Exam 2 Developmental Psychology

Chapters 5-8

Sensation

The process by which sensory receptor neurons detect information and transmit it to the brain

• Five Sense and Somatosensory Center

Somatosensory Center is located in the

postcentral gyrus in anterior parietal lobe

• responsible for touch/sensation

Perception is the

interpretation of sensory input

• processed in the FRONTAL LOBE with input from parietal and occipital lobes

EX ) recognizing what you see or understanding what is said to you

Action is

motor activities prompted by 1 (sensory) 2 (perception) and/or 3 (internal initiative)

EX ) Sitting on our sofa, our ears may detect a sound, which our brain accurately perceives or interprets to be a doorbell

The Motor Cortex controls

all voluntary body movements

• Posterior portion(precentral gyrus) of the FRONTAL LOBE ; long axons link to spinal cord

What does Homunculus mean?

little person

• the drawing of a strange “little person” indicates where in the brain the different parts of the body are controlled and how much space is allocated to each part

What are the 2 types of perspectives on Perception?

Constructivist and Nativist

Constructivists Perspective leans on the side of

nurture

• Children construct a perceptual system based on learning & lived experiences

• susceptible to environmental factors

Example : Jean Piaget

Nativists Perspective leans on the side of

Nature

• Children are born with innate capabilities to interpret sensory information

• Maturational programs drive perceptual development

• Perception does not always require interpretation/understanding, e.g., depth

• Perception is direct

Gibsons Ecological Theory of Perception states nature and nurture are

inseparable

• argues that we do not need to construct how we might interact with object

• AFFORDANCES

What are affordances ?

What an object has to offer us (how it might be used by us)

• The opportunities/possibilities are relative to both the actor’s maturation and previous experiences

What are different methods for assessing infant perception?

Habituation, Preferential Looking, and Evoked Potentials

Habituation is when the

same stimulus is repeatedly presented until the infant grows bored with what has become familiar and disengages. Researchers can measure how long until an infant becomes bored. They can measure how distinct a second, new stimulus needs to be in order to recapture the infant’s attention.

Example : baby staring at new toy, losing interest after seeing it over and over, and then when a new toy appears, interests reappears.

Preferential Looking is when

Two stimuli are simultaneously shown to an infant to determine which one they prefer, which is inferred to be the one they look at longer. Adding head-mounted, eye-tracking cameras has allowed researchers to more precisely measure preferential looking

• showing an infant a plain, gray card alongside a card with black-and-white stripes. Because infants prefer patterns, if they look at the stripes longer, it demonstrates they can distinguish the stripes from the gray background, allowing researchers to measure visual acuity and cognitive development

Evoked Potentials

Electrical activity in different parts of the brain is measured while the infant is exposed to stimulation. Electrodes are attached to the surface of the skull and a computer records the pattern of electrical activity corresponding to various stimuli.

How does vision work?

• Eye takes in stimulation in the form of light

• Photoreceptor cells in the retina converts it to electrochemical signals

What is visual acuity?

ability to perceive detail

• Birth : 20/200 - 20/400

• 1 Month Old : 20/120

• 4-6 Years Old : 20/20

What is Visual Accommodation ?

Ability of the lens of the eye to change shape to bring objects at different distances into focus

Example :

far = flatter thinner

near = rounder & thicker

The retina detects?

light and converts it into signals your brain can use

The eye lens

absorbs, focuses, and directs incoming light to the retina

• flexes and changes its shape to bend the incoming light towards your retina

The pupil regulates

the amount of light that enters the eye

True or False : Color vision is NOT present at birth

False

Perception Formation 1 month old vs. 2 month old and 6 month old infants

1 month : figure/background separation AND scanning edges

2 month : wholeness and scanning most contracted parts of the objects

6 month : determine the boundaries/edges of stationary objects (use common motion as a cue)

Vision Scanning in Early Infancy Image

What are the properties of patterns that capture the young infant’s attention?

Patterns that have a large amount of light-dark transition or contour, dynamic displays or contain movement, and they moderately complex

What age do infants perceive faces ?

3-5 months old

What are some sensitive periods during which vision development is susceptible to experiences and environmental factors ?

• first 3 months are critical for normal development

• before/after 10 weeks → lack of holistic face processing (sleeper effect)

• Congenital cataracts (3/5K) a rare, often treatable birth defect where a baby's eye lens is cloudy instead of clear, causing blurry vision or blindness

Newborns visual acuity (ability to perceive detail) is

40 times worse than adults but improves the first month of life

The visual cliff experiment emphasizes that

most crawling-age infants perceive depth and are afraid of drop-offs

• Visual cliff: consists of an elevated glass platform divided into two sections by a center board (see photo below). On the “shallow” side a checkerboard pattern is placed directly under the glass. On the “deep” side the pattern is several feet below the glass, creating the illusion of a drop-off or “cliff.”

Hearing is _____ developed than vision at birth

more

How does hearing work

Moving air molecules enter the ear → cause the eardrum and 3 middle ossicles to vibrate → vibrates are transmitted to the cochlea in the inner ear → converted to electrochemical signals to be delivered to the brain

Infants are biologically prepared to learn

any language

Unborn fetuses can distinguish and show preference for their mothers voice from a

stranger voice

Newborns recognize

vowel sounds from their native language due to prenatal learning

infants 2-3 months old can discriminate between similar

consonant sounds

1 Year Olds are largely

insensitive to contrasts of sounds not made in their native language(s) and show increased sensitivity to native language sounds

Early exposure to auditory stimulation facilitates

auditory perception skills (pruning process of brain develop)

Newborn babies can distinguish what kind of taste?

sweet, bitter, savory (umami) and sour

• prefer sweets (universal)

When is the critical window for taste?

4-6 months

• feeding sour vs bland milk

Sense of smell is ____ developed at birth

well

Newborns can recognize and prefer the smell of

mothers scent and amniotic fluid

• exposure to familiar smells can calm newborns

• show preference to human milk over formula

How could mothers identify their newborns?

by smell

Greater exposure to a variety of flavors during infancy—what a breastfed baby with a mother who eats many different foods might experience—may lead

to a more adventuresome eater later on

Somesthetic Sense includes ?

body sense

• touch, temperature, pain, and kinesthetic sense

Sense of touch is ___ ____ at birth

well developed

What are the benefits of touch ?

premature babies w/ gentle touch gain more weights, more relaxed, & sleep more regularly

Gross Motor Skills are

large muscles and whole-body / limb movements

• kicking, waving arm, running

Fine Motor Skills are

precise movements of the hands/fingers or feet/toes

• writing letters, tying shoes

Infants acquire ________ skills before mastering _____ motor skills

gross ; fine

Early motor development follows the

cephalocaudal and proximodistal principle

Cephalocaudal Principle describes

the "head-to-toe" pattern of physical growth and motor skill development in infants, where control over the body is acquired from top to bottom

The Proximodistal Principle

the trunk and core muscles develop first, followed by arms and legs, and finally hands and fingers

• pincer grasp

Dynamic Systems Theory states ?

• Complex systems develop over time through interaction, feedback, and a “self-organizing” process.

• When trying different movements, children use sensory feedback to modify their motor behavior in adaptive ways.

• Previous sensory-perceptual-motor experiences → best action

• Senses and motor skills function in an integrated way at birth: Newborns will look in the direction of a sound.

Researchers found toddlers could

adjust their walking changes in both their body dimensions and slope of a walkway

Motor milestones (e.g., crawling, turning, walking) are the learned outcomes of a process of

interaction with the environment.

In Gibson’s ecological framework, walking opens up new environments and new affordances, or ways of interacting with objects in the environment. To make this transition, the young child must learn to integrate

perception with action

Perception-Action Coordination

the continuous, reciprocal loop where sensory information guides movement, and movement changes the sensory information available

ex) navigating a crowd by adapting speed to gaps

Which is the best example of the process of perception?

a. hearing a sound in the room

b. detecting that a light has been turned on in a dark room

c. sensing that someone has touched your arm

d. realizing that the odor you smell is vanilla

Realizing that the odor you smell is vanilla

Infants can flap their arms around before they can move their hands and fingers with precision. This illustrates which principle of growth?

a. cephalocaudal

b. cephalodistal

c. proximodistal

d. proximocaudal

Proximodistal

Piagets Constructivist Approach states that cognition is

the activity of knowing and the processes through which knowledge is acquired and problems are solved

Piagets Constructivist Approach used

flexible question-and-answer technique to discover how children think about problems

Contemporary researchers consider Piaget’s method imprecise because it does not involve

asking standardized questions.

Piaget says that “Mistakes” children make reflect what?

the nature of their thought process

• as children develop, the model and structure of their thinking changes

What are the key concepts of Piagets theory?

schemas, assimilation, accommodation, equilibration, and disequilibrium

Schemes are

cognitive units/structures/patterns that children construct to interpret their experiences

• can be repeated and generalized

• affected by environmental factors

• EX) Babies explore how they and objects move. Dropping food from a highchair, throwing balls, or watching running water.

Infants grasping actions and sucking responses are early behavioral

schemes

Assimilation is the ability to

interpret new experiences using existing schemes

ex) kid sees a skunk (does not know its a skunk) and tries to relate it to something familiar. If the kid already has a scheme that mentally represents its knowledge of cats, they kid might label this “new creature” kitty.

Accommodation is when you

modify existing schemes to better fit new experiences

EX) skunk example : you find this “kitty” moves different than a cat, and smells weird, so you create a better understanding of 4 legged animals. Perhaps ask what it is or invent a new name

What perspective did Piaget take?

interactionist-constructivist

• leaning on nature side on the nature-nurture

In piaget theory, assimilation →

equilibrium

In Piagets theory, failure of assimilation →

disequilibrium → internal conflicts

Children are motivated to reduce

internal conflicts caused by disequilibrium

What does Equilibration mean?

the process in which children actively create knowledge by building new schemes and/or modifying existing schemes to adapt to their experiences

What are the stages of Piaget’s Cognitive Development ?

Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete, and Formal Operations

Sensorimotor Stage is from birth to

2 years

• reflexes to goal-directed activity

During the Sensorimotor Stage, what are the milestones?

1-4 Months: Reflexes used to satisfy needs (motor schemas)

8-12 Months: goal directed

12-18 Months: actively experimenting

During the Sensorimotor Stage, newborns lack the understanding of?

object permanence

(The understanding that objects are permanent even when they are no longer visible; gradually development over the sensorimotor period)

What stage does the A-not-B error occur in?

Sensorimotor Stage

• Tendency of 6- to 12-month-olds to search for an object in the place where they last found it (A) rather than in its new hiding place (B)

Preoperational Stage occurs during what ages?

2-7 years old

• symbols, imagination, imaginary companion, fantasy play

During the preoperational stage what 2 things occur?

Egocentrism and Animism

What is Egocentrism?

Unable to see things from others’ view (lacking perspective taking)

• 3 Mountain Task

Animism is when

giving human characteristics to inanimate or natural things

• EX) Paw Patrol

What is lacking in Preoperational Stage ?

Conservation

Piagets Theory states that preschoolers focus on

perceptual salience

• most obvious features of an object or situation

Centration is the

tendancy to center attention on a single aspect of the problem/situation

Preoperational thinkers fail to demonstrate

Reversibility & conservation because of limitations in transformational thought.

What are transformational thoughts?

ability to understand & conceptualize transformations

Concrete Operations stage is from ages ?

7 - 12 years old

• think logically ; transformational thinking

• Conservation, Reversibility, Classification, and Seriation

Conservation is the understanding of

certain property/quantity of an object or substance remains the same even when its appearance is altered in some superficial ways
EX) girl with the two different height glasses that hold the same amount of liquid but she thinks the taller one holds more liquid.

Reversibility is the process of

mentally undoing or reversing an action

• EX) melting ice back into water

Classification is the ability to classify objects into

categories

EX) Guess Who

What is Seriation?

putting objects in order by height, weight, etc.

Stage of Formal Operation is ages ?

12+

Formal Operational Thought is

more abstract than concrete

• permits systematic and scientific thinking

During the Formal Operations stage, what reasoning exists?

Hypoethical-Deductive

• intuitive and scientific reasoning coexist

Time of achieving some formal-operational thinking features depends

on opportunities to learn scientific reasoning.

Formal-Operational Thought prepares the individual to

gain a sense of identity

What is adolescent egocentrism?

Difficulty differentiating one’s own thoughts/feelings from those of others

• imaginary audience, personal fable (think your thoughts/feelings are unique)

Piagets Contributions are ?

1. Systematic research on cognitive development

2. Showed us that infants and children are active in their own development

3. Children think differently than older people do

4. Coined many concepts of cognitive development

Growth beyond formal operations looks like

relativist and dialectical thinking