PSYC 4220 1st Edition Exam 2 Study Guide Lectures 11 17 Lecture 11 September 16 What are some key ways to assess an infant s perceptual abilities Preferential looking measures which stimuli an infant prefers to look at Assume stimulus they look at longer is the one they prefer Habituation losing interest stimuli that is presented over and over if you expose a baby over and over again they will do something called an orienting response when they see something new Heart rate decreases when they see something new Evoked potentials measure electrical activity on scalp to determine brain activity Changes in patterns of brain waves can detect stimulation High amplitude sucking methods infants learn to vary their sucking rate to make stimuli appear As baby sucks fast the projector will show the new stimulus What can infants see at birth and what do they prefer to see Can detect changes in brightness at and can detect large differences between colors at birth Prefer blues greens Can t discriminate different shades of same color until after 4 months Prefer faces especially human ones circles curves patterned objects What is an infants hearing like Better developed than their vision Prefer mother s voice to other people s voices How do infants perceive speech Born able to distinguish phonemes Recognize mother s voice within 3 days after birth After 4 5 months turn head toward sound of own name How do infants perceive taste Can distinguish between tastes at birth Prefer sweet and dislike bitter Faces change based on taste How do infants react to different odors Smell works at birth After 6 days turn head from bad smells Lecture 12 September 18 Describe an Infant s ability to sense touch Thought to be first sense that develops Dominate sense Touch can stimulate growth particularly seen in premature babies Slower to react to pain right after birth Who was Piaget and what did he develop He was a child development researcher Thought children develop via a series of stages that go in a certain order He felt that kids are constantly faced with cognitive disequilibrium because the way they are thinking doesn t quite match their perceptions yet What is a scheme and how does it develop Organized patterns of action thought constructed to interpret experiences can be simple or super complex may have a sucking scheme adults may read or a going to class scheme we don t have to start from scratch we know how to act Develop in 2 main ways Organization combining simple schemes into new complex schemes Baby is born with reflexes the very first scheme you combine sucking rooting swallowing to a drinking milk scheme Adaptation adjusting to demands of environment Occurs in 2 ways Assimilation interpret new experiences using existing patterns of thought thinking a plane was a bird a camel was a lumpy horse Accommodation modify existing patterns of thought to fit new experiences thinking that birds normally tweet and have feathers but this plane isn t doing it so they may ask and make a new scheme or may make up a new word themselves What was Piaget s first stage and describe its 6 sub stages 1st stage was sensorimotor birth 2 years 6 sub stages of sensorimotor are Simple Reflexes birth to 1 month First schemes innate reflexes Use assimilation to apply reflexive schemes to new objects in environment Primary Circular Reactions 1 to 4 months Start to use organizations to combine simple reflexes ie add grasping and sucking More interested in own bodies than toys suck on hands and feet make little noises cooing noises very focused on themselves Secondary Circular Reactions 4 to 8 months Focused on outside world instead of own body Coordination of Secondary Schemes 8 12 months Goal directed behavior and early problem solving Tertiary Circular Reactions Actively experiment with environment to explore and discover cause and effect Vary things while playing to see outcome Symbolic Problem Solving 18 24 months Can create mental representations Can play make believe and imitate absent individuals Memories and language begin developing Lecture 13 September 20 What are some of Piaget s strengths and weaknesses Strengths Helped people move away from idea that kids are just mini adults Emphasized a child s activeness in their own development Weaknesses Really underestimated children Believed everyone developed the same way and that it was discontinuous in stages What is object permanence The development of an understanding that objects are permanent Putting a rattle under a blanket does not mean that it evaporates or if your mom goes to work it does not mean that she poofs out of thin air Infants under 4 months will not reach for covered toys because it is no longer in existence At 4 8 months they reach for partially covered toys visible From 8 12 months will look for object but A not B error looking for object where last seen not new place 12 18 months look for object where they see it hidden By 18 months look for object where hidden without trouble How does language develop in infants Brains begin to specialize and hone in on whatever language they have been exposed to after a month Cooing 6 8 weeks repeating vowel like sound aahaaaahaaaaaah Babbling 4 5 months 1 year repeating consonant vowel combination babbabab All the children sound the same at first suggests babbling due to biological maturation not environmental experience After 6 months experience begins to play a part By 12 months babbling matches rhythm intonation of native language 7 months begin to take turns while in conversation 2 twins babbling and taking normal conversation pauses 8 10 months begin using gestures to communicate i e pointing Lecture 14 September 23 What is the latter end of language development in infants like Holophrase period begins around 10 14 months Use holophrases single words that convey many things 16 24 months vocabulary spurt when vocab expands rapidly By 2 year can produce 300 400 words 18 24 months Begin using telegraphic speech combine 2 3 words into simple sentences What are the theories of language development Pure Nurture the behavioral learning approach Language is learned through reinforcements punishments modeling and imitation Pure nurture the behavioral learning approach Problems with theory can t explain why kids learn rules of grammar Pure nativist the nativist perspective humans biologically programmed to learn language Both nature and nurture The Integrationist perspective Infants biologically predisposed to learn