Ch 5: Infancy Cognitive Development

sensorimotor stage

infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences

• birth to two years

sensorimotor substages:

• simple reflexes

• first habits and primary circular reactions

• secondary circular reactions

• coordination of secondary circular reactions

• tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity

• internalization of scehemes

sensorimotor substages

1. simple reflexes

2. first habits and primary circular reactions

3. secondary circular reactions

4. coordination of secondary circular reactions

5. tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity

6. internalizaiton of schemes

sensorimotor substages: simple reflexes

sensation and action are coordinated through reflexive behaviors, such as rooting and sucking

sensorimotor substages: first habits and primary circular reactions

coordination of sensation, with the main focus still on the infant’s body, but with two types of schemes

• habits (reflex)

• primary circular reactions: schemes based on the attempt to reproduce events that initially occurred by chance

sensorimotor substages: secondary circular reactions

• infants become more object oriented, moving beyond preoccupation with the self

• secondary circular reactions: actions are repeated because of their consequences

• the infant also imitates some simple actions and physical gestures

sensorimotor substages: coordination of secondary circular reactions

the infant must coordinate vision and touch, hand and eye

actions becomes more outwardly directed

the infant readily combines and recombines previously learned schemes in a coordinated way

• presence of intentionality

• ex. knocking over one block to reach and play w/ another

sensorimotor substages: tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity

tertiary circular reactions are schemes in which an infant purposely explores new possibilities with objects, continually doing new things to them and exploring the results

sensorimotor substages: internalization of schemes

• the infant develops the ability to use primitive symbols

• symbol: an internalized sensory image or word that represents an event

A-not-B error

an error that occurs when infants make the mistake of selecting the familiar hiding place (A) rather than the new hiding place (B)

• important feature of the progression into substage 4, coordination of secondary circular reactions

evaluating piaget

researchers conclude that infants see objects as bounded, unitary, solid, and separate from their background much earlier than Piaget envisioned

core knowledge approach

theory that infants are born with domain-specific innate knowledge systems

• morality may emerge through infants’ early interaction with others and later transform through langauge and reflective thought

memory

retention of information over time

implicit memory

memory without conscious recollection

• memories of skills and routine procedures that are performed automatically

explicit memory

conscious remembering of facts and experiences

• due to maturation of the hippocampus and cerebral cortex

infantile/childhood amnesia

the inability to remember much if anything from our first three years of life

what two things tdoes imitation involve

flexibility and adaptability

• in their first 72 hours of life, infants gradually display more complete imitation of adults’ facial expression

deferred imitation

occurs after a delay of hours or days

• Piaget held this doesn’t occur until about 18 months

• Meltzoff say sit occurs much earlier

first words

infants understand their first words earlier than they speak them

• receptive vocabulary considerably exceeds spoken vocabulary

• vocabulary spurt begins around 18 months

overextension

the tendency to apply a word to inappropriate objects, such as “dog” for any animal with four legs

underextension

the tendency to apply a word too narrowly

recasting

rephrasing something the child has said, in the form of a fully gramatical sentence

expanding

restating something with additional information

labeling

naming objects that the child is interested in

vocabulary development is linked to

• the family’s socioeconomic status

• the type of talk that parents direct to their children

true or false, children cannot effectively learn language from videos, except Skype

true