CH 5 Developmental Psych; Cognitive Development in Infants and Toddlers

Ch 5.

Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory

Children actively construct knowledge and they form schemas!!!

Actively assimilating and accomodating schemas as they learn and experience things, schemas growing with age. Increasingly form mental representations.

Believed in 4 stages of development!

What are mental representations?

internalized mental schemes that can endure over time, such as images, words, and concepts

How do children try to achieve cognitive equilibrium?

Through adaptation (using and modifying schemes through repetitive interactions with the environment) and organization (linking schemes to form more complex mental structures)

What are the two methods of adaptation?

accommodation and assimilation

What is Assimilation

Using existing schemes to interpret new experiences

ex. when stacking new rectangular blocks, a child might use the existing schema for previous square blocks that worked.

What is Accomodation?

new experience is interpreted and modified into existing schemas

ex. If he was stacking balls, he might need to modify his existing schema for square block stacking that balls cannot infact be stacked.

What are the PIAGET stages of development? And what are the ages?

1. Sensorimotor (0-2 years)

2. Preoperational (2 years-6 years)

3. Concrete operational (6-12 years)

4. Formal operational (12-18+ years)

How many substages are in the sensorimotor stage?

6

Which substage is (0-1 month) and what happens?

substage 1: exercise reflexes

Which substage is (1-4 months) and what happens?

substage 2: begins to accommodate schemes related to own bodies; primary circular reactions, repeat interesting actions centered on own body, respond to familiar objects and images, follow objects as they move

kicking, sucking

Which substage is (4-8 months) and what happens?

substage 3: secondary circular reactions, repeat interesting actions that produce result in external environment

hitting rattle, cooing

What is A-not-B search error and around which substage does it show up?

A common mistake made by infants aged 8 to 12 months where they look for a hidden toy in the first hiding place (location A) rather than where they just watched it get hidden (location B). Showing they do not have a full concept of object permanence yet. Shows up around substage 4

Which substage is (8-12 months) and what happens?

substage 4: coordinate secondary circular reactions with schemes, more goal directed

object permanence (pushing or grabbing blanket off object to retrieve it) but with A-not-B error.

Which substage is (12-18 months) and what happens?

substage 5: tertiary circular reactions—where they actively experiment with objects by changing their actions to see different outcomes. Infants intentionally come up with multiple ways to solve a problem by combining schemes.

increased object permanence, multi-way problem solving

What are mental representations?

An internal representation of external actions, words, or images

shown in changing behavior in the object permanence test

Which substage is (18-24 months) and what happens?

substage 6: child begins to use mental symbols and representations (an internal representation of external action, word, or image) to problem solve instead of relying on trial-and-error, full understanding of object permanence

can use deferred imitation: imitation of actions they observed in the past

What was the violation of expectations test and its significance?

Infants were first habituated to a normal event (like a ball rolling down a hill that was partially covered)

Then they were shown two events (possible) & (impossible)

1. A block was shown on part of the ramp. When covered back, ball did not roll out the side of the hill.

2. A block was shown on part of the ramp. When covered back, ball defied the block and rolled out on other side of the hill.

Infants (3-5 months) stared longer at the impossible event, showing possibly earlier signs of object permanence than Piaget had originally thought (8-12 months)

Method: looking time measurement (limitations=looking time is correlational?)

What are some modern problems with Piaget’s theory of cognitive development?

1. Infants have more competency at an earlier age than Piaget thought!

2. Piaget’s explanation for the process of development through cognitive equilibrium has been challenged by perceptual, attentional, and memory skill theories.

3. Sensorimotor substages don’t explain the gradual, continuous development in which children seem to go through.

What is the Core Knowledge Framework?

Innate, early-appearing cognitive abilities that evolved to help us make quick sense of the environment.

According to the Core Knowledge of Numbers, at what ratio can 6 month olds distinguish number of objects? 9 months? Adults?

6 months — 1:2

9 months — 2:3

Adults — 9:10

According to the Core Knowledge of Objects, what 3 core knowledges do infants have about objects?

Persistence: The idea that an object is consistent in solidity, continuos presence, and cohesion.

Inertia: object in motion and object not in motion

Gravity: fall

What comes first, understanding of Containment, Occlusion, or Covering?

occlusion first, then containment, then covering.

What is Neoconstructivism?

An improved version of Piaget’s constructivism, it suggest the infant mind is prepared to acquire knowledge from interactions with the expectable environment. Not entirely innate!

Their view is that the brain does not need to have innately preprogrammed modules for objects, number, space, etc., because infants will encounter key information in a world that fits the laws of physics.

What is Declarative and Non-declarative memory?

Declarative/Explicit = facts or events that you can recall (semantic vs. episodic)

Non-declarative/Implicit = motor skills / unconscious

What is the difference between selective and sustained attention? When do these develop in an infant?

Develops first 2 years!

Selective: Ability to resist distractions

Sustained: Ability to keep focus as eye movement is controlled more through cortical than subcortical

How does the development of sustained and selective attention in the first two years help memory?

Able to encode information better and store it!

What is this an example of? How did context influence performance? What about repeated reminders?

Infants trained on moving the mobile above their head through a ribbon remembered how to do it

Implicit memory!

Operant-conditioned Response

• showed steady improvement in retention of the learned response from 2-6 months of age.
  
  

Context (crib lining color or pattern changing) influenced performance of younger infants but not in older infants.

Repeated reminders strengthened memory for longer.

What is the Goldilocks principle in Attention?

Present by 7-8 months.

Infants pay attention to things with MEDIUM level of complexity.

Basically the stimuli that provides them with most information for their cognitive effort.

As they grow, the complexity level will change.

How do young infants (3 months old) tend to categorize the world?

Perceptual similarity and features! Mostly external physical appearance

How do older infants (9-11 months) start to categorize the world?

Identify subtler features and functions!

What helps infants determine stimuli that fit into different categories?

Speaking words → different labels lead them to search for differences

and experiences

By when do infants clearly use conceptual categories?

14 months (1.3ish years)

By how many days of age can infants distinguish between native and non-native languages?

2 days. It is pretty inherent.

Give me the timeline for language development from Birth - 24 months

Birth — can distinguish native and non native languages. Distinct crying sounds (inherent)

3 months — cooing; universal phoneme perception (very plastic)

6 months — babbling (pratice! resembles native language)

6-12 months — receptive language. Understand word meanings and simple sentences. Begins to lose ability to discriminate non-native phonemes.

9-18 months — expressive language. Produce simple words and sentences. Spoken vocab of ~50 words.

24 months — understand grammatical categories; spoken word of ~300 words.

What are the three methods of studying infant language development?

1. High Amplitude Sucking

2. Head Turning

3. Looking Preference

What is High Amplitude Sucking Procedure? What age does it help with?

(Before 4 months)

Observe sucking rate to different stimuli.

Stimuli = different sounds

Measures = do infants remember different phonemes and sounds? Sucking naturally habituates and we measure the changes

What is the Head Turning Preference Procedure? What age does it help with?

(After 4 months)

Observe head turn to different stimuli on left and right.

Stimuli = sound/speech recording with lights as a reward

Measures = Can infants tell difference between native and non-native languages? Learned conditioned response to different stimuli rather than habituation

What is the Looking Preference Method?

(infants and toddlers)

Observe eye movement and time to spoken word

Stimuli = two stimuli on different screens

Measures = word meaning and recognition of objects

Infants are born being able to distinguish between ALL phonemes (multiple languages). When does this ability decline? What method would we use to study this?

Around 9-12 months

Specialization of phonemes in native language improves drastically.

We would use the head turning preference

Is this decline in the ability to distinguish phonemes unreversable?

Nope! Bilingual infants decine slower and practice and exposure helps!

Also comes back around 4 years.

What do infants do to speech to understand language better?

They perceive units of sound

&

Segment sentences into words.

What is statistical learning? What helps statistical learning and word segmentation?

Ability to pick out RECURRING words

Babies keep track of how often sounds occur TOGETHER and the transitional probability of which sound willl come next.

• intonation and stress of language helps

• simple language also helps

What is joint attention? When does it start to happen?

Adults and infants pay attention to the same object or event

(9-10 months)

Infants follow adult’s gaze, attract adult’s attention to an object by pointing, touching, vocalizing, adults do the same, and adults naming the object helps increase vocab at earlier age.

What kind of words are childrens’ earliest words? About when do they speak their first word?

(9 months)

• objects in environment

• people in environment

• adjectives, rituals, actions

• about 50 words by 18 months

What is overextension? Underextension/

Overextension: mistake that children make by generalizing a word’s meaning too largely (more common). Fixed through accommodation.

Underextension: mistake that children make by limiting a word’s meaning (Might be retrieval issue) Fixed through assimilation.

How do children start using language before really understanding grammar?

Holophrasing!

What is holophrasing?

Packing as much meaning into a single word as possible. Using it to describe many things.

(ex. Milk! “spilled the milk” Milk? “More milk please”)

What about more complex messages? Are children just imitating adults when they form sentences?

No! They make their own combination of words that are super simple and brief as can be. Telegraphic Speech.

• mainly consists of nouns, verbs, and adjectives

• omits many fuction words and grammatical inflections like tenses

• small number of semantic relations

What do children use when first learning to combine words?

Children begin to combine words using semantic relations.

Specific relations between the words they combine

(ex. agent + action, action + location, etc.)

~18-24 months

2-3 years they slowly start adding grammar to telegraphic speech

How does Skinner’s theory explain language development?

Reinforcement and imitation from adults!

However, doesn’t explain:

• learning grammar rules

• creative word combinations and telegraphic speech

• adults don’t usually reinforce correct grammar, they reinforce correct communications

What is Experience-Expectant vs. Experience-Dependent Processes?

Experience-Expectant: Brain overproduces synapses and neurons to prepare for learning (idea of sensitive periods)

Experience-Dependent: Brain changes in response to individual experiences

How does Noam Chomsky’s theory explain language development?

Nativist/evolutionary biological!

• Brain is hardwired to acquire language (Broca’s and Wernicke’s)

• Grammar, phoneme perception is easily acquired with minimal exposure (Experience-expectant process)

Which hemisphere is the language system in? Is it always like this/can it never change?

Left, but in certain cases where children had a stroke just after birth, brain could completely regorganize into the right hemisphere for language! Brain plasticity!

How do language deprivation studies show environmental influences on language?

• Child abuse and neglect in early years affects ability to learn language even later on — sensitive period

• Deaf chidren not exposed to sign language develop their own HOME SIGN; stays at 2-year old level of language development mostly telegraphic

Shows biology can get you only so far

How do infant-directed speech studies show environmental influences on language?

• More IDS helped infants learn larger vocabulary and grammatical structures

• Adults often expand on holophrases and telegraphic speech which provides good language models

• Recasting/sentence correcting also showed improvement immediately and long term

What is the sensitive period of learning languages?

Before 10 = Native speaker ability