Week 3 - Cognitive Development in Infancy

Perceptual Narrowing

Infants' language-general capacity narrows to native language by 12 months.

Object Permanence

Understanding that objects exist even when out of sight; develops through stages.

A-not-B Error

Searching for hidden object in location A despite seeing it moved to B.

Violation of Expectations (VoE)

Infants look longer at impossible events, indicating early object permanence understanding.

Infantile Amnesia

Significant events, such as the birth of a sibling or hospitalization/accident, can be remembered. Remembering increases depending on the age when the event occurred.

Joint Attention (JA)

Emerges 9-12 months; includes responding (RJA) and initiating (IJA); linked to language development.

Ostensive Communication

Communicating a message and the intention to communicate it.

Social Referencing

Using parent's emotions to assess novel situations.

Language-General Capacity

Infants can discriminate between any two speech sounds from any language, a universal phonetic perception.

Universal Phonetic Perception: Developmental Change

Newborns can discriminate non-native sounds but become native language specialists by 12 months.

Piaget's Object Permanence Stages (Less than 1 month)

Only look at objects in front of them.

Piaget's Object Permanence Stages (1-4 months)

Dropped objects not looked for.

Piaget's Object Permanence Stages (By 4 months)

Visually search for fallen object; search for partially visible object, not an entirely hidden one.

Piaget's Object Permanence Stages (8-12 months)

Search for entirely concealed objects.

Piaget's Object Permanence Stages (12-18 months)

Permanence of invisible objects; visual tracking of moving objects; search for disappeared object.

Piaget's Object Permanence Stages (18-24 months)

Full object permanence acquired; understands object as existing independent of sensory-motor action.

Lack of inhibition/response perseveration

Searching repeatedly at location A makes location A part of the object identity.

Memory deficiency

Infants might struggle to remember the object's location; however, this is unlikely because the error occurs even when containers are transparent.

Integrative executive functioning explanation of A-not-B error

Suggests that the A-not-B error occurs due to frontal cortex immaturity, which is involved in planning and guiding actions (executive functions). The frontal cortex matures slowly and is involved in maintaining the representation of a hidden object and inhibiting incorrect responses. To succeed in the A-not-B task, the frontal cortex has to accomplish two different tasks at the same time, but its immaturity does not allow that.

Dynamic systems theory explanation of A-not-B error

Suggests that the two locations (A and B) are in competition with each other in the child's mind. Repeatedly hiding the object in location A highlights the importance of location A. When the object is unexpectedly hidden in location B, this new visual cue initially competes with the memory of location A, but it decays after the object is hidden, and the memory of location A wins! If infants can immediately search without delay, they indeed reach for location B. Highlighting differences in locations helps; when infants were sitting during trials A and standing during trials B, they correctly searched in location B!

Role of communication: Ostensive communication

Refers to the human predisposition to learn from social partners who use communicative cues. Human communication is ostensive in that it communicates not just the message to influence the recipient but also the very fact that this message is being intentionally communicated to her.

Infantile Amnesia: Explanations

Inability to recall early childhood memories despite having memory for events. Theories include brain immaturity, linguistic and emotional development, and memory limitations.

Long-Term Recall - Reactivating Reminders

Infants at 6.5 months were able to remember how to reach for a sounding object in the dark when retested at 2.5 years old, especially with leading instructions.

Longer-Term Recall - Emotional Interpersonal Interaction

20-month-olds could remember a photo of a person who performed still face experiments with them at 5 months old.

Memories Can Be Scaffolded

Guiding questions and comments can help scaffold memories (Vygotskyan account). Recollection is the type of conversation children engage in before reminiscing independently. Elaboration is more effective than repeating the same question (Reese et al., 1994; Engel, 1986).

Procedural Memories

Procedural memory is a type of implicit memory (unconscious, long-term memory) which aids the performance of particular types of tasks without conscious awareness of these previous experiences. Can be retrieved automatically.

Conceptual Memories

Rooted in verbal descriptions, dependent on semantic knowledge and adults' scaffolding.

Infant Memory Take-Home Message

Infants primarily have procedural memories, which are difficult to translate into conceptual memories later in life. Scaffolding increases recall quality.

Piaget - Egocentric Stage

Language is not aimed at communication; self-directed speech is a monologue that disappears with development.

Piaget - Socialized Stage

Language is directed towards others; exchange of thoughts - dialogues.

Vygotsky's View on Language

Language is inherently communicative; self-directed and social language are initially merged, then divide into separate forms that remain present throughout life.

Cooing and gurgling

Starts around 3 months old.

Babbling / Canonical babbling

Starts around 6 months old; Syllables, such as “ba ba” or “di da,” including a consonant and a vowel, either repeated or combined.

Speech production: first words

Starts around 12 months; Refers to individual objects, categories of objects, properties of objects, and actions.

Verbal communication at 18 months

Knows 5-40 words; starts to use 2-word sentences.

Verbal communication at 24 months

Knows 150-300 words; uses 2-3 word sentences; first efforts to combine different types of words (e.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives).

Pragmatics in Early Communication

Use of language to communicate in social interactions, focusing on the quality, relevance, and manner in which language is used. Includes efficient communication, clarification, adjustments, turn-taking, and non-verbal cues.

Social Interaction with infants

Infants show early attention to faces and social cues (gaze, voice, expressions, gestures), actively seeking and using these cues to guide their behavior and initiate communication.

Still Face Paradigm

An experimental procedure designed to disrupt an ongoing pattern of communication, followed by an assessment of how the infant responded to the disruption. The disruption consists of an adult becoming suddenly unresponsive, while maintaining a face-to-face position with the baby. This still face period is both preceded and followed by the adult to engaging in interaction with the infant.  The typical response from 3- to 4-month-oldinfants to the still face is a decrease in gaze, smiling, and orientation toward the mother or the experimenter, suggesting a breakdown in communication.

Infants become distressed when social interaction is impaired and attempt to restore communication using their own cues. Aims for contingent, positive, informative, and directed communication.

Ostensive Communication

Communicates a message and the intention behind it; uniquely human predisposition to learn from social partners using communicative cues.

Infant-Directed Speech

Also known as Motherese/parentese or baby talk, it includes higher pitch, exaggerated intonation, and slow and stretchy speech repetition.

Social Referencing

Using the parent’s emotions to assess a novel situation, helping infants learn about emotions and the world (e.g., visual cliff paradigm).

Joint Attention (JA)

Emerges between 9-12 months and is significantly associated with language development and social-cognitive skills. Joint attention involves the ability to coordinate attention between an object, another person, and oneself. It is crucial for learning and social interaction. JA includes:

• Responding to Joint Attention (RJA): Following another person's gaze or point to share attention towards an object or event.

• Initiating Joint Attention (IJA): Using eye gaze, pointing, or vocalizing to direct another person's attention to an object or event to share interest.

• Initiating Behavior Requests (IBR): Using behaviors such as reaching or pointing to request objects or actions.

• Responding to Behavior Requests (RBR): Responding to another person's requests through actions like reaching or pointing.

Effective joint attention skills are predictive of later language abilities, social competence, and understanding of others' intentions.

IJA (Initiating Joint Attention)

Initiating Joint Attention involves an infant proactively using cues such as eye gaze, pointing, or vocalizing to direct another person's attention to an object or event with the goal of sharing interest. This skill emerges as part of joint attention development between 9-12 months and plays a crucial role in social-cognitive development.

IBR (Initiating Behavioral Regulation/Requests)

Instrumental function via reaching, pointing, vocalizing to fulfill needs or desires; infants use these behaviors to regulate the actions of others in order to obtain specific objects or achieve certain outcomes.

RBR (Responding to Behavioral Requests)

Responding to Behavioral Requests via reaching, pointing.

Contingent Talk

There is no universally correct way for parents to talk to their children; cultural differences exist, and minor variations in how parents communicate with toddlers are unlikely to have lasting effects on a child's language development

Socio-emotional communicative intention

Refers to communicative acts driven by non-informational needs, focusing instead on establishing, maintaining, or strengthening social bonds and emotional well-being. These intentions often involve expressing feelings, seeking comfort, sharing experiences, or engaging in social routines.

Imperative communicative intention

Communication used to request objects, actions, or assistance from others to fulfil immediate needs or achieve specific goals. E.g. a child reaching for a toy and saying 'Want that!',

Declarative communicative intention

Sharing attention or interest («Look at that!»)

Information-seeking communicative intention

Seeking information from more knowledgeable others

Informative communicative intention

Providing information to less knowledgeable others

Pointing with declarative intention

Emerges around 12 months. Shows pointing is a prelinguistic gestural universal of human communication

Social referencing

In informational uncertainty, 12-month-olds use this to selectively seek information from more knowledgeable adults when facing referential uncertainty.

Language Development at 3 years

Approximately 900-1000 words; asks short questions.

Language Development at 4 years

Over 2000 words; uses 5-word sentences; asks many questions!

Question-Asking Intentions (Preschool Years)

Attention, Permission, Help, Clarification, Information

Passages of Intellectual Search

Extended bouts of questioning, sustained curiosity, follow-up questions, detecting inconsistencies, building up inquiry with a responsive caregiver (around 4 years old).

Information-Seeking (Preschool Years)

Existential/teleological explanations and resolution to puzzling events.