Child Dev Unit 2 Book

Symbols

systems for representing our thoughts, feelings, and knowledge, and for communicating them to other people.

Language Comprehension

Understanding what others say (or sign or write).

Language Production

the process of speaking

Generative

a system in which a finite set of words can be combined to generate an infinite number of sentences.

Phonemes

the smallest units of meaningful sound.

Syntax

rules specifying how words from different categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.)

Pragmatics

knowledge about how language is used.

Infant-directed speech (IDS)

the distinctive mode of speech used when speaking to infants and toddlers.

Bilingualism

fluency in two languages.

Prosody

the characteristic rhythm and intonational patterns with which language is spoke.

Categorical Perception

the perception of phonemes as belonging to discrete categories.

Voice Onset Time ( VOT)

the length of time between when air passes through the lips and when the vocal cords start vibrating.

Distributional Properties of Speech

in any language, certain sounds are more likely to occur together than are others.

Overextension

an overly broad interpretation of the meaning of a word.

Underextension

an overly narrow interpretation of the meaning of a word.

Pragmatic Cues

aspects of the social context used for word learning.

Cross-Situational Word Learning

determining word meanings by tracking the correlations between labels and meanings across scenes and contexts.

Syntactic Bootstrapping

the strategy of using grammatical structure to infer the meaning of a new word.

Telegraphic Speech

short utterances that leave out non-essential words.

Overregularization

speech errors in which children treat irregular forms of words as if they were regular.

Collective Monologue

conversation between children that involves a series of non sequiturs.

Connectionism

a computational modeling approach that emphasizes the simultaneous activity of numerous interconnected processing units.

Dual Representation

treating a symbolic artifact both as a real object and as a symbol for something other than itself.

Concepts

general ideas or understandings that can be used to group together objects, events, qualities, or abstractions that are similar in some way.

Category Hierarchy

a category that is organized by set-subset relations, such as animal/dog/poodle.

Perceptual Categorization

the grouping together of objects that have similar appearances.

Superordinate Level

the general level within a category hierarchy, such as "animal" in the animal/dog/poodle example.

Subordinate Level

the most specific level within a category hierarchy, such as "poodle" in the animal/dog/poodle example.

Basic Level

the middle level, and often the first level learned, within a category hierarchy, such as "dog" in the animal/dog/poodle example.

Naïve Psychology

a commonsense level of understanding of other people and oneself.

Theory of Mind

an organized understanding of how mental processes such as intentions, desires, beliefs, perceptions, and emotions influence behavior.

False-belief Problems

tasks that test a child's understanding that other people will act in accord with their own beliefs even when the child knows that those beliefs are incorrect.

Pretend Play

make believe activities in which children create new symbolic relations, acting as if they were in a situation different from their actual one.

Object Substitution

a form of pretense in which an object is used as something other than itself, for example, using a broom to represent a horse.

Socioidramatic Play

activities in which children enact miniature dramas with other children or adults, such as "mother comforting baby."

Essentialism

the view that living things have an essence inside them that makes them what they are.

Egocentric Spatial Representations

coding of spatial locations relative to one's own body, without regard to the surroundings.

Numerical Equality

the realization that all sets of N objects have something in common

Intermittent Reinforcement

inconsistent response to a behavior; for example, sometimes punishing unacceptable behaviors, and other times ignoring it.

Behavior Modification

a form of therapy based on principles of operant conditioning in which reinforcement contingencies are changed to encourage more adaptive behavior.

Reciprocal Determinism

child environment influences operate in both directions; children are both affected by and influence aspects of their environment.

Vicarious Reinforcement

observing someone else receive a reward or punishment.

Self-Socialization

the idea that children play a very active role in their own socialization through their activity preferences, friendship choices, and so on.

Role Taking

being aware of the perspective of another person.

Hostile Attributional Bias

in Dodge's theory, the tendency to assume that other people's ambiguous actions stem from hostile intent.