PSY210 midterm

precocial

can fend for self from birth or young age

altricial

dependent on mother for longer (babies and apes)

nativism

nature

empiricism

nurture

consequences of physical evolution

selectss for strong social skills to gain adult attention, need these skills for survival

human family size

builds a social environment

Plato’s views

we are born w knowledge, we just have to remember it, knowledge is innate

Aristotle’s view

children get theirrr knowledge from experience, “activated potential” between nature and nurture

John Locke

Blank Slate, fully nurture

Jean Piaget view

Nature and nurture interact, similar tot aristotle

Rousseau View

Natural order of development, nativism

Apes and human birth differencess

humans born 3mo earlierr because of physical evolutionary changes

results of shorter weaning

humans have more kids

Empiricism

driven mainly by
experience
★ discontinuous
★ focus on differences
between individuals

Nativism

driven mainly by
biology
★ continuous
★ focus on similarity
between individuals
(universality)

naturalistic fallacy

what is natural is good - incorrect statement

active

children involved in the learning process

passive

children sit and absorb information

global

overall trend which improves all skills

local skill

only improves specific skills - math or reading. different mechanisms for certain skills

visual pereception in babies

bad vision when young, gets better 6mo

william james

babies worlds are buzzing confusion

perception

interpretation of the world

visual acuity

sharpness of visual discrimination. seeing lines vs blobs

habituation assumption and drawback

relies on babies preferring a new stimulus. drawback it does not show preference

how does visual acuity develop

eyeball growth

Categorical perception:

tendency to cluster stimuli
that vary along a continuum into discrete categories

categorical perception of colour is

not dependent on language

testing infantss after 1st hour of birth

Infants turned
more to follow
most face-like
image showing
FACE PREFERENCE

babies preferences for faces

Prefer “top-heavy” faces until 3 months, then lose
top-heavy preference

when do infants prefer their mother

Looking forward
★ Half-profile (45 degrees)
★ But not full profile (side view) , hairline in view

New born face/race preference

Newborns:
DO NOT show preference for own-race or other-race faces
DO NOT show preference for human or monkey faces

3 month face/race preference

3-month-olds:
PREFER caregiver-race faces over other-race faces
PREFER human faces over monkey faces

6 month discrimination face

6-month-olds:
CAN discriminate between two human faces
CAN discriminate between two monkey faces

9 month discrimination face

9-month-olds:
CAN discriminate between two human faces
CAN NOT discriminate between two monkey faces

•Perceptual narrowing
Perceptual narrowing

Increase in the precision of perceptual

processing in one category, at the expense of

perceptual processing outside that category

infants hearing

developed senses at birth, adult-like at 5

years

localizing sounds. at birth

from birth infants turn toward sound - instinctive respond

3 months localizing sound

significance at turning head to face ssound begins

how to test discrimination (auditory)

Infants suck while listening to one sound until they

are habituated (sucking rate decreases to a

certain level)

★ Tells us whether infants dishabituate (increase their

sucking rate) when a new or new-category sound

is played, in contrast to when an old or same-

category sound is played

Testing auditory preferences in infants

Infants learn that if they suck in a certain way they

can hear a certain sound

★ Tells us whether infants suck to produce more of

that sound

newborn prefers ____ voice

mom’s voice from birth, and story read in womb

song preference

infants prefer song sung by mother and not toy, they look towards experimenter singing song from mother

testing music preference experiment set up

General approach:

★ Familiarize 5-month-old infants with a song

★ Manipulate whether or not a known social partner sings it

★ After delay, test infants’ preferences for new people who

sing it

testing music preference hypothesis

★ Hypothesis:

★ Infants should prefer new people who sing that song

★ ONLY when that song is known by a social partner

(like mom or dad)

testing music preference results

★ Infants selectively attend to the singer of a familiar song

★ ... but only when the song is known to a social partner

★ Songs function as social signals in early infancy

Intermodal Perception

integration of information
across sensory modalities (e.g., recognising an
object in one sensory modality that is familiar
through another modality) spikey ball, marbles rattling

when do infants follow gaze of novel object

★ Or behaves contingently
★ Or both
★ The infant assumes it is an agent and is looking at
something
★ May know something I don’t
★ May have goals (directing attention)

other clues to agency

symmetry along one axis

★ self-propulsion

★ Irregular path of travel

★ eyes

★ contingent and reciprocal interactions with other agents

★ non-rigid transformation, like expansion and contraction

(e.g., breathing)

traits of agents that babies derive

Have features like eyes and

hands

Can move under own power

Have mental states

Key finding: Infants believe that agents have mental states

woodward 1998 conclusions

by 6 months babies differentiate between human and mechanical actions

agency and action woodward study

★ If action done by an agent, the agent had a

goal

★ If action done by non-agent, just mechanical

motion

intentions study

★ 14 - 18-month-olds see hands or machine try to remove end of

dumbbell and fail; then they are handed the dumbbell

intentions study conclusions

60% produced intended act after watching human

Only 10% did so after watching machine

when do infants follow gaze

6 months

when do infants social reference

8-9 months

when do babies point

12 months

study that tests babies knowledge

babies point to event when experimenter is not looking, they point to share info

at 12 months infants look to caregiver for info, why do they do this?

infants seek information to regulate

their own behavior, determine their response

visual cliff was used for

testing when infants social reference

when mothers looked scared, but there was no cliff, what did babies do?

very few looked at mother

key finding of cliff study

babies look to other’s

emotional response only when faced with

novel or threatening stimulus

when do children understand desires

Children come to understand desire-

behavior connections by end of 1st year

what is proof of children understanding desires

12-month-olds look in surprise when a

person appears to like one thing, but then

reaches for a different thing

broccoli and goldfish study was used to test ___

desires

at what age did kids give experimenter desired food

18 months

false believe test is used to demonstrate ____

theory of mind

pencils and smarties study found that

3 yearr olds had trouble identifying their own previously held false beliefs

developmental shift at 4 years old shows that

kids can now make Correct predictions based upon false belief

critiques in assertion 4yr olds develop a

belief concept

younger children have problems with inhibition, even if they know something is wrong they will still say it. they have trouble with verbal demands

pretend play significance

children can have hold false beliefs when pretend playing, banana phone.

infant violation of expectation task study

tested if 15 month olds could understand false beliefs , watermelon hidden in box from experimenter

implicit FB

Implicit FB appears early and continues into

adulthood. Spontaneous, automatic

explicit FB

Explicit FB is more robust, based in language

but appears later in development.

what age do children match emotion and TOM

6 years old

when do kids start lying

4+

how many kids white lie

85% in study

features of objects: cosmoe

can influence others w contact, obey gravity, solid, moves continuously, obey inertia, exist outside of our interractions

jean piget view

empiricist leaning, believes stages are universal

assimilation

fitting an object into existing schema

accomodation

making a new schema to accommodate object

birth-1 mo

reflexes

1-4mo

organizing reflexes into behaviour

4-9mo

interaction w objects and people

9-12mo

integration of schemas

object permanence starts at

9 months

A not B blanket test

jean Piaget, babies can only find toy when under hiding point A because babies associate toy with hiding place

Piaget explanation for A not B task

babies incorporate reaching action and experimenters action into toy schema

hidden displacement task

when babies do not see the action and hiding place, they cannot manipulate the representation in their mind.

when do children pass hidden displacement task

18 months

constructivism

child as an active learner

reaching in the dark study

suggest babies remember object - 7moths

drawbridge study 3.5mo baby

habituation and violation of expectation to test if babies are surprised by object goes right thru drawbridge

why do infants fail A not B task

reflexive grasping, inhibitory control, too complex of a task, memory issues

compentence-performance

difference between the underlying psychological ability and articulation of this iin a task

object gravity study

younger babies have expectation, older babies do not get upset.

emergence of new ability

babies generate hypothesis about how objects are supported

concept categories

superordinate, basic, subordinate

how do babies use causal reasoning

use statistics

nativissts and casual reasoning

innate casual module, extraction of core info from event