PSY393 Exam Study

trying to find my will to live

Key Term: Habituation

A method for studying cognitive development in infants: A baby’s behavioural or emotional response to a specific stimulus decreases after repeated or prolonged exposure.

Key Term: Evoked potential

A method for studying cognitive development in infants: Cortical change in electrical potential produced in response to stimulus

Key Term: Operant conditioning

A method for studying cognitive development in infants: Infant is conditioned to make response to stimulus . E.g. turn head to left when you see red triangle, does response generalise? to green triangle? red circle?

Key Term: Rapport

Used in standardised tests in early childhood cognitive development studies. Refers to the positive, trusting relationship established between the tester and the child, essential for effective communication and accurate assessment during testing.

Methods of studying cognitive development in infancy

Spontaneous behaviour, Preferential looking, Habituation & recovery, Evoked potentials, Operant conditioning

Preferential looking in methods to studying infants

Infants presented with 2 stimuli, side by side. Measure time spent looking at each. The idea is that if they prefer one stimulus over another, it indicates their ability to differentiate between them.

Habituation and recovery in methods to studying infants

Infants are repeatedly shown a stimulus until their interest decreases. After introducing a new stimulus, if the infant shows renewed interest, it indicates the ability to differentiate between the two.

Evoked potentials in methods to studying infants.

Involve measuring cortical change in electrical potential produced in response to stimulus. By analysing these brain responses, researchers can assess infants' cognitive processing and perceptual abilities. This method can help determine how infants perceive and interpret different stimuli based on their neural responses, indicating levels of attention and recognition.

Operant conditioning in methods to studying infants

Involves reinforcing infant responses to stimuli through rewards or consequences. By analysing the changes in behaviour in response to different stimuli, researchers can gauge infants' learning capabilities and understanding of cause-and-effect relationships.

What are the major considerations when designing a psychological measure for use with very young children?

Simple verbal or motor responses e.g. point to doll, how many eyes does teddy have, individual testing, rapport building, warm-up practice items, limited attention span.

What problems do developmental psychologists face when they wish to compare the cognitive abilities of different age groups?

Age-related differences in cognitive processes and challenges in creating equivalent measures across age groups. Infants, young children and older childhood/adults all use different methods to study their cognitive abilities due to differences in abilities. This makes it harder to directly compare results across different age groups.

Methods of studying cognitive development in early childhood

Stories & Games + Standardised tests

Methods of studying cogntive development in later childhood onwards

Standardised tests (pencil/paper, group test) + Computerised tasks

Key Term: Perception

The interpretation of sensory information, the process of endowing sensory experience with meaning. Within one sensory modality e.g. vision or cross-modality e.g. vision + audition.

Key Term: Cognition

Beyond direct processing of sensory information. The mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension, including thinking, knowing, memory, and problem-solving.

Key Term: Intersensory coordination

The ability to integrate information from different sensory modalities to produce a coherent understanding of the environment. Essential for effective perception and interaction with the world.

E.g. Visual-Auditory: film rhythms match/mismatch soundtrack (4m look more at synchronous film, face/voice synchrony preference by 10w, direct gaze + talking results in preferential looking at person.

E.g. Visual-Tactile: 1m infants preferentially look toward the dummy they experienced by touch but not at 3m.

Key Term: Tracking

A basic visual function in newborn infants: neonates make visual pursuit movements. Smooth tracking improves over first 4m.

The ability of newborn infants to visually follow moving objects, demonstrating the development of visual pursuit movements.

Key Term: Object constancy

The understanding that objects remain the same despite changes in perspective, distance, or lighting.

Newborns generalise to same object at diff distance, diff object at same distance and not to same retinal image. By 4m they have adult-style constancy.

Key Term: Dynamic perception

The ability to perceive motion in the environment, recognizing that objects move and interact over time. This skill develops as infants learn to distinguish between moving and stationary objects.

E.g. point light walkers, 2 day old infants prefer biological motion to random motion.

Basic visual functions in newborn infants

Preference for: moving objects, 3D objects, high contrast patterns and curves

Acuity (minimum visual angle at which adjacent lines are perceived as seperate): neonates 30x worse than adults, 4m 10x worse.

Tracking: neonates make visual pursuit movement, smooth tracking improves over first 4m.

Infants form perception - Do infants discriminate between shapes

Infants (1m) show limited form perception, only dishabituating when outer shape changes

By 4m can dishabituate to any change.

Infant colour perception

Newborns can discriminate red, green, yellow but not blue.

Use adult categories by 4m.

List aspects of visual perception that emerge at around 4 months of age.

Smooth tracking, form perception (dishabituate), object unity, object solidity, colour categories, 3D space perception (object size constancy), face perception (prefer mother’s face internal features).

What is ‘retinal image size’?

The perceived size of an object on the retina, which is influenced by the object's distance from the observer.

How did Bower (1964) control for retinal image size in his study of object size constancy in infants?

He used a series of visually similar objects placed at different distances to maintain constant retinal image sizes, allowing for the assessment of infants' perception of object size regardless of distance.

Why did Bower (1964) control for retinal image size?

To ensure that variations in perceived object size were due to infants' perception of size constancy rather than differences in retinal image size caused by distance.

What was Gibson and Walk’s (1960) ‘visual cliff’ designed to test?

Depth perception in infants by observing their responses to a glass surface that appeared to drop off.

Describe the course of development of face perception in humans.

Infants face perception - Discriminating between mum & stranger

1m - prefer higher contrast face

5w - prefer mother’s face (peripheral features)

4-5m - prefer mother’s face (internal factures)

What evidence is there that humans have an innate capacity for face perception?

Early preferences: Newborns and tracking faces.

Research shows infants recognise face-like patterns shortly after birth and exhibit preferences for faces over non-faces, indicating an innate predisposition for face recognition. E.g. spoon face, scrambled face & blank.

What evidence is there that experience plays a role in humans’ face perception?

1m infants prefer higher contrast face VS 4-5m infants prefer mums face

Inversion effect: develops at 5-6m

Neonates speech perceptions

Preferentially listen to speech frequencies, human speech over nonsense, own mothers speech, discriminate between speech sounds (ba/pa).

1m Speech perceptions

Prefer pauses on clause/word boundaries rather than mid-word.

How do we know that babies are able to distinguish between the speech sounds “ba” and “pa”?

A brain activity measure: ERP mismatch negativity response when a speech sound changes unexpectedly.

Describe the characteristics of the style of speech that adults typically adopt when talking to babies.

Infant directed speech: 4m-13m (7-9)*

exaggerated intonation, higher pitch, baby talk vocab, short/simple grammatical sentences, repetitive, slow delivery, lots of questions and imperatives, about here and now, response to spontaneous behaviour, joint attention.

What methods have been used to examine infants’ capacity for intersensory coordination?

Visual-Auditory: Film rhythms match/mismatch soundtrack

-4m look more at synchronous film

-10w face/voice synchrony preference

-Direct gaze + talking result in preferential looking at person

Visual-Tactile: Rough vs smooth dummy, take out of mouth, what do they look at?

-1m looks at the correct dummy they experienced

-3m loses this ability

List some perceptual abilities that do not simply improve with age.

Recognition of rhesus monkey faces & dummy visual-tactile coordination

Describe an example of a perceptual ability that appears to be mastered at different ages depending on the method of testing used.

Visual cliff:

Avoidance of deep side measure: 6m-14m

Heart rate measure: 2m

Key Term: Reflex

An involuntary response to a stimulus, often mediated by the nervous system, occurring without conscious thought.

Goal directed behaviour: 0-1m: specifc elicitor, same behaviour each time, “ ballistic” (once elicited, runs its full course).

Survival: breathing, sucking, swallowing

Primitive: stepping, swimming, grasping

Key Term: Primary circular reaction

Goal directed behaviour: 1-4m

Simple, repetitive acts focused on own body e.g. thumb sucking, cooing, smiling

Goal follows behaviour

Key Term: Secondary circular reaction

Goal directed behaviour: 4-8m

Behaviour oriented to objects external to own body e.g. grasp reachable objects, interacts with rattles.

Goal follows behaviour

Coordination (8-12m): pull toy closer with feet so can grasp with hands

Key Term: Tertiary circular reaction

Goal-directed behaviour: 12-18m

Empirical intelligence: intentional experimentation resulting in original means to achieve ends. Other people as causal agents.

Key Term: Imitation

The act of copying another person's behaviour or actions.

Key Term: Anticipatory response

Occurs between 4-8m. Includes object movement and expectations from routines. E.g. reaching for an object before it is presented.

Key Term: Symbolic problem solving

Goal-directed behaviour: 18-24m

Solve problems without intervening active experimentation

Key Term: Play

Beginning: 12-18m

Sequences & symbolic: 18-24m

Key Term: Holophrastic speech

12-18m

One word conveys whole sentence

E.g. turtle = toy turtle

= plastic walrus

= pinecone with stem

= own toe

Key Term: Receptive vocabulary

The ability to understand words and phrases before being able to speak them.

Increases over expressive/productive

Key Term: Expressive vocabulary

The ability to use words and phrases to express thoughts and ideas.

Also known as productive, lags behind receptive vocab

Key Term: Overextension

The use of a single word to describe a wider set of objects or actions than is appropriate, leading to broader meanings. For example, a child may call all four-legged animals "dog."

Key Term: Underextension

The use of a word to refer to a narrower set of objects or actions than is appropriate, restricting its meaning. For instance, a child might only refer to their pet cat as "cat" and not apply the term to other cats.

Key Term: Animism

Tendency to attribute life to inanimate objects

Limitation to preschoolers reasoning

Key Term: Transductive reasoning

A cognitive process where children make connections between unrelated events, believing that if one event follows another, there must be a causal relationship.

Correlation = causation e.g. I haven’t had a nap, so it isn’t the afternoon

Key Term: Egocentrism

Tendency to view the world from one’s own perspective e.g. three mountains task

Key Term: Decentring

Cognitive ability to consider multiple perspectives and aspects of a situation, moving beyond egocentric thought.

Key Term: Conservation

The understanding that certain properties of objects, such as volume or mass, remain constant even when their shape or appearance changes

E.g. piaget's water glasses conservation tasks

Key Term: Seriation

The ability to arrange objects in a sequence based on a specific criterion, such as size or colour.

Key Term: Number concept

Cognitive understanding of numerical value, quantity, and relationships between numbers.

Cardinal correspondence: how many in each set?

Ordinal correspondence: mapping order of elements between sets

Key Term: Classification

The ability to group objects based on shared attributes or characteristics, such as colour, shape, or size.

Common feature that defines class, exclusive set of all objects that meet classficiation

Key Term: Segmentation

Parsing a spatial pattern into its constituent parts.

Key Term: Integration

Of parts into a coherent whole.

Key Term: Hypothetical reasoning

Generating hypotheses about what is possible rather than actual e.g. what if cloning humans were legalised.

Key Term: Deductive reasoning

From given premises to logical conclusion.

All dogs have tails + harry is a dog = harry has a tail

All dogs have fins + harry is a dog = harry has fins

Key Term: Hypothetico-deductive reasoning

Deducing conclusions from premises that are hypotheses rather than facts. E.g. if my theory of cognitive development were correct, then I would expect to see

Key Term: Inductive reasoning

Inferring general conclusions from specific facts + hypothesis testing

E.g. Pendulum problem

Beyond the here & now 0-4m

Responses dominated by immediate environment (internal & external)

Beyond the here & now 4-8m

Anticipatory response

Beyond the here & now 8-12m

Intentional search for concealed objects e.g. A not B error

Separation anxiety

A not B error

A common mistake made by infants during problem-solving tasks where they search for an object where it was originally hidden (location A) rather than where it was last visible (location B).

Beyond the here & now 12-18m

Appropriate search for hidden object (as long as location witnessed)

Beyond the here & now 18-24m

Systematic search for hidden objects, even when location not witnessed

Imitation 0-1m

Pseudo-imitation reflex

Neonates imitate tongue protrusion, emotional expressions

Imitation 1-8m

Imitation of behaviours already in baby’s repertoire

Imitation 8-12m

Beginnings of imitation of novel behaviours

Deferred imitation of simple behaviours after brief delay

Imitation 12-18m

Imitation of novel behaviours

Deferred imitation of simple behaviours after long delay

Imitation 18-24m

Deferred imitation of complex sequences of behaviour

Vocalisation in infancy 3-5w

Fake cry & Cooing

Vocalisation in infancy 3-4m

Babbling

Vocalisation in infancy 10m

Index finger extension synchronised with babbling in context of labelling
objects

Age of first words?

12-18m

First words

Repeated syllables, names for specific people/objects/action/social, articulation often poor, context-bound (underextension)

When does naming explosion occur

18m or when vocab reaches 50 words

When do first sentences occur?

18-27m

Telegraphic grammar

Only content words e.g. look dog, give juice, mummy read

Common in first sentences

Usually preserve correct word order

Same worlds convey variety of meanings, context dependent

Language at 21m

Only reliably learn new words from Infant Directed Speech

Language at 27m

Can learn from Adult Directed Speech as well as Infant Directed Speech

Children Language

Children’s spontaneous grammar is generative, not copied from adults

Resist attempts to change their grammar

Mental state language

Perception, physiology, affect, violation, cognition, moral judgement & obligation

Achievements of infancy and toddlerhood

Control over responses

Goal-directed behaviour

Anticipation of future events, memory of past events

Increasing complexity of behaviour

Representational/symbolic thought

Preschool age development

Symbolic thought

Spatial orientation

Spatial pattern processing

Theory of mind

Language

Limitations to preschoolers reasoning

Animism, transductive reasoning, egocentrism

Primary school age development

Conservation & reversibility

Number concept

Seriation

Classification

Adolescence and beyond development

Hypothetical reasoning

Deductive reasoning

Hypothetico-deductive reasoning

Inductive reasoning

Probability

Figurative language

Symbolic thought

The ability to make one thing stand for another such as words, self, images.

Hide little snoopy and find big snoopy

A childhood game where children hide a small toy and seek out a larger version.

2.5y olds fail

3y olds pass

Theory of Mind

The ability to impute mental states to oneself and others

E.g. Maxi and the chocolate + deceptive container task

Maxi and the chocolate

A classic experiment that tests children's understanding of others' beliefs and perspectives regarding hidden objects. This experiment evaluates how children perceive that others can hold different views from their own, particularly when it comes to locations of objects.

3y fail

4y pass

Language learning ability

Declines beyond early childhood

What age do children start using complex sentences

30-48m

Pragmatics of communication

The skills of appropriate and communicatively-effective language use

Communication failure < 6y

Blame listener