DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY - LECT 3 - INFANCY

Question 1

In the first year of life how much does infants height grow?

Answer 1

10 inches

Question 2

Explain the brain development of an infant?

Answer 2

• 100 billion neurons stable
• neural connectivity rapidly increases
• most connections made around 7-12 months
• different areas increase connectivity at diff rates
• myelinisation occurs = increases neurotransmission speed

Question 3

Explain the visual and motor development in infancy? And when does grasping reflect develop?

Answer 3

Visual and motor area of the cortex continue to mature
Grasping reflex develops into coordinated actions

Question 4

Who looked at locomotor control and what did he observe?

Answer 4

McGraw looking into this through observed stages which were
- lying
-sitting
-crawling
At 9 months
Standing and walking at 12 months

Question 5

Why is motor development so crucial?

Answer 5

Because be able to explore and interact with environment provide more opps for learning

Question 6

What are the challenges of perceptual developmental research?

Answer 6

• attentional and motivational limitations = easily distracted/ sleepy
• motor limitations
• linguistic limitations

Question 7

How do we overcome the challenges of perceptual & cognitive abilities research finding, what do we measure instead?

Answer 7

• heart rate
• eye position
• sucking response
• head turning
• kicking as the dependent variable

Question 8

What are some clever methods in challenges of perceptual developmental research?

Answer 8

Preference, habituation and conditioning

Question 9

Whats the preference method?

Answer 9

• infants attend to some stimuli more frequently and longer
• experimenters present 2 stimuli like pic a and b and measures how long the infant looks at each by recording their eyes
  If it looks at a then b - then evidence that infant prefers a

Question 10

Through the preference method what can the experimenters infer?

Answer 10

• infants can discriminate preffered from non-preffered stimulus
• preferred stimulus is somehow more important

Question 11

Whats the habituation method?

Answer 11

Theresa a habituation method
Test phase

Question 12

Whats the habituation phase?

Answer 12

A stimulus is shown repeatedly until the infant loses interest (habituates), showing they’ve processed it. A new stimulus is then shown—if interest returns, it suggests the baby can tell the difference

Question 13

Whats the test phase in habituation method?

Answer 13

If the infant attends to more to a new stimulus, infant can discriminate it from habituation stimulus
- can measure amount of stimulus change the infant needs to detect a change

Question 14

Whats the conditioning method?

Answer 14

Infant is conditioned to respond when they detect a stimuli’s
- head turning is rewarded by showing a child a toy and only rewarded when a certain visual pattern is in view
So the child learns to turn head only when pattern is present
Then the experimenter changes the visual pattern to maybe 2d and it the rate of responding decreases then it suggests how stimuli is appearing differently and that the child has been conditioned

Question 15

How’s the visual acuity in perceptual and cognitive development tested?

Answer 15

Using the habituation method = the child is shown progressively coarser test images until child notices a difference between tests and habituation stim

Question 16

Whats object permenance?

Answer 16

Objects have substance and maintain their identity when they change location and ordinarily continue to exist when out of sight
- infants lack object permanence when they aren’t aware that they can still reach for the object even when something is covering it

Question 17

Who looked into object permanence for infants?

Answer 17

Piaget

Question 18

What did Piaget find in infants for object permanence?

Answer 18

Observed = infants less then 9 months did not search for hidden objects and that they don’t ave object permanence
- the children’s represtational abilities not developed completely

Question 19

Why was Piaget studies limited for the infant object peremence ?

Answer 19

Motivation - does the infant want to get the toy?
Motor limitations - can infant plan and execute motor commands
Attention - other visible objects now more salient is the infant distracted

Question 20

Who else other than Piaget looked into object permanence?

Answer 20

Bower

Question 21

How is bower different from Piaget studies ?

Answer 21

Used methods to avoid the problems of Piaget studies and looked into infants less then 8 months

Question 22

What did bower test the infants in which 2 conditions?

Answer 22

Experimenter occludes an object with screen, then removes screen
1. Object still present
2. Object has vanished

Question 23

What did bower measure?

Answer 23

Measured heart rate as an indicted of surprise
Found higher heart increase when objects had vanished
Which suggests infants less then 8 months have object permanence earlier then Piaget believed

Question 24

What did baillargeon look at object permanence?

Answer 24

Examined using habituation of 6.5 month old infants and measured looking time by looking at the flipping of an object

Question 25

What did wynn find about perceptual and cognitive development?

Answer 25

Showed 5 month olds a doll Hide the doll with screen Experimenter visibly adds a second doll behind the screen Then screen removed revealing either two dolls or one Infants look longer when number in test condition is inconsistent

Question 26

What was found about memory and perceptual, cognitive development?

Answer 26

Infants have long term memory for speech sounds - Piaget studied memory abilities for infants - they can reproduce facial expressions seen in the past

Question 27

What is differed imitation?

Answer 27

When infants can reproduce facial expressions seen in the past

Question 28

What did meltzoff find about memory?

Answer 28

9 month infants shown 3 toys - bend push sake 1. Adults playing with toys 2. Toys shown, but not played with After 24 hrs the group 1 were more likely to produce those actions

Question 29

What does Schaffer describe attachment as?

Answer 29

A long enduring, emotionally meaningful tie to a particular indivudlas

Question 30

Whats the characteristics of attachment behaviour in infancy?

Answer 30

1) Attachment behaviour is focused on specific individuals 2) Infant seeks to maintain close proximity 3) Close proximity results in comfort & security 4) Separation produces distress

Question 31

Whats the biological significance for attachment?

Answer 31

The motivation to be near the parent increases likelihood of receiving care and thus survival

Question 32

Explain the attachment levels from birth to 24 months by bowlby?

Answer 32

1. Birth - pre attachment - indiscriminate social responsiveness, accept care from anyone 2. 2-7 months - attachment - in - the - making Recognition of familiar people but still accept care from anyone 3. 7-24 months - full blown attachment - follows caregiver; separation protest; wary of strangers 4. More then 24 months - Lessing attached ent behaviour, can accommodate caregivers need

Question 33

What did bowlby introduce in social development?

Answer 33

Influential theory of attachment

Question 34

What was bowlbys key feature for his theroy of attachment?

Answer 34

Maternal deprivation hypothesis Viewed attachment to a mother -figure is of paramount importance and without it child’s development will suffer greatly Children in orphanpghes showed congnitive, linguistic and social deficits and they that its due to separation from mother but it could be due to separation with intellectually and socially unstimualting environments

Question 35

How can we measure attachment strength?

Answer 35

The ainsworth strange situation test With a situation with mother child nd stranger where child showed signs of stres when they are alone or with strangers without a presence of of the mother

Question 36

What were the 4 major types of attachment ainsworth found in the strange situation test?

Answer 36

1) Secure: Actively seeks proximity to M, esp. at reunions. May be distressed when M absent. 2) Insecure-avoidant: Ignores/avoids M at reunions. No distress when M absent. Will equally accept attention from mother and stranger 3) Insecure-resistant: Difficult to console at reunions; mixed avoidance & contact at reunions. Much distress when M absent 4) Insecure-disorganised : Disoriented, no clear pattern

Question 37

What did stern find about attachment?

Answer 37

Examined the correlation between attachment and m behaviour Mothers that had insecurely attached infants had were inconsistent, less attuned to infants during interactions But mothers of securely attached infants had their alter own behaviour to suit infants Which suggests attachment type has social bias

Question 38

Explain infants interpretation of speech?

Answer 38

Responds to sounds even before birth Prefers tones from 1-3 KHz the frequency range of human speech

Question 39

What did decasper and fifer find about speech perception and interest?

Answer 39

Newborns just a few days old will suck to hear voice recording, less likely to suck for music or rhythmical non - speech sounds So infants are predisposed to listen to people

Question 40

What do they say about infants less then one month about their speech perception ?

Answer 40

Can discriminate phenomena not in their native language fo example Japanese 1 moth old can tell i from r but this declines during 1 st of life

Question 41

What do they say about infants less then one month about their speech perception ?

Answer 41

Can discriminate phenomena not in their native language fo example Japanese 1 moth old can tell i from r but this declines during 1 st of life

Question 42

What did Werner and tees argue about speech perception?

Answer 42

Compared infants 6,8 and 12 months Phonemic discrimination in native & two other foreign languages 6 months: Equal performance in all 3 languages 8 months: Slightly worse performance in both foreign languages 12 months: V. accurate in native lang. Foreign at chance level!

Question 43

Explain newborns and their sensitivities to speech sounds?

Answer 43

<2 mo: ‘Reflexive’ sounds; discomfort. Speech sounds rare 2 mo: Make vowel sounds (‘cooing’) 2-4 mo: laughing when people talk; more varied vowel sounds 6 mo: Babbling appears: consonant vowel strings ‘babababa’ 7 mo: Babbling starts to incorporate more varied sounds 12 mo: Produces single words, sometimes expressing intention ‘holophrase’: a ‘one word sentence’ e.g. ‘milk

Question 44

What did papousek and papousek find?

Answer 44

Found increasing imitatation of mother’s speech sounds in infancy Measured pitch, duration & rhythm of mother & infant vocalisations Infant utterances immediately following those of the mother became more likely to match 2mo: 27% 5mo: 43%

Question 45

Explain when speech comprehension is for babies and their first words by who as well ?

Answer 45

Comprehension around 7-8 months; i.e. before use words • First words understood are usually own name, family members, familiar objects: ‘mummy’, ‘daddy’, ‘drink’, ‘teddy’ (Harris et al 1995). • Up to 12 months: steady increase in vocabulary to around 80 words. Rapid vocabulary increase begins shortly after