Child as A Psychologist

Question 1

What did Piagets research say about a childs psychology?

Answer 1

His work forcused on chilfrens concept of belief, intention, and lies.
These have become hot dubjectd under the general banner of “theory of mind”.

Question 2

What is “childhood realism” in piagets eyes?

Answer 2

According to Piaget, children under 7 cannot distinguish between the mental and the physical. They confound activities such as thinking and dreaming with externalized actions such as speaking or acting. This is what he calls childhood realism. However, with new experiments this is disproven.

Question 3

What is Conspecifics?

Answer 3

Ability to recognize ones own species. (Children have this, as they show preference for face like arrangements)

Question 4

Face is not the only environmental cue to conspecific behaviour. What else is there?

Answer 4

Infants are sensitive to animate and inanimate movement. They are particularely sensitive to human movement. They are also sensitive to a range of human behaviours: gait, speech, interactional patterns, and so forth.

Question 5

Premack (1990) argues that the infant is born with two innately specified predicates. What are these?

Answer 5

1. causal predicate, which constrains the perception of non-self-propelled objects
2. Intentional predicate, which constrains the perception of self-propelled motion of biological beings

Question 6

How does fodor argue children differenciate mental from physical?

Answer 6

Fodor argues this fundamental distinction is an innately guided process. He maintains that the patterns of social interaction and attribution of intention manifest in our species could not have evolved without an innate component. This involves for Fodor a biologically specified module for commonsense psychology.

Question 7

What are the functions of the early ostensive communications in the human infant?

Answer 7

Two types:
1. Proto-imperatives, involve the use of pointing or eyegaze as the infants means of trying to obtain an object by directing a nonverbal request at a perdon who can reach the object for the child.
2. Proto-declaratives, evolved proto-imperatives that becomes the infants means or making a nonverbal comment about the state of the world rather than requesting to obtain it.

Autistic children can use protodeclaratives.