CH.4 - PSYC25

cephalocaudal pattern

cephalocaudal pattern

The sequence in which the earliest growth always occurs at the top—the head—with physical growth and differentiation of features gradually working their way down from top to bottom (for example, shoulders, middle trunk, and so on)

proximodistal pattern

the sequence in which growth starts at the center of the body and moves toward the extremities.

Growth

it often is not smooth and continuous but rather is episodic, occurring in spurts.

Shaken baby syndrome

includes brain swelling and hemorrhaging, affects hundreds of babies in the United States each year (Hellgren & others, 2017)

Frontal lobes

involved in voluntary movement, thinking, personality, and intentionality or purpose

temporal lobes

have an active role in hearing, language processing, and memory.

occipital lobes

function in vision

parietal lobes

play important roles in registering spatial location, attention, and motor control.

lateralization

specialization of function in one hemisphere of the cerebral cortex or the other

neuron

is a nerve cell that handles information processing

myelin sheath

• which is a layer of fat cells, encases many axons

• insulates axons and helps electrical signals travel faster down the axon

terminal buttons

release chemicals called neurotransmitters into synapses, which are tiny gaps between neurons’ fibers

myelination

The process of encasing axons with fat cells begins prenatally and continues after birth, even into adolescence and emerging adulthood

neuroconstructivist view

A belief that biological processes and environmental conditions influence the brain’s development; the brain has plasticity and is context dependent; and development of the brain and cognitive development are closely linked.

Sleep

• Necessary for survival

• Replenishes and rebuilds the brain and body

• Essential to clearing out waste in neural tissues (metabolites and cerebrospinal fluid)

• Critical for brain plasticity

REM Sleep

the eyes flutter beneath closed lids

non-REM Sleep

type of eye movement does not occur and sleep is more quiet

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

a condition that occurs when infants stop breathing, usually during the night, and die suddenly without any apparent reason.

dynamic systems theory

The perspective on motor development that seeks to explain how motor behaviors are assembled for perceiving and acting.

Reflexes

• Built-in reactions to stimuli; they govern the newborn’s movements, which are automatic and beyond the newborn’s control

• Genetically carried survival mechanisms allowing infants to respond adaptively to their environment before they have had the opportunity to learn

Rooting reflex

occurs when the infant’s cheek is stroked or the side of the mouth is touched

sucking reflex

• Occurs when newborns automatically suck an object placed in their mouth.

• This reflex enables newborns to get nourishment before they have associated a nipple with food and also serves as a self-soothing or self-regulating mechanism

Moro reflex

• occurs in response to a sudden, intense noise or movement whereas when the infant was startled, they arch its back and throws back its head, then flings out its arms and legs

• Tend to disappear when the infant is 3-4 months old

• Believed to be a way of grabbing for support while falling; survival value for primate ancestors

grasping reflex

• occurs when something touches the infant’s palms and they respond by grasping tightly

• Diminishes at the end of 3 months and the infant shows a more voluntary grasp

• New perspective: not automatic or completely beyond the infant’s control

Gross Motor Skills

Involve large-muscle activities such as moving one’s arms and walking

Posture

dynamic process that is linked with sensory information in the skin, joints, and muscles telling us where we are in space, in vestibular organs in the inner ear that regulate balance and equilibrium, and in vision and hearing

First Year: Motor Development Milestones and Variations

Development in 2nd Year

• Toddlers become more motorically skilled and mobile

• Motor activity is vital to the child’s competent development , and few restrictions, except for safety which should be placed on their adventures

• Infants given a head-start in becoming physically active versus those who did not

• Swaddling (wrapping an infant tightly in a blanket): show slight delays in motor development

Fine Motor Skills

• Involve finely tuned movements (e.g., grasping a toy, using a spoon, buttoning a shirt, or any activity requiring finger dexterity)

• Newborns have many components of what will become finely coordinated arm, hand, and finger movements

Palmar grasp

infants grip with the whole hand

Pincer grasp

infants grasp small objects with their thumb and forefinger

Perceptual-motor coupling

• necessary for the infant to coordinate grasping

• Infants use different perceptual systems to coordinate grasping

• Experience plays a role in reaching and grasping —> increased object exploration and attention focusing skills at 15 months of age

Sensation

• occur when information interacts with sensory receptors--eyes, tongue, nostrils and skin

• Vision: rays of light contact the eyes, becoming focused on the retina and are transmitted by the optic nerve to the visual centers of the brain

• Hearing: waves of pulsating air collected by outer ear and transmitted through bones of the inner ear to auditory nerve

Perception

• interpretation of what is sensed

• Air waves in ears as noise or musical sounds

Gibson’s Ecological View

• Our perceptual system can select from the rich information that the environment itself provides

• We directly perceive information that exists in the world around us

Ecological view

• we directly perceive information that exists in the world around us

• Connects perceptual capabilities to information available in the world of the perceiver

• Perception = action by cueing info

Affordance

• opportunities for interaction offered by objects that fit within our capabilities to perform activities

• Pot in adults (something to cook) versus in infants (something to bang)

• We directly and accurately perceive these affordances by sensing info from the environment and from our own bodies

Perceptual Narrowing

• infants are more likely to distinguish faces to which they have been exposed than faces that they have never seen before

• Infant’s color vision improves by 8 weeks or possibly as early as 4 weeks —> can discriminate between some colors

• 4 months: have color preferences that mirror adults’; preferring saturated colors

• Changes in vision reflect biological origins and maturation

intermodal perception

involves integrating information from two or more sensory modalities, such as vision and hearing.

Perceptual constancy

• sensory stimulation is changing but perception of physical world remains constant

• If undeveloped: each time an infant sees an object at a different distance or in a different orientation —> perceive it as a different object

Size Constancy

• an object remains the same even though the retinal image of the object changes as you move toward or away from the object

• The farther away from the object, the smaller its image is on our eyes

• Babies at 3 months show size constancy but continues to develop until 10 or 11 years of age

Shape constancy

• Recognition that an object remains the same shape even though its orientation to us changes

• Babies as young as 3 months have shape constancy, but do not shape constancy for irregularly shaped objects such as tilted planes

Loudness

• infants cannot hear soft sounds quite well after birth

• On whispering: newborn requires that sounds be closer to normal conversational level to be heart at that distance

• Loudness perception do not reach adult levels until 5-10 years of age

Pitch

• perception of the frequency of a sound

• Infants are less sensitive to low-pitched sounds and are more likely to hear high-pitched sounds

• 7 months: can process simultaneous pitches when hearing voices but are more likely to encode higher-pitched voice

• 2 years: able to distinguish sounds of different pitch

Pain matrix

complex brain activity network that underlies pain, consisting of areas located in the thalamus, somatosensory cortex, and amygdala that involves emotional response

Smell

Newborns seem to prefer the scent of vanilla and strawberries, but dislike the odor of rotten eggs and fish

Taste

• Sensitivity to taste has already been present even before birth

• Prenatal newborns learn to distinguish tastes through the amniotic fluid and in breast milk after birth

Nativists

• nature proponents

• Ability to perceive the world in a competent, organized way is inborn or innate

Empiricists

• those who emphasize learning and experience

  • __Gibson’s ecological vie__w: key question in infant perception is what info is available in the environment and how infants learn to generate, differentiate, and discriminate the info

  • Piaget: much of perceptual development in infancy must await the development of a sequence of cognitive stages for infants to construct more complex perceptual tasks

• Perceptual development includes the influence of nature, nurture, and a developing sensitivity to info

Perceptual-Motor Coupling

• Action can guide perception, and perception can guide action

• Babies have motives too!

• Infants develop perceptual-motor by a genetic plan to follow a fixed and sequential progression of stages in development

  • Dynamic systems and ecological view in achieving an infant’s milestone in development actively

• Perceptual and motor development do not occur in isolation from each other, but are intertwined/coupled