Perception Across the Life-Span1. Sensation vs. Perception a. Sensation – stimulus input through our sensory (nervous system) i. felt/ smelt/ seen b. Perception – Our interpretation of what we sense i. Way we make sense of the sensation ii. How we make sense of the stimulus 2. Nature vs. Nurture a. Constructionists: our understanding of the world and stimuli is constructed through learning and experience b. Nativists: We do not create perception through interpretation i. we have innate programs and maturational processes that allow us to perceive 3. Testing Infant Perceptual Abilities a. Habituation i. Tendency of individuals to attenuate (get used to) a stimulus ii. When we habituate we start to ignore a stimulus? iii. Think about car alarms iv. Used to test infant ability to perceive b. Habituation and Dishabituation i. Habituation 1. Reduction in response to a stimulus after repeated exposure ii. Dis-habituation 1. Renewed interest in a previously boring stimulus iii. Newborns habituate in virtually every stimulus modality, but habituation grows most accurate over first 3 months c. Preferential looking i. The tendency of infants or individuals to prefer the appearance of one object over another ii. Can be used to assess pattern recognition d. Evoked potentials i. Use of physiological measures to test infant responses to stimuli 4. Visual Preferences a. In 1963, Robert Frantz discovered that infants look at different things for different lengths of time b. He found that infants preferred to look at patterns rather than at color or brightnessc. Also found that 2 day old infants look longer at patterned stimuli than single colored discs 5. Pattern Perception a. Infants prefer patterns to dull stimuli i. Light-dark transitions ii. Contours demark boundaries iii. The human face6. Depth Perception a. Gibson and Walk conducted the classic “visual cliff” exposure to assess how infants perceive depth b. Most infants would not crawl out onto the glass, choosing to stay on shallow side shows they perceive depth c. Size constancy i. Ability to recognize that an object size does not change as a function of distance ii. Indicates infant ability to perceive depth and distance iii. Partially a function of the location of the human eyes in relation to the face 7. Infants as Physicist? a. Infants as young as 4 months seem to show a rudimentary understanding of physical laws that govern objects b. Infants stare at events that seem to violate physical laws longer than those that end with expected outcomes 8. Smell and Taste a. Newborns can differentiate odors b. They appear to like vanilla and strawberry, but not rotten eggs c. Sensitivity to taste may be present prior to birth d. 2 hour old newborns made different facial expressions when they tasted sweet, sour, and bitter solutions e. Taste i. Varying facial expressions indicate infant preferences for certain tastes ii. We can encourage preferences for flavors f. Smell i. Olfactory abilities appear to be present at birthii. Refined abilities are indicated by preference for their own mother’s scent 9. Touch, Temperature, and Pain a. Infant touch develops in a cephalocaudal pattern (head to toe) b. Able to feel temperature and pain at early ages 10. Inter/Cross-Modal Perceptiona. The ability to relate and integrate information about two or more sensory modalities, such as vision and hearing 11. Perceptual-Motor Coupling and unification a. There is an increasing belief that perceptual and motor development do not occur in isolation from one another, but rather are coupled b. Individuals perceive in order to move and move in order to perceive 12. Deficits and Recoverya. It seems that it is important to stimulate sensory receptors early in life b. In particular i. Vision ii. Hearing 13. Attentiona. The ability to focus our perceptions on a certain task b. Improvements in Attention as we age i. Longer span ii. Selective attention 1. Pay attention of one stimulus and ignore another stimulus iii. Systematic attention 1. Pay attention in the order of our choosing 2. Ex: one object to another (men in black ex), little girl vs. monster 14. Adolescent Hearing a. Adolescence should be a time of optimal sensory perception across modalities b. Loud music can lead to tinnitus i. A ringing sound in your ears from exposure to loud sounds (high pitch) 15. Vision and Age a. As we age: i. Our pupil shrinks, letting less light through 1. Slows our ability to adapt to low lightii. Our lens becomes stiffer 1. Limiting our ability to focus especially on close stimuli (Presbyopia) iii. Macular degeneration increases 1. Blurs vision as we age 16. Hearing and Age a. As we age: i. Sensitivity to high pitches goes first ii. Current technologies may exacerbate this iii. Our ability to selectively listen to voices decreases 17. Taste and Smell a. Our ability to distinguish finer tastes decreases as we age b. Odor sensitivity decreases over time 18. Summary a. We see rapid growth in sensory perception in early life b. As we age small declines occur over an extended period of time c. Our ability to make sense of the world is influenced by early experiences Cognition 1. Cognition and Meta Cognition a. Our cognitive abilities are our ability to think i. This can mean problem solving or self-reflection b. Meta cognition is our ability to think about thinking i. Either to think about our thoughts, or to think about the thoughts of others (“What was I thinking”) 2. Piaget a. Termed his research genetic epistemology or the study of how we develop an understanding of the world b. According to Piaget we develop intelligence through our construction of reality3. Piaget’s Keys a. Organization i. We systematically organize new information to fit our emerging schema b. Adaptation i. Adjusting to the demands of the environment/ situation c. Assimilationi. Incorporating new information into their existing knowledge d. Accommodation i. Adapting ones existing knowledge to new informationii. Ex: Guy not picking up check on first date 4. Piaget’s 4 Stages a. Sensorimotor stage (Birth – 2 years) i. Physical interactionb. Preoperational (Ages 2 – 7) i. Symbols, lack ability to solve a problemc. Concrete Operational (7-11) i. Problems have to be concreted to solve d. Formal Operations (Ages 11 – Adulthood) 5. During Sensorimotor stage a. Object performance i. A-not-B error 1. Can fake things, because if they can’t see it, it doesn’t exist b. Emergence of the use of