PSYC 307 1st Edition Lecture 11Overview of Previous Lecture - Infancy and Development o Types of Perception o Imitation Overview of Current Lecture - Cognition- Motor Development - LanguageA. Cognition - Review of Piageto Sensori-motor stage Major accomplishments at end; object permanence, symbolic representation Problems of Piaget’s conclusions: underestimated abilities of babies o Alternative views Core Knowledge Theories - Spelke – object segregation, babies come into world with some knowledgeo Expectation on how things should interact- Baillargeon – how babies learn about physical world, object permanence I. New Paradigmsa. Violation of expectation i. Car and block study example; objects continue to exist when hidden (object permanence)ii. Baillargeon and her colleagues have used this technique to establish that infants as young as 3 and a half months of age look longer at an “impossible” event than at a possible event 1. Babies can represent objects in space; find it surprising when another object goes through that space (looking time paradigm) iii. Knowledge acquisition, Baillergeon1. Initial concepts – can make basic distinctions (biological vs. mechanic motion)a. Preferences for certain kinds of events 2. Event categoriesa. Collisionb. Occlusionc. Inert vs. self-propelled objects 3. Highly constrained learning mechanisma. Pay attention to certain kinds of information 4. Reason about physical world changes with experience iv. Evidence – Gravity and Support1. Initial concept: contact = support (3 months)a. Objects in contact with on another should be supporting 2. Variablea. Type of contact (5 months)i. Thing that’s being supported must be on top of thing that is supporting it (not underneath or on top of)ii. Girls understand it before boys (depth perception)b. Amount of contact (6.5 monthsi. There has to be atleast 50% contact or it should fall to the groundc. Whole shape (12.5 months)i. Asymmetrical or not?3. Explanationa. 5 months – babies can sit up with their hands free (can move things on the own)i. Before this, all other data has been provided for youby others 1. Rarely see someone make a mistakeb. Reaching in the dark II. Information Processing Approacha. Mobile-kicking paradigm, conditioning paradigm (Rovee-Collier)i. Memory ii. Conditioning Paradigm 1. Baseline, training, test2. Remindersiii. Results1. Babies memory gets better as they get older; ability to remember gets longer a. Reminders (seeing the mobile) make memory better for a longer period of time 2. The first thing the babies generalize is the bumpers around the crib; eventually they will forget both iv. Implications1. Memory is context specific2. Reminders help 3. Babies forget distal things first (things that were far away in a certain situation)b. Attention and memory i. Recognition memory abilities 1. Individual and group differences a. Habituate them to one, and then show them two, they should look longer at the new thing than the old thing (prefer novelty)b. Younger babies have more difficult time remembering; preterm, compromised have more difficult time as wellc. Some babies just show better memory and attention than other babies i. Individual differences (predictive) 2. Possible explanations a. Encoding problem ii. Attention 1. As they get older they spend less time looking at novelty and scan more a. Habituate quickly 2. Attention behaviors can predict memory iii. Relation between attention and memory1. Fast vs. slow information processors iv. Explanations for speed of encoding 1. Structural changes of CNSa. Myelin makes transmission of information quicker 2. More efficient strategies for processing visual information a. Babies more in tune to what’s important3. Larger knowledge base a. More knowledge makes encoding easier B. Motor DevelopmentI. Newborn Reflexesa. Involuntary response to stimulation i. Important for survival (babies preterm sometimes do not have coordinated reflexes)ii. May be important for setting up later behavior and development b. Newborns (video)i. Eye blink (get close to face, they will blink), rooting (preparing to nurse; go to finger on cheek), sucking (finger in mouth), swimming, Moro (arms fling outward when feeling of being dropped), palmar grasp (grasp finger),tonic neck (turn head to one side, opposite hand will go up and same side head will go down), stepping (drag babies toes, they will step; first two months), Babinski (stroking bottom of foot toes fan and curl)1. Healthy neurological development a. Many of these reflexes have to go away in order for proper developmenti. Stepping, grabbing, etc. (prepare motor system)II. Major Milestones in Motor Development in Infancy (chart)a. Pushing up, rolling over, sitting up, pulling up, walking with support, walking without support b. Explanations i. Individual differences – types of crawling, age, gender, etc. ii. Neural maturity (not only factor)1. Neural mechanisms (mature motor areas of brain)2. Increase in strength 3. Posture control and balance4. Perceptual skills (difference between where you are and where youwant to go) 5. Motivation (when kids need to get things for themselves they are more motivated)c. Back-Lying and Locomotion i. The campaign to get parents to put babies to sleep on their backs to reducethe risk of SIDS seems to make infants less likely to roll over on schedule 1. It may be that the better view of the world from their backs results in less motivation to roll overa. Babies looking at the floor all the time have motivation to move to prone position and eventually roll over (more strength) 2. It may also be that spending less time on their tummies causes arm strength to develop more slowly ii. The research is reassuring in that by 18 months of age there were no differences in the development of infant crawling III. Locomotiona. Karen Adolph and her colleagues have found that infants do not transfer what they learned about crawling down slopes or walking down them i. All independent capacities (problem spaces)ii. What you know about crawling does not transfer to what you learn about walkingC. Language I. Symbols a. Systems for representing thoughts, feelings, and knowledge and communicating them to others b. The creative and flexible use of symbols is capacity that most sets humans apart from other species II. Development of Language a. System of symbols used to communicate i. Can be anything; written, vocalii. Completely arbitrary b. A rule
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