Psych 301 9 8 3 Early Cognitive Development How does cognition develop in infancy Preference for novel objects Preferential looking technique Infants look longer at novel stimuli than at familiar stimuli EEG while looking Underlying phenomena Orienting reflex Habituation and dishabituation The brain is complex at birth All normal children follow a fixed pattern of acquiring basic physical skills Prenatal development of nervous system determined genetically By birth the human brain is complex has cortical layers is partially myelinated Visual perception in infancy Visual acuity Partly dependent on cortical development Poor at birth Develops rapidly over first six months Adult level of acuity by end of first year Depth perception tied to development of binocular disparity Ability to use disparity information develops between 3 5 and 6 months Auditory perception in infancy Newborns can hear and locate general source of sounds e g turn in direction of rattle sound Approach adult levels of hearing by six months Infants have some memory for sounds Distinguish mother s voice from stranger s voice Cat in the Hat study indicates there is memory for voices heard in womb Learning is constrained by brain development Brain development is correlated with cognitive development Goals of early brain growth Specific areas must mature and become functional Regions must become synaptically connected to communicate Basic plan Overgeneration of connections followed by synaptic pruning Reflexes are behavioral patterns present at birth Grasping reflex Rooting reflex Over time the patterns become more complex and the infant learns control Critical period Developmental stage during which a young animal can acquire specific skills or knowledge Kagan s developmental milestones First milestone at 2 months Decrease in reflexive action Development of recognition memory Cortical control of brainstem develops Second milestone 7 10 months Improved retrieval memory Self initiated locomotion New emotional responses Reflects additional brain maturation Piaget s developmental theory Four distinct stages of development each characterized by a different way of thinking Schemas Mental patterns Assimilation New experience is placed into an existing schema Accommodation Adaptation or expansion of a schema to handle new experiences Sensorimotor stage Object permanence Hidden objects continue to exist Achieved in sensorimotor stage Preoperational stage Beginning of symbolic thinking Objects not present Pretending They do not yet think operationally i e imagining logical consequences Concrete operational stage Learn to think about operations Develop conservation based on understanding the concept of reversible operations Formal operational stage Develop abstract reasoning Hypothetic deductive reasoning Ability to form and test hypotheses Does object knowledge develop in infancy or is it innate Early knowledge of physics Newborns can follow movement with their head and eyes 4 month olds use movement to help identify objects Other early physical knowledge One object cannot pass through another Objects move on continuous trajectories Contact is required for objects to move each other Intuitive mathematics Children have a basic understanding of quantity Piaget thought children did not understand quantity Later research indicates that they do have a basic intuitive understanding of amount Reasoning and problem solving Impossible event task Baillargeon Objects require support to remain elevated by 3 months The support must be from below by 4 5 months A certain amount of support is needed by 6 5 months Theory of mind Ability to explain and predict other people s behavior in terms of their mental states knowing wanting etc Key mechanism in TOM Ability to infer people s mental states by observing their behavior Sally Ann study TOM may be domain specific Innatist Dogma Basic approaches Demonstrate ability at early age compare to what could have been learned based on experience alone Correlate cognitive and brain development Problems Underestimating complexity of learning mechanisms cf Artificial Intelligence Evidence of causation A more balanced viewpoint Preparedness Predispositions of attention expectation for types of associations w o knowing their nature Can be reflected in gross brain anatomy Active learning Beyond reinforcement of accidental actions Search for structure in sensory input Exploration Do children have good memory systems Revee Collier studies Infants 2 to 18 months trained to move mobile with foot Tested for memory after varying periods of time 2 week olds can remember Length of memory increases with age Limits to early memory Source amnesia Recall of fact or incident but confusion about source of knowledge Common for children even when tested immediately after event Confabulation Inaccurate recounting of experienced events Honest lying The Sam Stone study The influence of brain development on memory Frontal lobes are slower to mature than other brain regions full maturity in early adulthood Adults with frontal damage show memory problems similar to children s Temperamental factors Children tend to be impulsive and not reflect on answers
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