AP Psych- Development, quiz #1

rooting reflex

a baby's tendency, when touched on the cheek, to turn toward the touch, open the mouth, and search for the nipple

assimilation

interpreting new experience in terms of one's existing schemas

concrete operational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events

egocentrism

in Piaget's theory, the preoperational child's difficulty taking another's point of view

schema

concept or framework that organizes and interprets information

formal operational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts

teratogen

agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm

zone of proximal development

in Vygotsky's theory, the range between children's present level of knowledge and their potential knowledge state if they recieve proper guidance and instruction

object permanence

the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived

Lev Vygotsky

Russian psychologist who developed social-cognitive theory development

conservation

the principle that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects

accomodation

adapting one's current understandings to incorporate new information

maturation

biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience

theory of mind

people's ideas about their own and others' mental states -- about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts and the behavior these might predict

Jean Piaget

developmental psychologist who created a model for the stages of cognitive development

sensorimotor stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities

preoperational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage (from about 2 to 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic

habituation

decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation

animism

belief that inanimate objects have feelings, thoughts, and mental characteristics of living things

Scaffolding

the support for learning and problem solving that encourages independence and growth

fine motor coordination

Ability to control fine muscle movements, as in writing, drawing, and cutting

gross motor coordination

using large muscle groups for controlled, goal-directed movements

phoneme

in language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

morpheme

in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix)

grammar

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others

semantics

the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language

syntax

the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences, including word order

receptive language

ability to comprehend speech

productive language

the ability to produce language

cooing stage

around 2-3 months, babies can make vowel sounds with spacing at times

babbling stage

beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language

one-word stage

the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words

telegraphic speech

early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram—"go car"—using mostly nouns and verbs.

overgeneralization of language

the tendency in young children to apply rules of grammar in logical (but often incorrect) ways.

mental symbolism

the process of using mental images, processes or symbols to represent real-world objects, experiences, or ideas

reversibility

principle that objects can be changed, but then returned back to their original form or condition

universal grammar

Noam Chomsky's theory that all the world's languages share a similar underlying structure

cross-sectional study

research that compares people of different ages at the same point in time

longitudinal study

research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period

cohort effect

the influence of shared characteristics of a group that was born and reared in the same general period