Dev Psych Exam 3

What qualities of language are seen in other animal communication systems?

Symbolic and structural

What qualities of language are only seen in human communication systems?

Displacement and generative

Symbolic

Sounds, signs and gestures that refer to objects in the world

Displacement

Terms to describe an object in time or objects that are not currently visible such as past, present and future

Structure

Rules that govern the combinations of symbols in language

Generative

The ability to combine a finite set of words to generate an infinite amount of ideas

Nonhuman primate communication

Vervet monkeys had symbolic features of animal communication systems. They had different calls and responses for different types of predators such as snakes or birds

What side of the brain processes language?

The left hemisphere; left hemisphere localization

Impacts on the brain of learning a second language later in life

Learning a new language later in life is cognitively challenging and requires different neural connections

Increased right hemisphere activity

Phonemes

Speech sounds/acoustic properties

The smallest unit of meaningful sound, a change in phonemes can change the meaning of a word

Rake to Lake or Ride to Rode

Morphemes

The smallest unit of meaning in a language

Morphemes alone or in combination create words

“Dog” has 1 morpheme but “Dogs’ has 2

Syntax

Rules for combining words

Grammar rules

Pragmatics

Knowledge of how language is used, particularly in social & cultural contexts

Social communication

Dialects

Forms of a language with unique characteristics, typically based on region or social group

Sensitive Period

Language is relatively easier to learn earlier in life (applies to spoken or signed language)

Language gets harder to learn between the ages of 5 to puberty and it is ideal to learn before age 7

Infant Directed Speech

A distinctive mode of speech used when speaking to infants and toddlers

Greater pitch variability, slower speech, shorter utterances and clearer vowels

Variation across cultures, not universal

Preparations for speech production

Speech perception, paying attention to what people say

Understanding categorical perception and phonemic contrasts, the perceptions of phonemes belonging to discrete categories

Perceptual narrowing

Word segmentation: discovering where words begin and end

Distributional properties, certain sounds in a language are more likely to occur together

Babbling

Repetitive consonant-vowel sequences bababa or mamama

Early Interactions

Taking turns, games such as peekaboo, listening and talking

Parental response is key

Labeling of objects

Intersubjectivity & Joint attention

Overextension

Overly broad interpretation of the meaning of a word

Thinking all four legged animals are dogs

Underextension

An overly narrow interpretation of a word meaning

Believing that dog only refers to their dog

Pragmatic Cues

Aspects of the social context used for word learning

Quines Problem

How does a child know what the reference point for a new word is when there are many possible options?

They know through parents pointing, vocal inflections, routines, previous experiences and joint focus of attention

Fast Mapping

Using what you already know and process of elimination to map the referent of a new word

Whole Object Assumption

Children expect a novel word to mean a whole object, not a part

Mutual Exclusivity Assumption

Children expect that each given entity/object has only one name

Syntactic Bootstrapping

Using the grammatical structure of a new word to infer its meaning

Using the grammatical structure of the full sentence to determine the referents meaning

Linguistic Context

Assuming the meaning of a word based on the linguistic context

“Sib” vs “sibbing” vs “some sib”

Holophrasic Period

Using one word to convey a complete thought, or complex idea

ex saying “milk” to mean “I want milk”

Telegraphic Speech

Short utterances that leave out nonessential words

Overregularization Errors

Speech errors where a child treats irregular forms of words as if they were regular

A child that previously said “men went” says “mans goes”

Collective Monologues

When children speak aloud in close proximity but do not listen or respond to each other

Nativist Argument for Language Development - Noam Chomsky

Children are born with innate biases and expectations

There is a module in the brain specifically for learning language as a result of human evolution

Chomsky also believed in universal grammar and Generativity as evidence for his theories

Interactionist Argument for Language Development

Language development is impacted by communicative function where children are motivated to interact with others

Children are good at picking up subtle social cues

Behaviorist Argument for Language Development

Language is learned through a process of classical and operant conditioning where correct language usage is reinforced and incorrect usage is not

Parents are much more likely to correct faulty statements or pronunciations than faulty grammar

Connectionist Argument for Language Development

Language learning emerges from general-purpose learning mechanisms such as statistical learning

Gradual strengthening of connections in the neural network

Dual Representation Hypothesis

Treating a symbolic artifact as both a real object and a symbol for something else

DeLoache’s scale model task is evidence for this

DeLoache’s Scale Model Task

A smaller scale model is used to represent a full sized room. Experimenter hides a mini toy in the mini room and asks the child to look for the big toy in the same spot in the big room

Most 3 yo’s succeed and understand the mini room represents the big room

Most 2 ½ yo’s fail to recognize the relationship between the big and small room

Solid vs Nonsolid Objects

Children are much more likely to pick an object of the same shape, even if the other option is the same material or color

Nonsolid objects do not rely on shape to bee seen as the same but instead rely on material, texture or color more

The shape bias develops as children learn their first words

Early Egocentric View of Space

Children struggle to understand that other people have a different perspective

Mountain Task. Child and doll are viewing a mountain from opposite sides. When the child is asked what the doll sees, they often describe their own views. Younger kids could pass this test when there were distinct markers on the mountains

Superordinate Level

The most general level of an object

Ex. Animal

Basic/General Level

First level to develop due to consistent characteristics

Ex. Dog

Subordinate Level

The most specific level

Ex. Poodle

In what order do categories emerge

Basic, Superordinate, Subordinate

Ex. Dog, animal, poodle

Perceptual Categorization

The grouping together of objects that have similar appearances

Ex. things with elgs are animals, things with wheels are vehicles

Naive Psychology

A commonsense level of understanding of other people and oneself, crucial for functioning

Consists of desires, beliefs and actions

Ex. Desire = wanting to watch paw patrol, belief = believing paw patrol is on tv, action = physically turnign on the tv and finding the channel

Theory of Mind

An organized understanding of how mental processes such as intentions, desires, beliefs, perceptions and emotions influence behaviors

Children with siblings, specifically of another gender have a better theory of mind

False Belief Tasks

Tests the childs understanding that other people will act in accord with their own beliefs, even when the child knows those beliefs are false

Ex. Children expect crayons to be in a crayon box and are surprised when it is smarties. 2 and 3 yo’s say a new person will say theres smarties in the box. 5 yo’s understand that the new person will also assume there are crayons in the crayon box

Theory of Mind Module

A hypothesized brain mechanism devoted to understanding other human beings

Casuality

Casual connections unite discrete events into coherent wholes. Children rely on understanding casual mechanisms to infer why events occur

Infants perceive casual connections through physical events such as flipping up a light switch turns on a light

Nativists = Casual connections are innate

Empiricists = Casual connections are learned through observation

Newcombes Sandbox Task

A child watches a toy get hidden in the sand. Experimenter then provides a memory delay and some children were moved to the other side of the sandbox before being allowed to search for the toy.

Findings: All children were pretty good at finding the toy, children can remember precise distance information even when there are no external landmarks and memory delays are present

4 Spatial Systems/Relative Weighting Perspectives

1.) From infancy kids show an understanding of spatial concepts such as up, down, left, right, above, below

2.) Self produced movement (self locomotion) stimulates processing of spatial info

3.) Certain parts of the brain are specialized for coding parts of spatial info

4.) Geometric info is important for spacial processing

Space Relative to Oneself

Infants tend to reach for items closer to themselves, however older children will reach for novel objects

Self locomotion, puzzles etc help children understand spatial concepts

Spatial abilities depend on culture

Numerical Equality

The realization that all sets of N objects have soemthing in common

1:1 Correspondence

Each object is labeled by a singular number word

Stable Order

Numbers should always be recited in the same order

Cardinality

The number of objects in a set correlates to the last number stated

Order Irrelevance

Objects can be counted in any order, but the number order still matters

Abstraction

Any set of objects or discrete events can be counted

Casual understanding

Understanding “why” helps children learn new, often more abstract categories

Ex. Children told why '“wugs” and “gillys’ have the features they do were better at correctly classifying the creatures

Explaination or cause/effect helps children remember better

Social Development: Freud

Behavior is motivated by the need to satisfy basic drives

Focused on pleasure and psychosexual development

Social Development: Erikson

Development is driven by a series of developmental crises related to age and biological maturation

Focused on psychosocial development, similar to Freud’s biological, sexually driven ideas except Erikson included social factors, cultural influences and contemporary issues

Dweck’s Social Cognitive Perspective

Emphasized the role of self attributions and if children are motivated by competence or by other’s views of their success

Mastery Orientation: Attribute success and failure to the amount of effort

Helpless Orientation: Attribute success and failure to enduring aspects of the self. Basing self worth on degree of approval from others

Entity Theory: Tendency to think intelligence is fixed

Incremental Theory: Belief that intelligence can increase

Watson’s View of Social Development

Development is determined by the childs environment via learning through classical conditioning

Little Albert experiment

BF Skinner’s View of Social Development

Focused on operant conditioning

Intermitent Reinforcement: Inconsistent response to behavior, promotes behavior making it harder to get rid of

Believed children will do things for attention so a time out is a good consequence

Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory

Emphasizes observation and imitation of others, children learn from watching others and can also learn through books and screens

Bobo doll study: Children learn through vicarious reinforcement, observing another person receive a reward or punishment. Children also learn through observation even if they don’t repeat behaviors

Bandura’s Reciprocal Determinism

Child-Environment influences operate in both directions. Children are both effected by and influence aspects of their environment

Perceived Self Efficacy

Your personal belief or confidence in your ability to succeed at a specific task or goal drives your behavior

Selman’s Stage Theory of Role Taking

Emphasizes discontinuity, age related qualitative changes in how children think about the social world

Role Taking: Being aware of the perspective of another person. With time children become less egocentric and increasingly more capable of considering multiple perspectives at the same time

Dodge’s Theory of Social problem Solving

Believed children use aggression as a problem solving strategy

Hostile Attributional Bias: The tendency to assume that other people’s ambiguous actions stem from hostile intent. Children are likely to believe that retaliation is an appropriate response. This can be heightened by physical abuse

Ethological Theories of Development

Evolutionary behaviors have adaptive benefits

Behavior patterns were shaped by evolution just as physical characteristics were

Ex. Imprinting

Parental Investment Theory

Stresses the evolutionary basis of many aspects of parental behavior that benefit their offspring

Brofenbrenner’s Bioecological Model

Environment is a set of nested structures where each level has a different amount of influence

Interconnectedness among models known as systems

Microsystems

Immediate environment that the child directly experiences and participates in

Ex. Family. Becomes richer and more complex as the child grows older and interacts with siblings, peers, coaches, teachers etc

Mesosystem

Interconnectedness between microsystems such as school, church etc where different microsystems are interacting

Exosystem

Environmental settings that the child does not directly experience but that can affect the child indirectly

Ex. Parents workplace determines parental leave, flexible hours, onsite childcare etc

Macrosystems

Larger social and cultural contecxts in which other systems are embedded

Ex. Laws or customs of ones cultures

Chronosystem

Historical changes and events that influence all the other systems

Ex. Covid pandemic, natural disasters, armed conflicts

Media and Development

Screen usage causes less mature brain development and decreased myelination for language and literacy

Decreased attention span