Dev Psych Unit 3 - Joanna Weaver Northeastern University

Sensation

refers to the processing of basic info from the external world by receptors in the sense organs and the brain 

differentiation

children extract from the constantly changing stimulation and events in the environment the relation between the constant elements

perception

is the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information about objects, events, and spatial layouts of the world

rational learning

using prior experiences to predict what will occur in the future

active learning

learning by acting on the world, rather than passively observing objects and events

Preferential looking technique

 is the way that researchers can study infant perceptions 

• Two diff visual stimuli are displayed side by side and if they look at one side longer than the other than the researcher can infer that

  • Baby can discriminate between them

  • Infant prefers one over the other 

• Now they use eye movement trackers 

Also uses habituation to see their reaction to stimuli

statistical learning

a type of learning involving picking up information from the environment and detecting statistically predictable patterns

• when regularity and predictability of objects, events, and other stimuli is violated, infants take notice

visual acuity

how sharply or clearly we see

contrast sensitivity

detect patterns only when composed of highly contrasting elements 

• Babies like these

cone cells

the light sensitive neurons which helps to see fine detail and color 

• Babies cones are much further apart those in adults

infant visual milestones

• 2 months - focus and color vision

• 6 months - acuity, scanning, and tracking

• 6-7 months - depth perception 

smooth pursuit eye movements

is a part of eye movement that must be developed so that the viewers gaze shifts at the same speed and angle as the moving object 

• Babies have jerky eye movements at first 

talking faces idea

• at 4m babies fixate on eyes of talking faces before productive speech 

• After babbling starts; primary fixation on speakers mouth 

• More intense fixation when two languages are similar 

  • Parents facial expressions are important to decide how to deal with different situations 

perceptual narrowing

infants become able to perceive faces (which is shaped by experience) and can discriminate amongst kinds for faces they frequently see 

• they can distinguish between faces in their racial group and outside of it by 3m

when we learn language we shift from fixating on the ____ to visual scanning and looking at the _____

mouth, face

perceptual constancy

phenomena of perceiving a constant shape and size when people move closer or farther away

object segregation

the perception of the boundaries between objects

common movement

is the idea that if two things move together at the same speed in the same direction they are perceived as a single thing during habituation

violation of expectancy

is a procedure to study infant object knowledge 

• Assumption is that if babies observe an event that is inconsistent with what they think will happen then they are surprised so an unexpected event should evoke a greater response than an expected event 

optical expansion

cue in which the visual image of an object inc in size as it comes towards us

• If it gets bigger symmetrically then we know it is coming right for us 

binocular disparity

the closer the object the greater the disparity between the two images 

• Send diff signals to the brain based on the results

stereopsis

is the process in which the visual cortex computes the degree of disparity between the eyes’ differing neural signals and produces the perception of depth

• around 4m we dev this and it is done in a few weeks

monocular depth cues

sensitivity to cues with just one eye

• Dev around 6 or 7m of age

pictorial cues

cues that are used to portray depth in pictures

auditory localization

is the perception of the spatial location of a sound source 

• We rely on the differences in the sounds that arrive at both ears which signals the direction of the sounds 

• Babies have a hard time to learn the difference in timing and loudness info because of their large heads combined with small ears

  • They also cannot use their auditory spatial map to organize sound ins physical space

    • Requires multimodal experiences to help them integrate info from what they hear see and touch 

Babies prefer ______ over _____ music because the mom smiles more when singing than speaking

infant directed singing (more positive and high pitched) over adult directed

do babies prefer consonant or dissonant sounds?

consonant

perceptual narrowing

process of seeing the differences in complex rhythms 

• Allows for children to become attuned to patterns in biological and social stimuli important to their environment

• Becomes attuned with age to info most encountered 

  • Between 6-12m we are biologically prepared to “zero in” on socially meaningful perceptual distinction

Cephalocaudal trend

growth begins with the main body and then out to limbs

proximodistal trend

What is close to the center of the body develops before what is far - core and legs gross motor before hands and feet fine motor

gross motor skills

physical abilities involving large body movements 

fine motor skills

Infants progress fast in acquiring basic movement patterns 

• Influence by culture

the two views on development

• Early pioneers

  • Nativist - Infants motor dev is governed by brain maturation

• Current theories

  • Motor dev results from:

    • Neural mechanisms 

    • Inc in infants’ strength

    • Posture control

    • Balance

    • Perceptual skills

    • Changes in body proportions

    • motivation

_____ exploration is how babies interact with their environment for the first few months 

oral

babies use their _______ cortex to see how locations people are touched results in the areas felt

somatosensory

intermodal perception

combining info from two+ sensory systems 

McGurk effect

when the syllable “ba” is dubbed onto a person saying “ga” then people will hear “ga”

reflexes

patterns of action, some with clear adaptive values 

• Not all are fully automatic

• Not all are helpful

affordances

the possibilities for action offered by objects and situations 

• Realizing what they can hold, sit on, or walk on etc

prereaching

clumsy swiping in general vicinity of objects - at about 3 to 4 months they begin to successfully reaching for objects

scale errors

integrating perceptual info with motor behavior can result in surprising behaviors 

• Children try to do something with a small replica of an object that will not allow the action to be possible 

  • They cannot sit in a doll chair but will try a few times because they do not realize the size difference 

grasp errors

child tries to pick up an object from 2-D representation

media errors

child tries to interact with technology to pass or receive object through a screen

mirror neurons

 our neurons activate from watching other people do something 

rotational learning

integrates learner’s prior beliefs and biases with what actually happens

• Violation of expectations

active learning

infants learn by acting on the world instead of passively observing. Piagetian idea

the speed that infants habituate is thought to reflect the ____

general efficiency of the infant's processing information 

• Attention also indicates speed and efficiency of processing  

  • Differences in habituation speed may be related to general cognitive abilities

_______ refer to understanding what people say and _____ refers to speaking 

comprehension, production

generativity

aspect of language that allows us to use our knowledge and a finite set of words to generate an infinite number of sentences and expressing an infinite number of ideas 

phonemes

units of sound that speech is composed

morphemes

smallest unit of meaning we can get - alone or in combo they make words

syntax

 is the permissible combination of words from different categories (nouns, verbs, adj, etc)

• In English, the order in which words appear is crucial

  • In some languages they indicate which noun did what by adding morphemes

syntactic development

learning the syntax of a language

pragmatics

 is the understanding of how language is typically used in a specific cultural context

pragmatic development

acquisition of knowledge about how language is used

hemispheric lateralization and handedness

90% of right handed people have language represented and controlled by left hemisphere - this specialization for most parts of language emerges early in life 

Unknown why left hemisphere processes language stimuli but idea maybe it is innately predisposed to process language but not other types of stimuli but for sign language people the process is in left lateralized language centers but not in non signers 

• Experience dependent plasticity

• Left hemisphere brain regions are not solely specialized for spoken language but also for signed

age and learning a second language

• After some point between age 5 and puberty, language acquisition becomes much harder and less successful

• Adults are more likely to suffer from permanent language impairment from brain damage than children are 

• Adults who learn a second language after puberty use diff neural mechanisms to process that language than adults who learned their second language from infancy

Infant direct speech

is the distinctive mode of speech used when talking to babies or toddlers 

• Greater pitch variability

• Slower speech

• Shorter utterances

• More word repetition

• More questions 

Prosody

 the characteristic rhythmic and intonation patterns with which a language is spoken 

• Differences in _____ are in large part responsible for why languages sounds so different from one another 

• Knowing the ______ is important to figuring out the sounds of one’s native language 

categorical perception

phenomenon where adults and infants perceive speech sounds as part of categories

• Difference between how we make a “p” and a “b” is the difference in time when air passes through the lips and when the vocal cords start vibrating

  • The lag is voice onset time and is just shorter for “b” than it is for “p”

    • Babies make more distinctions than adults do

    • Adults do not perceive differences in speech sounds that aren't important to their native language, which is partly why it's hard for them to become fluent in a second language 

word segmentation

is a process during the second half of the first year where babies start to learn the beginning and ending of spoken words

distributional properties

babies understand that sounds that are part of the same word are more likely to occur together than others are

• Can tell what are words and sequences that are not words

preparation for production

By making sounds and moving their mouths babies practice motor control over their vocalizations and later on learn to elicit responses from other and engage in dialogue with caregivers

babbling

begins around 6-10m of age and is only possible with language exposure

• Slowly they take on sounds, rhythms, and intonational patterns

  • Really important to respond to the child!

over extension

using a word in a broader context than is appropriate 

underextension

using a word in a more limited context than needed 

whole object assumption

children expect a novel word to refer to a whole object not just a part, property, action, or another aspect of the object

pragmatics

paying attention to the social contexts that words are used in to understand their meaning

cross situational word learning

is when events can narrow down the possible meanings of new words

syntactic bootstrapping

 is the process of figuring out the meaning of new words by using the grammatical structure of the sentences in which those words occur

telegraphic speech

 is when there are two word sentences with nonessential elements being left out 

over regularization

is when they treat irregular forms as if they were regular

collective monologues

are conversations with peers that are series of non sequiturs with content of each child’s turn having little or nothing to do with what the other person just said

Phonological development

is the acquisition of knowledge about the sound system of a language 

• Should be developed before school

semantic development

learning the system for expressing meaning in a language, including word learning

end of critical period for learning a new language

5-puberty it becomes really hard

Chinese and Korean immigrants learning English studies results

As long as they were here before age 8-10 they were able to have the same grammar as a native speaker

language developmental milestones

second half of first year - distinguishes language sounds, segments speech into words and phrase units

12m - first word

1.5-2 combines two words

3.5 - forms more complex sentences

age 6 - understands meaning about 14k words

bilingualism benefits

cognitive benefits of being bilingual because they have to do task switching, which is a hard cognitive function

process of language acquision

listening and speaking, comprehending what other’s communicate, producing intelligible speech

recast

restructuring inaccurate speech to correct grammatical form

expansions

elaborating on children’s speech, increasing its grammatical complexity

vocab spurts occur due to:

• Adult influence on word learning

• Amount and quality of speech

• Contexts in which words are used by talking adults

• Consistency between visual environment and spoken words 

fast mapping

from age 2 to 56 we acquire 5 new words every day

• object names

• verbs

• modifiers

universal grammar

proposed set of highly abstract, unconscious rules that are common to all languages

• hard wired set of rules governing grammar in all languages

• many surface differences but similar underlying structures

modularity hypothesis

idea that human brain contains an innate, self contained language module that is separate from other aspects of cognitive functioning