Psych 130 Midterm 1

Week 1-Week 3 Content

Sensitive Period

During age 8 - timeframe characterized by a heightened responsiveness to specific environmental inputs.

Nature

Genes and hereditary factors

Nurture

Environmental Variables (childhood experiences, how we were raised, social relationships, surrounding cultures)

Plato

He believed that humans were born with innate knowledge (Nature)

Aristotle

Believed that all knowledge was acquired (nurture)

Locke

Believed that children were a tabula rasa (blank slate)

Rosseau

Believed that children learn from interactions with objects and people rather than instruction

Charles Darwin

Natural selection, observational methods - wrote baby biography about his son’s development

Jane Addams

Founding member of National Child Labor Committee, known for lobbying for establishment of juvenile court system

Thyra J Edwards

Improved child welfare legislation, founded her own children’s home

Theme 1: Nature vs Nurture

The most basic question about child development is how nature and nurture interact to shape developmental process

Theme 2: The Active Child

Infants shape their own development through selective attention

-coo when looking at mom face

Theme 3: Continuity vs Discontinuity

Continuity: Age related changes occur gradually

Discontinuity: Growth occurs in fits and spurts appearing more like discreet stages

Theme 4: Mechanisms of Change

How does change occur?

• Behavioral

• Neural

• Genes

• Microbiome

Theme 5: The Sociocultural Context

Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model: Children are influenced by the sphreres within which they live their lives

Theme 6: Individual Differences

Genes: Each individual has a unique set of genes

Subjective treatment: Someone thinks they are the favorite

Objective treatment: There is always a favorite

The Active Child: Are you the smart one in your familyThe

Theme 7: Research and Children’s Welfare

Child development research has real world implications

• education

• legal system

• justice

• medicine

Scientific Method

1. Choose a question

2. Formulate a hypothesis

3. Develop a method for testing the hypothesis

4. Use resulting data to draw conclusions about the hypothesis

Reliable Measurement

Measures are consistent across raters and time/number of tests

Valid measurement

Measures need to measure what we think they are measuring (internal validity), and be generalized beyond the particulars of the research population (external validity)

Experimental design

Requires random assignment and experimental control

Zygote

Fertilized egg that has 23 chrom from female, 23 chrom from male

Mitosis

Cell division resulting in 2 identical cells

Cell migration

Movement of newly formed cells away from their point of origin

Cell differentiation

Cell location and what genes are switched on influence density of cell

Apoptosis

Programmed cell death: leads to hands and feet. due to cells dying between each finger

Embryo

Developing organism from 3-8 weeks

Endoderm layer

Bottom layer, becomes digestive system, liver, pancreas, lungs

Mesoderm layer

Middle layer: becomes circulatory syste, lungs, skeletal system, muscular system

Ectoderm layer

Top layer: becomes hair, skin, nails, nervous system

Fetus

After growth, fetus gets ready for birth (9 weeks-birth)

Altricial

Dependent on parents for survival

Teratogen

Environmental agents that have the potential to harm fetus

ex: thalidomide

Fetal Programming

Exposures during critical periods of fetal development can have long-lasting impacts on an individual in adutlhood

Placenta

Provides oxygen and nutrients for fetus, removes waste products

Not a perfect barrier (drugs, environmental pollutants)

Fetus learning in the womb

Can recognize rhymes, stories. Prefer sounds, tastes, smells from prenatal experience

Epigenetics

Example of gene and environment interaction, causes changes to gene expression

Chromosome

DNA molecule with all genetic material of organismge

Gene

stretch of DNA that codes for a particular gene productA

Allele

Gene type

Transcription

DNA to mRNA

Translation

mRNA to Protein

Methylation

Addition of methyl at promotor region, silences gene and stops transcription

Parent genotype influences child genotype

Each parent passes 1 chromosome to child, child has 1 copy of gene from mom and dad each

Child’s genotype influences child’s phenotype

Dominant and recessive pattern (what is actually expressed)

Child’s environment to child’s phenotype

Given gene can develop differently in different environments (PKU)

Child’s phenotype to child’s environment

Children construct their own experiments through their interests and choices

Child’s environment to child’s phenotype

Epigenetics shown that while genes are fixed at birth, expression patterns of those genes can change based on environment

Heritable

Characteristics of traits influenced by heredity

Multifactorial

Traits affected by environment and genetic factors

Behavior genetics

Science concerned with how variation in behavior and development results from the combination of genetic and environmental factors

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS)

Link specific DNA segments with particular traits

Genome-wide complex trait analysis (GCTA)

Takes estimates of genetic resemblance across large groups of individuals

Endophenotypes

Mediate the pathways between genes and behavior and include the effect on genes on the brain and CNS

Neuron cell body

Metabolic center of neuron, includes nucleus

Neuron Dendrites

Receive input from other ells and conduct it towards cell body

Neuron axons

Conduct electrical impulses away from cell body to connections with other neurons

Frontal lobe

Part of brain involved in higher order functions: decision making, inhibitory control

Parietal lobe

Part of brain responsible for spatial processing and integration acorss sensory modalities

Occipital lobe

Part of brain responsible for processing visual information

Temporal lobe

Part of brain responsible for speech, language, emotion processing, auditory information

Cerebral hemisphere

Half of the cortex

Corpus callosum

Dense tract of nerve fibers that enables the two cerebral hemispheres to communicate

Cerebral lateralization

Specialization of brain’s hemispheres for different modes of processing

Neurogenesis

birth of new neurons

Migration

Neurons move to their locations in the brain

Myelination

Glia ensheath neurons in fat to increase speed

Synaptogenesis

Extraordinary growth of axonal and dendritic fibers resulting in an abundance of neuronal connections

Synapse elimination

Trimming down the neuronal connections (glia cut down)

Experience-expectant brain development

Brain an expect the input from experiences that are typically available to all members of species

Pros: less info needs to be precoded in to brain

Cons: what if expected input isn’t there?E

Experience-dependant brain development

Experience that each individual has that are distinct from the rest of species (playing instrument, learning language)

WEIRD

Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic

Sensation

Processing of basic information from the external world via receptors in the sense organs and brain

Perception

Process of organizing and interpreting sensory information about the objects, events, and spatial layout of the world around us

Motivated behavior

Infants chose to approach, touch and move in a way that helps us infer their motivations & thinking

Preferential-thinking

Infants would prefer to look at something than nothing, new things than familiar things

Habituation

Decline in response to an object once it has been exposed

Color perception

~ 2 months Preference for brighter colors vs neutral colors

Perceptual constancy

perception of objects being constant size in spite of physical differences in the retinal image of the object

Object segregation

Process of deciding whether two objects are seperable (boundaries between objects)

Violation of expectancy

Infant looking longer at impossible events than at possible events

Intermodal development

Combining information from 2+ sensory systems

Rooting

Turning of the head and opening of the mouth in the direction of a touch

Sucking/Swallowing

Oral response when the roof of the mouth is stimulated

Tonic

When the head turns or is positioned to one side, the arms on that side of the body extends, while the arm and knee on the other side flex

Moro

Startle: Throwing back the head and extending the arms, then rapidly drawing them in in response to a loud, sound, or sudden movement.

Affordances

Discovered by figuring out relationships between one’s own body and abilities and the things in the environment

Statistical learning

Picking up info from the environment and detecting statistically predictable patterns

Statistical learning abilities

Have been measured across numerous domains, including music, action, and speech

Operant Conditioning

Negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement

Unconditioned Stimulus

Stimulus before learning has occured

Unconditioned Response

Action in response to unlearned stimulus

Conditioned stimulus

A previously neutral stimulus that, after being paired with an unconditioned stimulus, elicits a conditioned response.

Conditioned Response

Originally reflexive response becomes a learned behavior

Observational learning

Learning through observation or other people’s behavior

Rational learning

Ability to use 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