Lecture 2- Perceptual Development in Infancy Flashcards
1
Q
What ages are infancy?
A
0-2
2
Q
Define Reflexes
- purpose, reveal?****
A
Automatic responses triggered by specific, relatively localised stimuli
- innate (unlearned)
- automatic
- survival function (crying = protection)
- Basis for further development
- Reveal the health of the nervous system - if reflexes arent there, they may not have healthy neuro pathways
3
Q
When does the eye blink reflex dissapear?
A
Never
4
Q
Outline the rooting reflex, and when it disappears
****
A
- stroking cheek, baby turns head getting ready to feed
- evolutionary function - nipple means they feed straight after
- Stops after 3 weeks - important for early feeding
5
Q
When does the sucking reflex dissappear?
A
Never
6
Q
When does the swimming reflex dissappear? ***
A
4-6 months
7
Q
Outline the moro reflex and when it disappears**
A
- Startle reflex, fling arms out wide
- Survival function - trying to grab parents
- 6months
8
Q
When does the palmar grap reflex disappear?**
A
3-4 months
- good for building relationships
9
Q
Outline the tonic neck reflex and when it disappears**
A
WHen head faces certain way, the arm and leg on that side extend - look like a fencer
- 4 months
10
Q
Outline the stepping reflex and when it disapears**
A
helps future skills
- 2 months
11
Q
Outline the babinski reflex and when it disapears
A
Toes fan out then curl after bottom of feet is stroked
- 8-12 months
12
Q
Outline all the reflexes - there are 9
*****
A
- Eye blink -permanent
- Rooting - 3 weeks
- Sucking - permanent
- Swimming - 4-6 months
- Moro - 6 months
- Palmar Grasp - 3-4 months
- Tonic Neck - 4 months
- Stepping - 2 months
- Babinski - 8-12 months
13
Q
If reflexes are still present when they should have gone, what does it show?
A
Development delays and problems - e.g. may have cerebral palsy
14
Q
What are the 5 methods of studying infants?****
A
They cant talk, so how can we study their perception? •Looking •Reaching • Turning • sucking • facial expression
15
Q
What are limitations of studying infants? 5 things ****
A
X - may get upset X - may fall asleep X - can only infer, dont know for sure X - no consent X - Easily distracted
16
Q
Outline Fantz (1958) Preferential Looking chamber
A
- Tests where an infant is looking and for how long
- Uses eye tracking
- Systematically swap each side to avoid bias
- infants fixate on familiar stimuli
- and stimuli with multiple sense that match
17
Q
Outline the habituation method
A
Show them an image/ stimuli until they get bored
- then show them a second image
- if they think it is the same, the wont start at it
- but if it is new they will stare at it longer
18
Q
Outline Event related potentials as a method of studying infants*****
A
- Monitor brainwaves to see if they discriminate 2 items
- If they perceive the two things as different, the brain waves will be different
19
Q
Outline High Amplitude sucking
- DeCasper and Fifer (1980)
A
DeCasper and Fifer (1980)
- Show two images, each one stays up as long as they are sucking, They suck harder and faster if they like something, to keep it on screen longer
20
Q
When can babies imitate?
A
From birth (Meltzoff & Moore, 1977 - its quite advanced, as they need to be able to remeber and produce the gestures
21
Q
Outline Taste perceptions in new borns
*****
A
They have 4 basic tastes: Sweet, sour, bitter, salty
- cannot discriminate salt until 4 months - dangerous
- prefer sweet - e.g. breast milk
- Neophobia - fear of consuming new foods
22
Q
When do taste buds develop in the gestation in the womb?
A
7-8 weeks - except salt
23
Q
When does exposure to flavours first occur
- Manella et al (2001) - carrot juice
A
in the womb
- when mother drank loads of carrot juice whilst pregnant, the infant showed a preference for it when born (Manella, Jagnow & Deauchamp, 2001)
- mothers diet is very influential, including how breast milk tastes
24
Q
Outline Steiner’s research into flavour perceptions
- waters
A
Different tasting waters produced different facial responses
25
Outline Smell perception in new borns
- Linked to taste
- can detect nice and bad smells
- recognise mothers smell at 4 days, like it the most
- Prefer smell of lactating women to non-lactacting (evolutionary), prefer smell of mothers milk the most
- prefer smell of breast millk over formula milk
26
Outline touch perception in new borns
| **** tempeature (Pratt)
- Sensitive to temperature (Pratt, 1954) - recognise changes
- Questions about if newborns can feel pain - and at which point this comes about - they can yes
• because of their distress at injections
- Soothing - relationship with mum is soothing
- Explore the world with touch - helps them learn
27
Outline sight perception in new borns
Worst sense at birth - as they never used it in the womb
- Very blurry acuity - but by 1 year, its adult levels
• Optimal is 20/20, they have 20/400-800
- Can track slow objects
- See colour, but not the best at distinguishing
- Rapid development at 2 months
- first place to start social interaction but
28
Outline Depth Perception in new borns
| - cues involved
Depth perception involves
- kinetic cues (3 months) - moving of head changes perception
- Binocular cues (4 months) - more similar the objects = closer it is
- Pictorial cues (5-7 months) - cues in the picture
Show understanding of looming - if heart rate goes up as objects get closer, shows they understand thi
Visual cliff - Gibson & Walk (1960)
- by 6.5 months, 90% wont cross
29
Outline Gibson & Walks Visual Cliff (1960)
36, infants, 6-14 months
mothers stood across the chasm and encouraged them
- they would crawl over the shallow side fine, but very few would across the deep end
- by 6.5 months, 90% wont cross
30
Outline preference for faces - types of faces they prefer
Infants have a preferences for:
• Human faces (Fantz, 1961)
• Mothers face (Walton et al 1992)
• Attractive faces
31
Outline Fantz (1961) - preference for Human faces
- faces were either normal, jumbled facial features,
or control with same overall brightness (so top 3rd was dark for the hair, other 2/3's were light)
- they had a preference for the actual looking faces
32
Outline Walton et al 1992 - preference for mothers faces
| ****
- Survival/ forming bond
- Have a preference for mother a few hours after birth
- we know this from high amplitude sucking experiments
33
What are the two ideas about why we have a preference for faces?
*****
* Imprinting - first thing we see after birth, and mothers is first one?
* Innate - evolution
34
What can babies hear pre-birth?
DeCasper & Spence (1986) - pregnant mothers read aloud passages, including cat in the hat
- infants recognised these more than new pasages they had never heard before. They tested this through high amplitude sucking
35
What can infants hear in terms of pitch
- high pitch is quieter but they prefer it!
36
What can infants judge about location?*****
Can judge general location
| - turn heads towards it
37
Outline infants auditory perception******
- By 1 month, can distinsuihed speech sounds 'pa' and 'ba' (Eiams, 1975, 1985)
- synaptic pruning - keeping sounds in their language
- Individual voices - recognise mums voice (DeCasper & Spence), but not their fathers
- Can match face and voice at 6 months
- Can discriminate categories of songs - e.g. lullabys
38
Outline the problem of inter-modal perception***
| - pickman - train
We receive all sense at the same time, so can infants integrate information from all sensory streams and create a whole?
- can they transfer information across the sense
- e.g. which mouth movements need to be done to get the sound you want to make
- can detect one modality from birth, but senses involve multiple
- pickmans - infants looked at a photo of train more if the sound being played was of a train
39
Outline sensory processing disorder****
- problems with sensory processing
- problems integrating information
- leads to clumsy movements, difficulties learning/ processing new information
- symptoms: not wanting lots of pressure on them, or needing lots of pressure for them to notice
40
Outline the 2 contrasting theories of infants perceptual abilities/ integration*******
```
Enrichment theory (Piaget, 1952/ 1954)
Differentiation theory (Gibson and Gibson, 1955)
```
41
Outline Enrichment theory
- INNATE SChemas that develop through interaction with the world
- active and exploratory
Piaget (1952/1954)
- critical period for perceptual abilities = sensori-motor stage (0-2)
- skills arent present at birth, but develop over the first year
- as a result of interacting with the environment - performing operations and seeing the results
- sophistication in perceptual skills will develop over several stages
- in this period, they learn to co-ordinate sensory input and motor behaviour
- They use schemas to do this - rely on innate sensori-motor schemas - grasping/ touching (exploratory), to get information about the world
- Use schemas we have to test our knowledge
- schemas allow information integration
42
Limitations of Enrichment theory?****
X - Overestimates things - Even those really good at crawling dont have any difference in depth perception - they have good motor and movement skills but no differences in depth
43
Outline Differentiation theory
- We learn through finding out differences in the world around us
* *********
Gibson and Gibson (1955)
- Integration of senses possible from birth
- Development depends on interaction
- We learn through seeing differences between objects
- identify what makes things different, thats how we learn about perceptual development
- Initially you overgeneralise - see things as the same, cant tell them apart.
- AS you grow, you can make distinctions between objects and events
- Exposure to these events/ objects allows you to identify the properties that make things different
- its not about the objects meanings, its just telling them apart
44
Outline experimental evidence for Differentiation theory
- Sight/ Sound research (Rosenbloom, 1971)*****
- Sight/ touch research - dummy
* ****
Aronson & Rosenbloom (1971) (Sight/ sound)
- 1 months old were sat behind a sound proof screen, could see their mother
- more distressed when the voice didnt come from where the mother was.
- they expect voices to come from the face as they have integrated
Sight/ touch research
- had to touch the dummy that looked like the one they were currently sucking
