond to pain?

A

Distress.

Facial expressions, crying, blood cortisol elevation

50
Q

What else influences infants pain?

A

Others reactions and the environment

51
Q

It is hard to assess older children’s experience of pain. How can you do it?

A

The faces pain scale

‘Point to the one that represents how much it hurts’

52
Q

Intermodal perception?

A

Infants must be able to combine input from different senses to form a perception of events or objects this is crucial for understanding the world and informing behaviour

53
Q

Explain one of the early Studies of intermodal perception

A

Tested one month old‘s ability to integrate visual and tactile information

Infants sucked on a smooth dummy or a bumpy dummy and then shown a visual display of both

Preferential looking displayed them looking longer at which dummy they thought they had sucked

For example if they sucked a bumpy dummy they would look at it longer because I preferred it and it was more familiar to them

This suggests that intermodal perception is an innate skill that improves with experience