Developmental Psychology Overview

Announcements

• Quiz 5 opens today; due Friday.

• WA2 due tonight.

• Help session after class.

• Fall Break: No class next Monday.

Unit 2: Cognitive Development

• Focus Areas:

  • Theories

  • Infant Learning

  • Concepts

  • Language

  • Intelligence

Theories of Cognitive Development

Origins of Concepts

• Nativism:

  • Suggests there are innate concepts.

  • Core Knowledge Theory proposes simple, starter (innate) concepts.

• Empiricism:

  • Argues that concepts are learned through domain-general learning mechanisms.

Proposed Core Domains

• Domain of Physical Objects (Inanimates):

  • Intuitive Theory of Physics.

• Domain of Number

• Domain of Space

• Domain of Living Things (Animates):

  • Intuitive Theory of Biology.

• Domain of People:

  • Intuitive Psychology or Intuitive Theory of Mind.

• Domain of Language.

Conceptual Development: Core Domains

• Inanimates and Number:

  • Concepts related to physical objects and numerical understanding.

Piaget’s Object Permanence

• 0-8 Months:

  • Failure in object permanence tasks.

  • Suggests no mental representations exist; poor means-end reasoning.

• Example Tasks:

  • Blanket/string task.

  • Reaching in the dark.

Baillargeon's Study on Object Permanence

• Violation of Expectation:

• Studied 4-month-olds using looking time to assess understanding of object permanence through different scenarios (e.g., possible vs impossible events).

Core Concept of Inanimate Physical Objects

• Naïve Theory of Physics:

  • Studies by Spelke et. al conclude that:

    • Physical objects take up space and cannot pass through each other (4 months).

    • Move along continuous paths (4 months).

    • Cannot move on their own; animates can (7 months).

• Discussion:

  • Nativists argue knowledge at 4 months suggests innate understanding.

  • Some experience required for full knowledge of concepts like gravity.

Understanding Number Concepts

Infants' Number Knowledge: Xu & Spelke (2000)

• Study Design:

  • 6-month-olds habituated to images with eight or sixteen dots.

  • Examined looking times to 8 vs 16.

• Findings:

  • Infants looked longer at the non-habituated number.

  • They can differentiate between numbers based on ratios.

Addiction and Subtraction Understanding: McCrink & Wynn (2004)

• Experiment Procedure:

  • Objects placed behind a screen, followed by a possible or impossible outcome known.

• Observations:

  • Infants looked longer at outcomes that violated expected number patterns (surprised by missing or excess items).

Summary of Infants’ Number Discrimination Ability

• Minimum Ratios for Number Discrimination:

  • Newborns (0-6 months): 3:1

  • 6 months: 2:1

  • 9 months: 4:3

  • Adults: 8:7

Core Human Number Systems

• Approximate Number System:

  • Can deal with large quantities but subject to ratio constraints.

• Small Number System:

  • Exact number discrimination for 1, 2, and 3.

  • Young infants can track multiple objects as individuals, not conceptualizing beyond three items.

Importance of Language in Number Concepts

• How Core Domains Develop:

  • Importance of language in enhancing numerical understanding post-infancy (e.g., Piraha tribe's limitations).

Counting Principles to Master

• Fundamental Counting Principles:

  • One-to-one correspondence.

  • Stable order of numerals.

  • Cardinality (the last number counted represents the total).

  • Order irrelevance.

  • Abstraction (can apply counting to any set).

• Most children grasp these by age 5; the majority by age 3.