Walker_W4D2_DevPsy101_2025

Page 1: Developmental Psychology Core Concepts

• Core Cognition: Understanding the physical world

• Key figures and concepts:

  • Piaget: Central to developmental theories, his cognitive stages of development was discontinuous and proven wrong

  • Object permanence: Understanding objects continue to exist even when unseen

  • A-not-B error: Common mistake in infants' understanding of object permanence

• Alternative explanations exist for the observed behaviors

• Evidence of early object concepts found in studies

• Methodology of studies: Violation of expectation

• Fundamental principles:

  • Continuity: Objects exist continuously in time and space

  • Solidity: Objects cannot pass through one another

  • Gravity and support: Understanding of physical properties develops

  • Core knowledge theory: Innate knowledge of the world in a developmental context

Page 7: Nature vs. Nurture and Adolescent Development

• Interaction between biological changes and societal influences on adolescent behavior

• Development can be viewed as continuous (improvement over time in cognitive abilities) or discontinuous (sudden changes due to puberty)

Page 11: Cognitive Development Questions

• Discusses tasks that young children find challenging, such as switching tasks due to cognitive limitations

  • Possible reasons: Difficulty with inhibition, working memory, etc.

Page 12: Executive Function Development

• Executive function: Skills aiding in working memory, learning strategies, and cognitive flexibility

Page 18: Brain Maturation and Depth Perception

• Increased importance of interaction between nature and nurture for depth perception in infants

• Depth perception develops post-birth requiring sensory-motor experience

Page 22-24: Bioecological Model Overview

• Urie Bronfenbrenner's model outlines the interconnected systems affecting a child's development:

  • Macrosystem: Broader societal ideologies and laws

  • Exosystem: Influence of environments external to the child, such as parents' workplaces

  • Mesosystem: Interconnections among immediate systems (family, school)

  • Microsystem: Immediate environments impacting behavior (family, peers)

  • Chronosystem: Change over time within and across systems

Page 28-33: Piaget's Constructivism

• Jean Piaget's theories emphasize:

  • Constructivism: Knowledge constructed through interaction with the world

  • Distinguishes between assimilation (incorporating new information) and accommodation (modifying existing schemas)Developmental stages (sensorimotor, pre-operational, concre

  • te operational, formal operational)

• Sensorimotor “sucking, grasping”; babies are just reflexes

  • no ability to represent absent objects until around 9 months

Page 37-42: Object Permanence Task and the A-not-B Error

• Details of Piaget's studies related to infants' understanding of object permanence

  • “out of sight out of mind”, babies believe that once something goes out of sight, it just doesn’t exist anymore

    • A-not-B error defined: Infant's tendency to retrieve objects from the first hiding place (A) instead of the new one (B) ~9-12 months old

Page 51-63: Violation of Expectation Methodology

• Outline of Violation of Expectation paradigm: Testing whether infants understand object permanence by contrasting expected and unexpected outcomes

• Developmental knowledge is seen as core knowledge, present at birth or emerging shortly after.

REWATCH PODCAST SLIDES:
- Understanding support: Do they expect it to fall and probably the previous 4 slides

Core Knowlege":

• initial seeds of knowledge that get learning started

• early developing (first months of life, maybe at birth)

• evolutionary ancient (other animals have this knowledge too)

• continuity over development (these ideas stay put - and we build on them)

Page 64: Looking Ahead

• Upcoming class will focus on Core Cognition: Social World

Page 65: Final Note

• Reminder about engaging in learning moments and recognizing important concepts.