Human development

CHAPTER 3

Hearing

~Startle reactions suggest that infants are sensitive to sound

~Infants hear less well than adults

~Hear pitches best in the range of human speech (neither low nor high pitches) and differentiate consonants from vowels

~Prefer pleasant more than unpleasant melodies and can remember songs

~By four months, infants recognize their names

Seeing

~Newborns respond to light and track objects

~Infants at 1 month see at 20 feet what adults see at 200-400 feet
~By one year, infants visual acuity is the same as that of adults
~Colors

   ~ 3 to 4-month-olds can perceive colors similar to adults 

Seeing: depth perception

Visual Cliff research:

~6-week-olds react with interest to differences in depth (heart rate deceleration)

~By 7 months, they show more fear than interest at the cliff deep end (heart rate acceleration and refusal to cross the deep side)

~Fear of depth seems to develop around the time babies can crawl

~Kinetic cues 

    ~Visual expansion (the closer we get to something the more it fills up our eyes)

    ~Motion Parallax (the closer an item is to you the faster it is)

    ~Binocular disparity (when something is getting close to you and you start seeing two)

~Pictorial Cues

    ~Linear perspective (two things far look like they touch but they aren't)

    ~texture gradient (the closer the more detail)

Perceiving Faces

~Newborns prefer to look at moving faces, suggesting an innate attraction to them

~By 4 weeks infants track all moving stimuli, including faces and nonfaces

~Between 5 to 12 months, they understand what a face is, a prototype of a face is fine-tuned to reflect familiar faces, which they prefer viewing

~By 7 to 8 months, infants process faces similarly to adults, as a unique arrangement of features

Integrating sensory information

~Infants visually recognize objects they previously only touched

~Infants soon begin to perceive the link between visual images and sounds

~Intersensory Redundancy:

~Infants perceive best when sensory information is redundant

~Why? Brain regions specialized for a specific sense are not yet developed

Origins of Self-Concept

~ Self-awareness

~Mirror test - “rouge test”

~ The child's nose is painted and placed in front of a mirror

~If the child reaches toward the mirror to touch the red spot: no sense of self

~If the child reaches towards their own nose to touch the red spot: sense of self

Theory of Mind

~Theory of mind: naive understanding of the relationship between mind and behavior

~Develops in 5 phases (Wellman)

~Desire: By age 2, children understand that people have desires and that these desires can cause behavior

~Different beliefs: A child begins to hold beliefs that differ from another child

~Different states of knowledge: A child is aware that he may possess knowledge another child does not

~Belief: By age 4, children understand that behavior is often based on a person's beliefs about events and situations

~Emotion: Children understand that people may feel one emotion but show another 

Chapter 4 

Basic Principles of cognitive development (Piaget)

~Children are active scientists or explorers of their world

~Children make sense of the world through schemes - mental categories of related events, objects, and knowledge 

~Children adapt by refining their schemes and adding new ones

~Schemes change from physical to functional, conceptual, and abstract as the child develops

Assimilation and accommodation

~Assimilation: fitting new experiences into existing schemes

~Requiered to benefit from experiences

~Accomidation: modifying schemes as a result of new experiences

~Allows for dealing with completely new data or experiences

Equilibration

~Equilibrium: balance between assimilation and accommodation

~Disequilibrium: experience of conflict between new information and existing concepts

~Equilibration: inadequate schemes are reorganized or replaced with more advanced and mature schemes

~Occurs three times during development, resulting in four qualitatively different stages of cognitive development

Sensorimotor thinking: Birth- two years

~Deliberate, means-ends behavior

~Eight months

~Object permanence

~objects exist independently of oneself

~Not fully understood until 18 months

~Using symbols

~Anticipate consequences of actions, instead of needing to experience them

~Symbolic Representation

~ 18 to 24 months

Preoperational thinking 2-7 years

~Egocentrism

~Difficulty seeing the world from another's perspective

~Animism

~Crediting inanimate objects with life and lifelike properties

~Centration

~Conectrating only one facet of a problem to the neglect of other facets

Extending Piaget Account: Children's Naive Thoughts

~Children develop specialized theories about much narrower areas than Piaget suggested

~Core knowledge hypothesis

~Infants understand these properties earlier

~Biology and physics

Attention

~Attention: when sensory information receives additional cognitive processing

~Compared to older children, preschoolers are less able to pay attention to task-relevant information

~ Children's attention can be improved through pretend play

~Orienting response: emotional and physical reactions to an unfamiliar stimulus

~Alerts infant to new or dangerous stimuli

~Habituation: lessened reactions to a stimulus after repeated presentations

Learning: Classical conditioning

~Classical conditioning

~when an initially “neutral” stimulus (ex: bell) becomes able to elicit a response (ex: salivation) that previously was caused by another stimulus (ex: food)

Learning: Operant Conditioning

~Operant conditioning: when the consequences of a behavior make this behavior's future occurrence more likely (reinforcement) or less likely (punishment)

~Giving flowers to a girl results in being kissed, so you give flowers in the future (reinforcement)

~Giving flowers to a girl results in being slapped, so you stop giving flowers (punishment)

Memory 

~Rovee-Collier’s experiments reveal that three important features of memory exist in infants

~an event from the past is remembered 

~over time, the event can no longer be recalled

~a cue can serve to dredge up a memory that seems to have been forgotten

~ Age-related improvements in memory can be traced, in part, to growth in the brain regions that support memory

~Hippocampus and amygdala develop early

~ six-month-olds can store new information

~ The prefrontal cortex develops in the second year

~Toddlers begin retrieving information from long-term memory

~Autobiographical memory in preschoolers

~Exists for significant events in one's past

~Appears as a sense of self emerges

~ Children's autobiographical memories are richer when parents talk about past events

Mind and Culture: Vygotskys theory

~Intersubjectivity: all participants having a mutual, shared understanding of an activity

~game rules example

~Guided participation: cognition develops via structured activities with more skilled others

~Apprenticeship: the process during which a skilled master teaches a skill or task to a less skilled “apprentice” such as a child

The zone of proximal development

~Zone of proximal development: The difference between what children can do with or without assistance 

~Providing learning experiences within this zone maximizes achievement

Scaffolding

~Scaffolding: giving just enough assistance to match the learner's need

~Students do not learn as well when told everything to do, nor when left alone to discover for themselves

~Private speech

Steps to speech

~At two months, infants begin cooing

~Around six months, toddlers begin babbling

~babbling is a proven precursor to speech

~At 8-11 months, children incorporate intonation or hear changes in pitch typical of the language they hear

The grand insight: words as symbols

~Before 12 months: use symbols in areas other than language

~Gesturing: infants will point, wave, and smack lips to convey messages

~By 12-18 months: children gain insight that words are symbols for objects, actions, and properties

First words and many more

~Early on, children appear to understand others speech but do not speak themselves
~Around 1 year, children use their first words

~Usually consonant-vowel pairs, such as “dada” or “Wawa”

~By 2 years, children have a vocabulary of a few hundred words

~By age 6, children know around 10,000 words

Fast mapping of words

~At approximately 18 months, children begin experiencing an explosive rate of word learning

~fast mapping: rapid connection of new words to their exact referents

~Children know the object to which a new word refers instead of thinking about all possible referents

~This is because children's vocabulary is:

~greater for those with better phonological memory (the ability to remember speech sounds briefly)

~Greater for those exposed to a richer language environment

~Overextensions (using a term a little too broadly)

~Underextension (using a term way too specific)

Speaking in sentences

~ Two-word sentences to more complex rather quickly:

~Telegraphic speech

~Grammatical morphemes

~Overregularization

Language: Word learning styles

~Two distinct styles of word learning, but most children blend them

~Referential style: Intellectual emphasis

~Vocabularies consist mainly of words naming objects, persons, or actions

~Vocabularies consist of a few social interaction words or question words

~Expressive style: social emphasis

~Vocabularies include social interaction and questions words plus naming words

Language: encouraging language growth

~Parents can assist in learning language by:

~speaking to children frequently

~naming objects, reading to children asking questions about vocabulary

~ Providing TV programs that emphasize new word learning, storytelling, and inquiry

~touchscreen tablets and smartphone apps increase language skills when they require active engagement

Chapter 5: entering the social world

Eriksons stages of early development

~ Basic trust vs mistrust (birth to one year)

~With a proper balance of trust vs mistrust, infants can acquire hope

~Developing trust when caregivers provide reliable care and affection

The growth of attachment

~Attachment to caregivers is a critical aspect of Erikson's first stage (basic trust vs mistrust)

~Evolutionary psychology: many human behaviors are successful adaptations to the environment

~Humans are social beings who also form a parent-child attachment

~These are adaptations promoting survival to the reproductive years

Bowlby Steps Towards Attachment

~ Pre-attachment (0-2 months) infants do not discriminate one person from another - no fear of strangers

~Attachment in the making (2-6 months) infant directs signals to a particular person, recognizes their parents but does not protest when separated

~Clear-cut attachment (6 months to 3 or 4 years) separation anxiety. It can be attached to several

~Goal-corrected partnership (3-4 years onwards) understanding caregivers schedule. Separation protests decline

Forms of Attachment

~Ainsworth strange situation paradigm:

~Three phases (~3 minutes each)

~Child and mother first occupy an unfamiliar room filled with toys

~Mother leaves the room momentarily

~Mother then returns to the room

~Observe the child's reactions during each phase

Four types of attachment relationships

~Secure attachment (60-65%) baby may or may not cry upon her separation; wants to be with mom upon her return and stops crying

~Avoident attachment (20%) baby not upset by separation; ignores or looks away when mom returns 

~Resistant attachment (10-15%) separation upsets baby; remains upset after mom returns and is difficult to console

~Disorganzied attachment (5-10%) separation and return confuse the baby; reacts in a contradictory way (ex: seeking proximity to the returned mom but not looking at her)

Quality of attachment 

~Quality of attachment during infancy predicts parent-child relations during childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood

~Securely attached infants depend on their parents for care and support

~Infants with insecure attachment later report being angry with their parents

~Babies attach to their mothers and fathers and the quality of the attachment is the 

  same

~Mothers spend more time caregiving and are more skillful at parenting than fathers

~Fathers typically spend more time playing with their babies than taking care of them

~Physical play is the norm for fathers; mothers spend more time reading and talking to babies

~These gender differences have become smaller

Consequences of attachment 

~Consequences of attachment

~ Infant-to-parent attachment lays the foundation for all the infant's later social 

  relationships

~Secure attachment

~Prototype for later successful relationships 

~ Non-satisfying first relationship

~More prone to problems in their social interactions as preschoolers 

~ School-age children are less likely to have behavioral problems if they have successful attachment relationships

~Adult attachment disorder:

~difficulty trusting others 

~fear of abandonment 

~Avoidace of emotional intimacy

~difficulty forming and maintaining relationships

~emotional regulation issues

Attachment, work, and alternate caregiving

~ Daycare quality or length of stays

~Early childcare found no effects of the childcare experience on attachment

~One exception: Mothers who were less sensitive and responsive

~When placed in low-quality childcare, children are more likely to have insecure attachment

~Children who experience many hours of childcare

~More often overly aggressive; more conflicts with teachers’ less self-control

~more likely to experience low-quality care

Erikson's stages of early psychosocial development 

~Autonomy vs shame and doubt (1-3 years)

~Gaining a sense of independence and control over physical skills and choices

~Will or the ability to assert themselves

~Initiative vs guilt (3-6 years)

~Developing initiative by taking on new activities and responsibilities 

~Purpose is achieved with a balance between individual initiative and a willingness to cooperate with others

Practice Test Notes on Developmental Psychology

Chapter 3: Hearing and Seeing

1. Hearing

   • Infants have startle reactions, indicating sensitivity to sound.

   • They hear best within the pitch range of human speech, can differentiate consonants from vowels, and show a preference for pleasant melodies.

   • Infants recognize their names by four months.

2. Seeing

   • Newborns track light and objects, with one-month-olds seeing at 20 feet what adults see at 200-400 feet.

   • By one year, infants' visual acuity matches that of adults.

   • At 3 to 4 months, infants perceive colors comparably to adults.

Depth Perception

1. Visual Cliff Research

   • 6-week-olds show interest in depth differences; 7-month-olds exhibit fear at the cliff’s edge.

   • Kinetic cues (visual expansion, motion parallax, binocular disparity) help gauge depth.

   • Pictorial cues (linear perspective, texture gradient) also contribute to depth perception.

Perceiving Faces

1. Face Recognition

   • Newborns prefer moving faces. By four weeks, they track moving stimuli.

   • Face recognition refines between 5 to 12 months, with processing similar to adults by 7 to 8 months.

Integrating Sensory Information

1. Sensory Redundancy

   • Infants benefit from redundant sensory information as their brain regions for specific senses are still developing.

Origins of Self-Concept

1. Self-Awareness

   • The mirror test (rouge test) assesses self-recognition.

2. Theory of Mind

   • Develops in five phases (Wellman): Desire, Different Beliefs, Different States of Knowledge, Belief, and Emotion (by age 4).

Chapter 4: Cognitive Development (Piaget)

1. Basic Principles

   • Children are active explorers, making sense of the world through schemes.

   • Assimilation vs. Accommodation: Fitting new experiences into existing schemes vs. modifying schemes for new experiences.

   • Equilibration leads to the reorganization of schemes during development stages.

2. Sensorimotor Stage (Birth-2 years)

   • Characterized by object permanence (develops by 18 months).

3. Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)

   • Features egocentrism, animism, and centration.

Attention and Memory

1. Attention

   • The ability to focus on task-relevant information is less in preschoolers compared to older children.

2. Memory

   • Rovee-Collier’s experiments show that memory can be cued and is influenced by brain development. Autobiographical memory blooms as self-concept emerges.

Sociocultural Theory (Vygotsky)

1. Key Concepts

   • Zone of Proximal Development: Distinction between what children can achieve independently and with assistance.

   • Scaffolding: Providing just enough help to promote learning.

2. Language Development

   • Cooing begins at 2 months, and babbling at 6 months, leading to first words around 1 year (typically consonant-vowel pairs).

3. Word Learning Styles

   • Referential Style: Focus on naming objects.

   • Expressive Style: Emphasis on social interactions.

Chapter 5: Social Development (Erikson)

1. Stages of Early Development

   • Basic Trust vs. Mistrust (birth-1 year): Developing trust through reliability of caregivers.

   • Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (1-3 years): Gaining independence; characterized by will.

   • Initiative vs. Guilt (3-6 years): Developing initiative through new activities and responsibilities.

Practice Test Notes on Developmental Psychology

Chapter 3: Hearing and Seeing

1. Hearing

   • Infants have startle reactions, indicating sensitivity to sound.

   • They hear best within the pitch range of human speech, can differentiate consonants from vowels, and show a preference for pleasant melodies.

   • Infants recognize their names by four months.

2. Seeing

   • Newborns track light and objects, with one-month-olds seeing at 20 feet what adults see at 200-400 feet.

   • By one year, infants' visual acuity matches that of adults.

   • At 3 to 4 months, infants perceive colors comparably to adults.

Depth Perception

1. Visual Cliff Research

   • 6-week-olds show interest in depth differences; 7-month-olds exhibit fear at the cliff’s edge.

   • Kinetic cues (visual expansion, motion parallax, binocular disparity) help gauge depth.

   • Pictorial cues (linear perspective, texture gradient) also contribute to depth perception.

Perceiving Faces

1. Face Recognition

   • Newborns prefer moving faces. By four weeks, they track moving stimuli.

   • Face recognition refines between 5 to 12 months, with processing similar to adults by 7 to 8 months.

Integrating Sensory Information

1. Sensory Redundancy

   • Infants benefit from redundant sensory information as their brain regions for specific senses are still developing.

Origins of Self-Concept

1. Self-Awareness

   • The mirror test (rouge test) assesses self-recognition.

2. Theory of Mind

   • Develops in five phases (Wellman): Desire, Different Beliefs, Different States of Knowledge, Belief, and Emotion (by age 4).

Chapter 4: Cognitive Development (Piaget)

1. Basic Principles

   • Children are active explorers, making sense of the world through schemes.

   • Assimilation vs. Accommodation: Fitting new experiences into existing schemes vs. modifying schemes for new experiences.

   • Equilibration leads to the reorganization of schemes during development stages.

2. Sensorimotor Stage (Birth-2 years)

   • Characterized by object permanence (develops by 18 months).

3. Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)

   • Features egocentrism, animism, and centration.

Attention and Memory

1. Attention

   • The ability to focus on task-relevant information is less in preschoolers compared to older children.

2. Memory

   • Rovee-Collier’s experiments show that memory can be cued and is influenced by brain development. Autobiographical memory blooms as self-concept emerges.

Sociocultural Theory (Vygotsky)

1. Key Concepts

   • Zone of Proximal Development: Distinction between what children can achieve independently and with assistance.

   • Scaffolding: Providing just enough help to promote learning.

2. Language Development

   • Cooing begins at 2 months, and babbling at 6 months, leading to first words around 1 year (typically consonant-vowel pairs).

3. Word Learning Styles

   • Referential Style: Focus on naming objects.

   • Expressive Style: Emphasis on social interactions.

Chapter 5: Social Development (Erikson)

1. Stages of Early Development

   • Basic Trust vs. Mistrust (birth-1 year): Developing trust through reliability of caregivers.

   • Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (1-3 years): Gaining independence; characterized by will.

   • Initiative vs. Guilt (3-6 years): Developing initiative through new activities and responsibilities.