Conceptual Development Flashcards
empiricist argument about infants’ conceptual knowledge
- Infants are born with general-purpose, evolutionarily adaptive learning mechanisms
- They use these learning mechanisms to very quickly discover properties of the physical world
nativist argument about infants’ conceptual knowledge
- Infants know a great deal about the physical world from birth
- This knowledge is specialized into specific modules (core knowledge)
- experience elaborates upon this knowledge
domains of core knowledge
- 4-6 domains of knowledge present from about 3 months/earliest age tested:
1) Objects
2) Geometry
3) Number
4) Agents
5) Social groups
6) Morality
Violation of expectations paradigm (Renee Baillargeon)
- Infants as young as 3.5 months of age look reliably longer at the impossible event
- Infants continue to track the objects even when they are hidden -> they mentally represent the object’s existence, height, and trajectory even when the object is hidden
- This shows that infant’s object permanence may emerge earlier and be more complex than Piaget initially believed
- Ex. Drawbridge and box, short vs. Tall carrots in the window
object cognition (3 concepts)
- In addition to tracking objects, infants recognize from a young age that objects are:
1) Cohesive: objects move as connected, bounded wholes
2) Continuous: objects move along connected, unobstructed paths
3) Contact: objects require contact to change each other’s motion - Violation of expectation paradigms show evidence of this knowledge in infants as young as 3 months of age
geometry
- How distance, angle, and directional relationships between surfaces and objects function
- Adults, children, and non-human animals all use geometric features of space to reorient themselves when they are disoriented
- Geometric features of space appear to be more important to young infants and adult non-human animals than landmarks are
- Humans are not adept at using subtle landmarks until after infancy (are only good with landmarks if they’re quite salient)
- Ex. If babies are put to the blue wall test, they only succeed 50% of the time because they only use geometric landmarks (wall length) and not the colour of the wall
number
- Infants also appear to possess knowledge about number
- Infants’ numerical cognition appears to be comprised of 2 systems:
- Discrete (small) number system
- Approximate (large) number system
discrete number system
- Works on quantities of 1, 2, and 3 objects
- Evidence for this comes from infants’ ability to track objects
- When infants watch one object disappear behind a screen, they exhibit surprise (violation of expectation) when 2 objects emerge from the screen -> they do this will quantities up to 3, but then lose track if more objects go behind the screen
approximate number system
- Works on approximations of quantities greater than 3
- Works according to Weber’s law:
- Large number system functions in terms of ratio rather than absolute quality
- Adults can detect differences in large quantities at about a 7:8 ratio (ex. Discriminating between red and blue dots -> you can do this as long as it’s within the 7:8 ratio)
- Infants’ Weber ratio is lower – 2:3 (need a greater relative difference between quantities to tell difference)
agents
- Infants, like adults, have knowledge about agents
- Babies expect humans to have agency and goals, but not robots (ex. Arm reaching study – babies expect humans to grab the object they were looking for, but expect robot to keep reaching for same place)
- This only occurs after infants can successfully reach (6 months), unless they have used sticky mittens (then it’s 3 months) -> suggests that this may not be core knowledge; it may be based on experience
unlike objects, agents produce actions that are…
- Goal-directed: agents will not violate their goals
- Efficient: agents want to complete goal as efficiently as possible
- Reciprocal: actions must have reactions (ex. If you push someone, they should move slightly)
- Gaze-directed (when they have eyes): we will look towards our goal while we’re fulfilling it
concepts
general ideas or understands that can be used to group together objects, events, qualities, or abstractions that are similar in some way
3 informal theories children organize things into
- theory of physics (inanimate objects)
- theory of psychology (people)
- theory of biology (other living things)
category hierarchy
- categories that are related by set-subset relations
- ex. category “furniture” includes all chairs, category “chair” includes all La-Z-Boys
perceptual categorization
the grouping together of objects that have similar appearances
levels in a category hierarchy
- superordinate level: the most general level, such as “animal” in animal/dog/poodle
- basic level: middle level, often the first level learned, such as “dog” in animal/dog/poodle
- subordinate level: most specific level, such as “poodle” in animal/dog/poodle
naive psychology
a common-sense way of understanding other people and yourself
theory of mind
an organized understanding of how mental processes such as intentions, desires, beliefs, perceptions, and emotions influence behaviour
false-belief problems
- task that test a child’s understanding that other people will act in accord with their own beliefs even when the child knows those beliefs are incorrect
- ex. the Smarties/pencils box task
Theory of Mind Module (TOMM)
a hypothesized brain mechanism devoted to understanding other human beings
pretend play
make-believe activities in which children create new symbolic relations, acting as if they were in a situation different from their actual one
object substitution
- during pretend play, using an object as something other than itself (ex. using a broom to represent a horse)
- emerges around 18 months
sociodramatic play
- activities in which children enact mini dramas with other children or adults, such as “mother comforting baby”
- emerges around 30 months
essentialism
- the view that living things have an essence inside them that makes them what they are
- one of the most basic aspects of children’s biological beliefs