PSYC355 Textbook Notes Exam 2 Chapter 7 Notes Concepts help us understand the world and react emotionally to new experiences Dividing Objects into Categories Children divide concepts into three general categories inanimate objects people and other living things Category hierarchies o Ex Furntire chair LaZboy Categorization of Objects in Infancy categories related by set subset relations Perceptual organization Infants can distinguish animals as being in different categories broadly and specifically one dog from another a mammal from an aquatic appearances ex Mammals vs non mammals Infants categorize based on many perceptual deminsions including size color and movements the grouping together of objects that have similar They also categorize based on function ex Toys that look alike should have same function Categorization of objects beyond infancy category heierarchies Three main levels o Superordinate level the general one o Subordinate level very specific o Basic level medium or in between one one that children learn first ex they learn tree before they learn plant general or oak specific Basic level is used as a foundation for learning other levels Causal Understanding and Categorization Children remember and learn new categories better when they they understand cause effect relationships aka the reason why a things is the way it is and belongs in a certain category Wugs and gillies example Knowledge of Other People and Oneself Na ve psychology common sense level of psychological understanding Three properties of naiive psychology o Invisible mental states ex Beliefs desires perception etc o Concepts linked in cause effect relationships o Concepts develop early in life Infant Na ve Psychology Infants are innately drawn to faces peoples movements and start imitating people at a young age Intuitive for interpreting peoples beliefs and desires o Ex Young boy sees baby crying gives him things until he stops crying guessed that giving baby something desirable might make him feel better Developmental beyond Infancy influences behavior Theory of mind a basic understanding of how the mind works and how it o Important component understanding the connection between other peoples desires and their actions emerges by end of 1st yr o Can use information about earlier desires to predict later desires o Know that desires lead to actions by age 2 o Little understanding the beliefs can also lead to actions behavior o False belief problems another person believes something to be true that the child knows is false Ex Child guesses smarties are in the box that says smarties on it experimenter opens the box and there are pencils Child says they would ve guessed it was pencils and if their friend did the same task they would guess pencils too If task is easier they are more likely to solve it but most 3 year olds are unable to solve false belief tasks Performance improves greatly between ages 3 and 5 Explaining the development of theory of mind universally The growth of play social o Nativists we are born with knowledge about human psychology TOMM theory of mind model TOMM of typical children exposed to typical environment will mature over the first 5 years Evidence brain imaging and children with autism o Empiricists our experiences are the key to early understanding of people Evidence Infants who have siblings outperform peers on false belief task o Third group empiricists information processing o Childrens increase of understanding people makes their play more Pretend play children create make believe situation Object substitution pretend an object is something its not Cradling a pillow like it s a baby Sociodramatic play children enact minidramas with other children or adults such as mother comforting baby o Scaffolding by adults during this play allows opportunities for learning play may enhance them o Quantity of children s pretend play is related to their understanding of other people and these children are usually more popular with their peers Knowledge of Living things o Children can distinguish between animate and inanimate objects but their answer to why questions tend to ignore the distinction Distinguishing Living from Non living o In first year infants can distinguish between people and other animals Understanding biological processes o Infants realize that biological processes are independent of desires and properties of living things serve as important functions Children know that certain aspects of development are determined by heredity Essentialism living things have an essence inside them that makes them who they are o Growth illness and healing Infants know that growth is an internal process Basic understanding of illness germs contaminated food etc How do Children acquire biological knowledge Nature and nurture play a role Young children are innately interested in animals and learn about them quickly Understanding where when why and how many Space spatial thinking occurs in both brain hemispheres o Representing space relative to oneself Infants code location of objects in relation to their own bodies ex Tend to reach for closer objects Egocentric representations coding of spatial locations relative to ones own body without regard to the surroundings ex See an object to the right and keep looking to the right even if they are moved to a position where they need to look left to see the object Self locomotion helps infants acquire a sense of space Infants who crawl remember location of objects better o Development of spatial concepts in blind and visually impaired people Blind people can develop a good sense of space without ever seeing the world Infants can use auditory sense to get sense of space however visual experience during infancy is important for spatial development o Representing Space Relative to the External Environment Infants use landmarks to code the location of objects they observe as being hidden landmark must be hidden right next to object Spatial skills dependent on importance of skills in culture Time infants in first half year have rudimentary sense of time o Experiencing Time Infants can represent sequences of events and have a sense of durations of events as well as longer shorter durations Unkown whether they have a sense of long periods of time ie months years Sense of future time improves between age 5 and 6 probably due to experience in kindergarten classes o Reasoning about Time 5 year olds center on a single dimension and ignore the other Causality