Week 5 - Chapter 7

Question 1

What is a concept?

Answer 1

General ideas that can be used to group together objects, events, ideas, qualities that are similar in some way

Used to generalize, organize the world around us, act efficiently

Question 2

Fundamental concept groups

Answer 2

Who or what: human beings, living things in general, and inanimate objects

Where, when, why: space, time, numbers, causality

Question 3

Levels of concepts

Answer 3

Apply to anything: height, weight, colour, size

Living things only: eat, drink, grow

People only: shopping, chatting

Question 4

Category hierarchies

Answer 4

Superordinate - very broad (animals)
Basic - birds, dogs - learn first, right in the middle
Subordinate - specific (eagles, poodles)

Question 5

When do infants understand who or what?

Answer 5

3-4 months - habituated to pictures of cats, reacted when image switched to dog, lion

Use perceptual categorization - similar appearance, size, colour
Sometimes look at specific features: legs for humans, wheels for vehicles

Question 6

Key dimension for infants

Answer 6

Overall shape

Question 7

Beyond infancy: causal understanding

Answer 7

Ability to connect a feature with a function
Wugs and gillies
4-5 year olds more likely to remember categorizations and after a delay when they learned the functions of the animals features

Question 8

Naïve psychology

Answer 8

A common sense level of understanding of other people and oneself
Desires, beliefs, actions

Properties: invisible mental states, cause-effect relationships (concepts are linked), develop early in life

Question 9

Rudimentary self consciousness in infancy and toddlers- rudimentary self-other differentiation

Answer 9

In infancy: know they are different from other people - rudimentary self-other differentiation - don’t react to rooting reflex with they touch their own cheek

4 months: basic understanding of what they can and cannot do
18-24 months: recognize themselves in mirror - lipstick

Question 10

Rudimentary understanding of others

Answer 10

Prefer to look at other peoples faces vs objects
Some understanding others actions are intentional
Preference for moral actions
Understand differences in others - more likely to accept food by someone who speaks own language

Question 11

Components of naïve psychology beyond the first year

Answer 11

Sense of self is more explicit
Joint attention
Intersubjectivity- common understanding in communication

Question 12

Theory of mind

Answer 12

Organized understanding of how mental processes such as intentions, desires, beliefs, perceptions, and emotions influence behaviour

Develops around age 3-4

Question 13

Naïve psychology in toddlers

Answer 13

2 years: understand that desires lead to actions
3 years: understand relation between beliefs and actions
Still unable to coordinate own beliefs with others beliefs - Piaget mountain task

Question 14

False belief problems

Answer 14

Tasks that test a child’s understanding that other people will act in accord to their own beliefs, even when the child knows that those beliefs are incorrect
85% of 3 year olds fail, by age 5 85% demonstrate theory of mind

Children project what they believe - don’t understand that other child can form their own beliefs

Smarties task

Question 15

Brain development and theory of mind

Answer 15

There’s a special brain region for thinking about other peoples thoughts
Less specialized in children

Question 16

Reasons for development of theory of mind

Answer 16

Nativists - theory of mind module - hardwired brain mechanism devoted to understanding other humans

Others - interactions with others, general maturation

Question 17

Theory of mind development through play

Answer 17

Pretend play: make believe activities in which children create symbolic relations - act as if they’re in a different situation, use object substitution, encouraged by interactions with parents

Socio dramatic play: miniature dramas - stories - with other children or adults - enhances narrative skills and understanding of other peoples thinking and emotions

Question 18

Imaginary friends

Answer 18

63% prevalence

Purpose of companionship, entertainment, help manage emotions - deflect blame, provide comfort

More likely in first born or only children, they watch less TV, verbally skilled, have a more advanced theory of mind

Question 19

Knowledge of living things- infancy

Answer 19

Infants - 9-12 months
Surprise at inanimate objects moving on their own -> understand self produced motion is a distinctive characteristic of people and other animals

Smile more at people than rabbits, more at rabbits than inanimate objects

Question 20

Knowledge of living things: older children

Answer 20

3-4 years: children recognize biological processes are independent of desires - acknowledge invisible aspects

5-6 years: deny that humans are animals and that plants are alive

7-9 years: plants are living

Understanding influenced by culture

Question 21

How do children acquire biological knowledge

Answer 21

Nativists - humans have a biology module - learn quickly about living things because it is important to evolution

Empiricists - learn from observations, through social and cultural information

Question 22

Kids and robots

Answer 22

Age 5-16
Thought robot liked them, would feel left out if they played with a friend, reported positive affection from robots facial features

Preference for learning form competent robot vs incompetent human

Question 23

Causality

Answer 23

Unite discrete events into coherent wholes
Infancy
- physical causality influences infants expectations about inanimate objects and helps them remember event sequences
- use causal reasoning for word learning

Preschool
- variables that cause effects should cause them consistently

Question 24

Space

Answer 24

Early infancy -children can understand above, below, left of, right of
Self locomotion helps with understanding of space
Egocentric spatial representation - coding spatial locations relative to one’s own body - reach for objects closer to them, reference location of objects based on landmarks

Question 25

Time

Answer 25

Infants can predict temporal sequences

2-4: good at first/last questions, good at after, not before - order of encoding bias

Implications for testimony and interrogations

Question 26

Time and duration

Answer 26

6 months can distinguish between 2:1 durations

Preschoolers - can tell you what event happened more recently but only when the event happened very recently

Past and future understanding as children enter kindergarten and learn time around a school schedule

Question 27

Number

Answer 27

Numerical equality - idea that all sets of objects have something in common (two desks, two dogs)

Infants can discriminate 2:1 ratio
8:7 by adulthood

Question 28

Counting

Answer 28

Count verbally at age 2

5 principles
One-one correspondence - each object must be labelled by a single number word
Stable order - numbers always in same order
Cardinality - number of objects in set corresponds to last number stated
Order irrelevance - objects can be counted in any order
Abstraction - any set of discrete objects can be counted

Question 29

Cultural differences in counting

Answer 29

Children in china learn to count to 100 earlier
Numerical system different - number rule of 20+1.. starts at number 11