HDFS 105 1st Edition Lecture 7 Outline of Last Lecture I. Infancy: Language DevelopmentII. Infancy: Psycho-social DevelopmentOutline of Current Lecture I. Research with infants II. Research with preschool-aged children III. Parent reportsIV. Conclusion Current LectureI. Research with infantsA. What is the world like to an infant?B. How do we find out what infants feel, prefer, think?C. Challenges of infant participants i. Nonverbal ii. Motor abilities limited, especially in early infancyiii. "state changes" (alert, drowsy, asleep) can occur rapidly (they spend most of their time sleeping) B. Methods used to study infants i. Baby biographies1. Marks the first systematic study of infants 2. Darwin's "A Biographical Sketch on an Infant"- sparked interests in studying about infants 3. Piaget's baby biographies of his 3 children- cognitive theories 4. Strengths: sparked interests about this topic of study, generated hypotheses that could be tested in further studies5. Limitations: sample size is usually very small, so what is learned may not be representative to the population; most are done by the parents themselves and they are not completely objective and may have a strong theoretical perspective that may also be biasedii. Systematic observations 1. Clear, detailed plan for observing 2. Context is often the same across all participants 3. Trained observers "code" behavior of child using objective criteria These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.4. Ex. Infant temperament (Kagan); infant-mother attachment (Ainsworth) ii. Habituation Paradigm (experiment) 1. Infant attends to a novel stimulus 2. Habituation occurs after repeated presentations of stimulus 3. Following habituation, the familiar stimulus is paired with a novel stimulus4. Does infant look longer at new stimulus? If so, what does this tell us? 5. (Ex.) Face recognition: 3 groups of participants: 6 month olds, 9 month olds, adults--> All groups "dis-habituated" to presentation of new versus familiar human face. But only the 6 month olds dis-habituated to new versus familiar monkey faces! As you develop, you lose the ability to differentiate broad categories6. (Ex.) Baillargeon- solidity of objects: conclusions--> believed box continued to exist when occluded by screenII. Research with Preschool-Aged children (2-5 years)A. Challenges of preschool-aged participants i. Limited memory or recall abilities ii. Focus on one feature of a problem at a time iii. Language abilities may be limited B. Strategies for addressing these limitations:i. Establish familiarity and rapportii. Use toys, props, or manipulativesiii. Reduce complexity of questions iv. Ex. Understanding false belief, understanding gender constancy II. Parent reports A. Advantages: parents have known the child since birth, they have observed the child in a variety of contexts and situations, economical and efficient B. Disadvantages: parents are not objective observers, parents may have limited knowledge of the full range of behavior across children, parents may be unable to report on certain aspects on infant's experience (e.g. understand of objects) C. Remedies: ask parents about specific behaviors that happened recently, gather info. From multiple reporters, use multiple methods (convergence) II. Conclusions A. Innovative methods have captured infants' and young children's experiences B. New methods are continually being developed C.Special ethical considerations for research with infants and