UCSD PSYC 101 Midterm 1

Why do we study development?

1. Raising children

2. Social policy

3. Child health

4. How does the mind work?

5. Understanding human nature

Controlled-Rearing Study

Known as deprivation study, a study method which controls how subjects are raised or will study a subject that has been raised in a controlled environment. An example -- Gene: raised in extreme deprivation.

What question can Controlled-Rearing Studies answer?

If we're wondering how something develops or what kind of experiences are necessary to build something into cognition or into the mind then what this study does is take this ability away.

-Answers whether or not this ability develops in the absence of the experience taken away

Why are case studies relevant, even when they're unethical?

Helps us address and understand ancient questions about nature

Philosophers

Greeks - knowledge is experience/adjust child rearing per child or innate/strict discipline

Aristotle on Development

believed that knowledge comes from experience, nurture. child-rearing should adjust to child’s needs

Plato on Development

believed that knowledge was built-in and infants just need to learn how to vocalize it, native. strict discipline for everyone

John Locke's Theory

believed the mind was a blank slate and is developed through experience. Placed all of his emphasis on nurture.

What was the start of empirical research/data?

Early 1800s and started because of the need for social reform in the child labor movement by using LONGITUDINAL STUDIES which kept track of a study throughout it's lifetime, this work begin by Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin Theory

Evolution by natural selection and drew parallels between humans prenatal growth and other animals.

Freud's Theory

behavior motivated by unconscious, instinctual drives.

-More than conscious mind, and argued that a majority of thoughts aren't conscious.

Universal Developmental Stages

-The type of drive changes over development through universal developmental stages.

-Different stages change at specific period of times

Positive Findings from Freud

-Pointed out the mystery of infantile amnesia.

-Emphasized early experience.

-We have an unconscious mind -- Project Implicit

Negative Findings from Freud

-Overemphasis on sexuality

-Little or no evidence, claims are too vague to test.

Watson's Theory

-Reaction to Freudian Analysis and wanted testable theories.

-Coined the behaviorist theory and only wanted to study observable things -- stimuli, responses, etc.

-NO vague mental constructs: studied the mind but not the mind as a whole

Behaviorism

- Only talk about observable things

- No vague mental constructs

- Most scientific approach to studying mind is not talk about mind at all

+ All behavior is response to external stimuli particularly rewards/punishments

+ Don't need to consider thoughts/emos

+ Child behavior can be controlled by consistent rewarding or punishing behaviors

Watson's Claim about Nature vs Nurture

Believed that nurture is all that matters.

**nature > nurture

Cognitive Revolution

- Have to think about mind

- Chomsky: kids produce speech that never hear/are rewarded for = development not just a product of experience, reward, and punishment

Jean Piaget

argued that development happens in stages + learning is an active, constructive process (child as scientist), methods underestimated children's competence; old methods reaching vs. new methods looking time

Piaget's Theory on Origins of Cognition

Minimal, starting with just reflexes

Piaget's Cognitive Stage Theory

0-1 : Sensori - Motor Stage - no obj permanence

2-6 Pre - Operational Stage - can’t mentally manipulate info

7-10 Concrete Operations - can manipulate but bad logic

10-13 Formal Operations - abstract thinking

Explain Sensori - Motor Stage

Occurs between ages of 0-1. Infants only know their world through direct senses and actions. Literal version of "out of sight and out of mind."

Piaget's Object Permanence

Object permanence, when an object goes out of sight it is no longer there. Doesn't occur until about 9 months into development, but still very fragile until about 2 years.

Piaget's Test to see if object permanence was true

The 'A not B' error: 9-12 month infants were tested on their tendency to reach to where objects have been found before, rather than to where they were last hidden

Claims for why babies fail 'A not B' tests aside from Piaget's Theory of Object Permanence

The reason kids fail has nothing to do with object permanence but with motor control that they can't block themselves from doing the thing they do before. Babies are bad at inhibiting their past actions.

What was an alternative test from Piaget Object Permanence?

Methods of Expectation: used to examine the claim that babies don't have object permanence. Show babies 2 different outcomes of an event and give two different endings: one that's expected and one thats unexpected. If babies have an understanding of the event they're seeing they'll be able to respond differently to both events. IE: Infants look longer when objects violate physics. Infants are aware that objects continue to exist, instead of forgetting their existence. Countering Piaget's claim of object permanence

True or False: Infants know objects are solid

true

Do infants know about support and gravity?

Slowly over the course of the first year:

3 months: infants thing it comes down to touching, and if things are touching then they won't fall.

6.5 months: they know the amount of contact matters for an object and it's chance of falling.

12.5 month: Shapes and weights, infants test out how gravity works, and learn how objects support each other

Old Argument of Object Permanence vs. New Argument of Object Permanence

Old Methods: complex reaching, asking, etc. claimed that object permanence was only started at 9 months of development.

New Methods: looking time, proved Piaget's methods underestimated children's competence and found that object permanence occurred by 2 months

Alternative Theory for Object Permanence?

Core Knowledge: born with complex innate knowledge -- seeds of learning, foundation.

-Certain foundational aspects of cognition that are early developing.

-Also found in animals are can be inherited by humans -- evolutionarily ancient. -Foundations continuity over development, used to build more complex knowledge

Major Themes of Modern Dvmtal Psychology

1. Nature or nurture

2. The active child

3. Continuity vs. discontinuity

4. Mechanisms of developmental change

5. Sociocultural context

6. Individual differences

Nature or Nurture

Not an either-or, but how both contribute.

Example: FEAR

-Just because fear can be learned (NURTURE) doesn't mean that all fears are learned equally and easily (NATURE).

Prepared Learning

Idea that some things are easier to learn than others.

-Prepared by evolution or certain things being built into the mind as easier to learn than others

-IE: Spiders are scary and can kill you.

How does nature and nurture interact?

-Schizophrenia, children of schizophrenic parents are more likely to develop it (NATURE).

-Children growing up in troubled homes are more likely to develop it regardless of parental diagnoses (NURTURE).

-adopted children whose bio. parent was schizophrenic is more likely to develop it -- but ESPECIALLY if they grow up in a troubled home -- BOTH.

The Active Child

How children play an active role in their environment.

Examples:

1) Children have preferences to certain things -- people over objects or colors. Guides what they learn about

2) Motivated to learn and test ideas they have -- dropping food to test gravity.

3) Actively select their own environment -- choose friends, activities, books

Continuity vs. Discontinuity

Is development fundamentally quantitative (continuity) or qualitative (discontinuity)

Quantitative Change

Preformationism, more gets added to us, ex: tiny person in sperm

-Example: development o a tree and how it stays in it's form and only grows bigger

Qualitative Change

Epigenesis, embryology

-Example: the development of a butterfly. Each step the bug takes a different form -- caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly

Mechanisms of Developmental Change

How and Why does change occur. Multiple types of explanations:

-Genes, experience and learning, brain changes

Sociocultural Context

-Physical environment: urban v. rural

-Economic resources v poverty

-Social environment

-Cultural Traditions

--Cross-cultural studies as our methodology

Individual Diferences

-Genes

-Physical environment

-Treatment by other people

-Reactions to other people's treatment

-Choice of environments

What's an example of something that's innate and not present at birth (something you don't have to learn)

-Beards, breasts, or anything associated with puberty.

-fully genetic, comes with maturation

If born as blank slates, when does learning begin?

- 3rd trimester

A) hearing: 3rd tri fetus can hear in womb + remember/have preferences (dr. Seuss & mom's voice)

B) Taste: 8mo gestation, fetuses form memories of tastes

Teratogens

- Envr agents that can potentially cause harm during prenatal dvmt

- Sensitive periods: sensitivity to many teratogens highest in 1st tri, later exposure causes more minor defects

- ex: thalidomide, alcohol, vaccines ok, folic acid good

Sensation vs. Perception

S: getting info form external world thru sensory receptors

P: organizing and interpreting sensory info about objects, events, spatial layout

Instinct Blindness

Feeling that something is automatic/effortless can mask mental complexity (developing AI)

Levels of Perception

- low level: acuity, color, brightness

- mid level: pattern, depth, objects

- high level: recognition, categorization, intermodal correspondence

What James and Piaget say about baby world

"One great blooming buzzing confusion"

"Lacks depth or constancy, permanence or identity"

They were not so right

Test with PL and H

Preferential Looking

Babies look at novel/more interesting things, but what about colors? -> habtuation

Habituation

A type of fetal learning: some sound can be heard in the womb and habituation involved a decrease in response to repeated or continued stimulation. As the first stimulus is repeated and becomes familiar, the response to it gradually decreases, when a new stimulus occurs, the response recovers.

Do babies perceive faces?

A few studies:

Preferential looking method: Newborns prefer top heavy patterns, meaning newborns prefer looking at face shapes because babies can't make out faces during infancy

Baby Color Vision

Limited in early mos, 3mos+ = adult like

Baby Depth Perception

Visual cliff study

- goats perceive visual depth (genes + prenatal exp)

- human babies avoid also, early depth

- kittens need post birth visual + motor exper

Baby Object Perception

Bar behind box experiment, babies know

Baby Auditory Perception

Begins prenatal, well developed at birth, adult like by 6mos

Baby Music Perception

Mozart's myth; early perception of sound, even beat

Intermodal Perception

Relationships bn senses

- Molyneux's problem -> babies look at textured pacifier that they felt without seeing longer

Piaget's Stage Theory: Sensorimotor

Infants only know world thru direct senses/actions

Thought no object permanence, we just start out with reflexes

-> Habituation trials show babies have object permanence (cardboard box blocking flappy thing study)

-> Babies also know objects are solid/cant pass thru e/o, & things fall if not supported

A not B Error

9-12 mos = tendency to reach to where objects have been found before, rather than to where they were last hidden

*Requires motor control + inhibition of previous action

Violation of Expectation

Show infant two outcomes of an event, one possible/expected, the other impossible/unexpected, should respond diff to each even if they have some prior understanding

Core Knowledge

- Initial seeds of knowledge that get learning started

- 3 types: early-developing, evolutionarily ancient, continuity over development

- Physical principles: object perm/continuity, solidity, cohesion (objects dont break spont), support (basics only)

Identifying Social Stimuli

- Babies like top-heavy patterns aka faces = learn about people

- Recognize/prefer mothers face after 12 hrs of exposure

- 9mos can tell diff bn human faces but not monkeys, 6mos can do both = perceptual narrowing: we become less sensitive to stimuli not commonly experienced e.g. other race effect: 9mos cant tell ppl apart; 3mos can regardless of race

What are the 6 different types of learning?

1. Habituation

2. Classical conditioning: associative learning via rptd pairings of stimulus/response

3. Instrumental conditioning (aka operant): changing behavior by use of reinforcement/punishment; assn bn behavior/result ex: baby kicking for mobile

4. Prepared learning: biological predispositions that determine strength/ease of learning assns eg. "imprinting"

5. Rational/statistical learning: infants are sensitive to statistical probabilities in their envr and use them to learn (red/white ping pong)

6. Observational learning: infants predisposed to mimic w/o reward (deferred imitation: ability to imitate smth no longer there)

Classical Conditioning

form of learning that consists of associating an initially neutral stimulus with a stimulus that always evoked a reflexive response -- Pavlovian Conditioning: conditioning the subject to give a desired response.

Instrumental Conditioning

Operant conditioning, learning the relationship between one's own behavior and the reward or punishment it results in

Prepared Learning

Biological predispositions that determine strength/ease of learning associations. EG: Imprinting with ducklings

Rational/Statistical Learning

Infants are sensitive to statistical probabilities in their environment, and use them to learn. Infants look longer when ratios don't match -- violates their expectation.

Observational Learning

Learn from others -- infants predisposed to mimic without reward. Direct imitation and deferred imitation ( which tells us that infants have memory)

Deferred Imitation

Ability for infants to imitate something that is no longer there -- shows that infants have memories and used to test how long an infants' memory lasts

Understanding Others' Goals

- Adult pretends to fail at taking barbell apart, 18mos imitate inferred goal not actual actions, but did not imitate mechanical device at all (evid of goal understanding)

Do younger infants understand goals? Adult reaching for ball on left side, switch ball and teddy, adult reach for teddy on left side, 6mos look longer at this new goal same path, 3mos do not -> does motor experience matter? Yes, velcro mittens study

Moral Intuitions

- Newborn infants show distress in response to others' distress, but could be for ulterior reason

- Naturalisitc Observation: Michael and Paul story

Toddlers spont help, not rewarded/asked, seem naturally motivated to help others

- Paul Bloom: morality is mix of biology + culture, babies possess moral foundations, moral capacities sharply limited

- Morals in infancy: triangle helps circle up hill, square doesn't, infants prefer helper