Infancy capabilities Flashcards
(33 cards)
1
Q
scientific measures
A
- categorical = no quantitative differences but may have qualitative (binary), nominal = larger selection
- continuous = more specific ordinal or interval (ratio)
2
Q
Experimental techniques for testing infants issues
A
- special techniques needed
- can’t get them to read a book or follow instruction
- limitations on Observations: how much can We infer?, What are the Dv?
3
Q
Problems with testing infants -Paul Bloom
A
- difficult to learn about mental life of any creature that CANT use lang.
- Babies poses special challenges: just lie there crying + gurgling
- However Non-mature animals can express preferences
4
Q
What can infants do?
A
- can attend + orientate head to mum + changes in env
- sneeze, cough, blink, yawn, swallow, grasp
- can turn head + eyes to show interest + orienting reflex to bright light + loud noise
- Non-controllable sucking reflex
- constantly seek out new info As they get bored easily
5
Q
ways to experiment on infants
A
- looking time Methods: spontaneous visual preference
- Habituation - novelty + memory
- violation of expectation- magic tricks
- preferential sucking
- eye tracking
- Physiological measures (EEG, heart rate)
6
Q
What can infants see?
A
- poor at acuity (sharpness) and accommodation (focus) prior to 6 months
- Acuity of infants is approx 1/30th of perfect adult accuracy
- poor control over eye focus necessary for sharp focus
- Both factors rapidly improve over first 6 months
7
Q
spontaneous visual preference
A
- infant presented with 2 visual stimuli in left + right visual field
- stimuli often lead to preferential looking
- measure which stimulus infant looks at longest + say it prefers it
- Novel = more looking
- Bored: less looking
- DV = looking time
- Fantz looking chamber accounts for acuity + accommodation
- Have to be sure looking preference isn’t tendency to look in 1 direction so change direction systematically
8
Q
fantz - Biological predisposition to human face visual preference exp
A
- Presented infants with face configuration a jumbled face + 2 colours as controls
- infants prefer faces as early as 5 days old
9
Q
Bushnell 2003- preferential looking at mum VS stranger
A
- Infant 12 hours old found to prefer looking at mothers face compared to stranger
- Control = both women gave birth recently, no facial expression or noise + strong perfume to mask smell
- Mums counterbalance each other + act as stranger
10
Q
How do infants see the human face - salapatek 1975
A
- first to study eye movement + reveal now infants scan human face + how this changes as visual acuity improves
- At 1 month infant focus on edges of face
- At 2 months infant focuses more centrally
11
Q
Infants prefer attractive faces - Langois et al + Slater et al
A
- Chimeric face presented = average composition of many faces to produce prototypical face
- 2 month olds + newborns look longer at attractive faces
- Infant may be drawn to these as they reflect prototype with stronger facia stimuli for baby to orientate to
- Innate facia recognition
- Average + symmetry seen as more attractive
12
Q
Habituation
A
- Attention to novelty decreases with exposure
- infants prefer novel rather than familiar stimuli
- present same stimulus until infant habituates to it then introduce novel to re-engage attention (Sokolov 1963 and Colombo 2000)
- used to test infants sensory abilities + memory
- younger babies can recognise difference in primate faces whereas adults can’t because have 1.5 x as many synapses as adults.
- As adult brain dev, babies look more at humans + loose the connections
13
Q
Is face processing species- specific during first year of life? Pascalis, Haan + Nelson
A
- Adults look longer at unfamiliar adult than familiar
- 6 months prefer looking at novel human face + novel monkey
- 9 month old = same as adult
- Synaptic pruning + perceptual narrowing
- There’s a window where our facia recog systems are broader
14
Q
investigating infant visual perception using habituation paradigms- Bushnell et al
A
- Asked mothers to habituate infants to particular shape + colour by showing it to them 2 x 15 min sessions everyday for 2 wks
- keep colour but introduce new shapes or visa versa
- infants had some form of memory of shapes + colours
- Manipulation check: check habituation by exposing to original shape + Monitoring attendance
15
Q
Habituation as a diagnostic tool
A
- Habituation rate is an indicator of brain integrity + cog competence
- Babies cog competence increases with age
- Birth difficulties can result in slower habituation indicating neurological defects
- Bornstein + Sigman-> early habituation speed predicts later IQ after 10 years
- Ross + feldman-> visual recognition memory predicts IQ at 11
16
Q
playing with magic
A
- when something an infant expects to happen doesn’t, they show surprise
- Infants seen test trials of moving object
- presented with a possible + impossible event
- surprise or visual preference of an unexpected outcome = prolonged looking, increased heart rate
17
Q
violation of expectation method
A
- stimuli involving moving objects
- can measure object knowledge in young infants + how they reason about events
- reveals infants as budding physicists (Speke, 1994)
-infants show impressive awareness of rules governing physical entities
18
Q
violation of expectation- Baillargeon study
A
- Habituation event = box slid to end of 2nd box+ then to final box
- Test events = possible + impossible
- impossible = box floats
- infant at 6.5 months act surprised by impossible but increasingly less as they get younger
19
Q
Infants understand gravity- Kim + speckle 1992
A
- infants look longer at events they perceive as more novel or surprising
- infants show preference for unnatural events at 7 months but not 5 months
- surprise = evidence for concept of gravity
- Habituation event = downward acceleration of ball on hill
- Normal test event = ball slowing down as it goes up hill
- impossible = speeding up, up hill
20
Q
Baillargeon’s Drawbridge task
A
- object permanence is important milestone (Piaget underestimated ability der at 9 Month but found in 3 month olds)
- infants familiarised with repeated event - flap rotating from flat on table to 180 °
- possible event = flap rotates but stops when contacts cube
- impossible = goes through cube
-3.5 month olds look more at impossible events
21
Q
ECG to measure infants capabilities
A
- measures heart rate
- Falls with decreased attention, increases with wariness
- responds to sounds at 12 weeks gestation (Hepper) -measuring fetal heart
22
Q
High-density event related potentials
A
- place geodesic net of electrodes on head
- sensors pick up natural electrical changes as neurons are activated
- infants brain more widespread activation when presented a face
- evidence for gradual specialisation + pruning
23
Q
shape perception in newborns - slater et al
A
- habituated newborns to 1 of 4 shapes + tested familiarity when paired with new shape
- showed newborns can discriminate between line orientations
- discriminated on basis of angular relationships
24
Q
Newborns perception of a 3D world - Piaget
A
- size constancy = object perceived as same size when distance changes
- shape constancy = perception of constant form from whatever angle its viewed at
- dev towards end of first year + not present at birth (Piaget)
- But evidence seen in newbords -> habituated to object of constant size + look longer at objects of different size than new distance
25
perception of object unity - bellman + speckle
- perceiving a complete object despite part of it not being seen
- Tested by habituating 4 month olds to rod moving back + forth behind box
- Infants looked longer at separate parts because see it as novel as they were peCeiving rod as completed earlier
- Johnson + Aslin found it in 2 month olds
26
Perception of object trajectories -Bremner et al
-Habituated infants to object moving back + forth disappearing behind occludes then occluder absent + fond 6 month perceived trajectory continuing/ 4 months did when narrow occluder + 2 months saw it as discontinuous
27
Piaget + Imitation
- Imitation is impossible until infants are capable of representing self + other
28
Imitation in newborns - Meltzoff and Moore (1977)
- Focus on gestures the infant is capable of producing spontaneously
- used facial gestures
- First month showed a sig tendency to identify gesture and matching the model
- Interesting in newborns because have no experience of seeing themselves make the gesture
Early imitation is based on intermodal matching between seeing + producing gesture
29
Voice perception + infants preference to mother - Kisilevsky et al 2003
- Found that from 26 weeks gestation onwards, foetal heart rate changed consistency to auditory stimuluation
- Prenatal experience examplains why newborns prefer mothers voice over other female voices
30
Voice and speech discrimination - DeCasper + Fifer, 1980 + Spence 1986
- Newborns refer mothers voice compared to female stranger of similar age
- Hearing is learnt prior to birth
- Mothers read passage repeatedly prior to birth + once born exposed to same passage + novel one
- how attentional preference to pre-exposed passage
31
Preference for infant-directed speech (Fernald, 1982)
- Typically use exaggerated patterns where there are more rises + falls in pitch when speaking to an infant
- Infants preder to hear this over adult-directed
- Attracts infants attention and is clearer for infant to learn from
32
Young infants discriminate different number of items - Starkey and Cooper (1980)
- Habituated 407 month olds to a pattern of particular number of dots
- Infants dishabituated to number change in small number (2 or 3) but not larger (4 or 6)
- Based on subitising - perceive small number of items without counting
33
Young infants can count - Wynn (1992)
- 4 - 5 month olds presented with 1 object, hid it then added another object + lowered to reveal 1 or 2 objects
- Infants looked longer at the 1 object (unexpected event)
- Young infants understand addition and subtraction but any larger number doesn't work
