developmental 1 - methods in developmental research

Competence vs Performance

Response on cognitive task reflects competence - conceptual understanding required to solve problem, and performance - other cognitive skills needed to access/express understanding.

Cross Sectional Design

Takes place at a single time point and compares behavior of different age groups on the same task.

Advantages of Cross Sectional Design

Time/cost efficient, fast/easy way to show similarities/differences between older and younger children.

Disadvantages of Cross Sectional Design

differences may be individual differences not development changes; does not provide much about development processes; does not reveal how change happens

Longitudinal Design

Examines behavior of a group over several time points, varying time scales, involving experimental manipulation/analysis of naturally occurring behaviors.

Advantages of Longitudinal Design

• Tracks real developmental change overtime

• Shows stability and individual differences

• Can see if early skills predict later outcomes

Disadvantages of Longitudinal Design

time consuming and expensive, subject attrition, practice effects.

Micro Genetic Design

In-depth showing of change process, studying children on the verge of important developmental change repeatedly over a short period on the same task.

Explicit Knowledge

Easily accessible knowledge measured with elicited responses (verbal answers).

Implicit Knowledge

Knowledge that the child is unaware of, measured via spontaneous responses (e.g., gestures).

Gesture-Speech Mismatch

Information conveyed in gesture may not appear in speech.

Age 1 Gesture-Speech Outcome

Children fail tasks through gesture/speech.

Age 2 Gesture-Speech Outcome

Children fail in verbal response but show knowledge in gesture; inconsistency indicates translational knowledge.

Age 3 Gesture-Speech Outcome

Children pass tasks through gesture and speech.

Measuring Infant Knowledge - whats used when verbal or manual responses arent reliable?

When verbal or manual responses cannot be relied on, looking behavior is used.

what is Preferential Looking?, problems?

Determines if infants distinguish between different visual stimuli and have attentional preference for one. Problem: works with positive not negative results

Habituation/Dishabituation

Used to study concept formation/learning over time; looking time decreases with repeated stimuli, increases with novel/new stimuli.

Inter-Modal Preferential Looking Paradigm

Examines if infants can link stimuli across different modalities; infants should look longer at matching visual and verbal stimuli e.g. word mum and photo of mother

Violation of Expectancy

Tests if infants have expectations about events in the world; longer looking at impossible events indicates surprise/some world knowledge.

Anticipatory Looking Paradigm

Measures direction of infants' first look before an action/event to infer knowledge of what is about to happen.

Pupillometry

Pupil dilates in response to demanding cognitive tasks, novel events, and emotional stimuli; a new technique to see responses to different stimuli.

evaluation: Novelty Preference vs Familiarity Preference

problem of if infants prefer things new or familiar to them, are we measuring cognition or perception, is looking active thinking or random staring

Levels of Interpretation

Includes perception vs cognition; questioning whether looking is active information processing or a blank stare.

Fussiness and Drop-Out Rate

Concerns regarding when to exclude participants from developmental studies.