perception, action, and learning in infancy

Question 1

sensation

Answer 1

the processing of basic information from the external world via receptors in the sensory organs/brain

Question 2

perception

Answer 2

process of organizing and interpreting sensory information about objects, events, layouts, of the world

Question 3

preferential-looking technique

Answer 3

showing infants two images simultaneously to see if they prefer one of the other, indexed by looking time

Question 4

what is an infant’s vision at birth?

Answer 4

20/120

Question 5

visual acuity

Answer 5

sharpness and clarity of vision

Question 6

contrast sensitivity

Answer 6

ability to detect differences in light/dark areas in visual patterns, poor in infants

Question 7

cone cells

Answer 7

concentrated in fovea of retina, light-sensitive neurons

Question 8

smooth pursuit eye movement

Answer 8

visual behavior in which the viewer’s gaze shifts at the same rate as a moving object,

Question 9

bottom up approach

Answer 9

focus on input, stimulus driven

Question 10

top down approach

Answer 10

focus on higher cognitive processes, knowledge driven

Question 11

other race effect (ORE)

Answer 11

babies tend to prefer looking at others of their own race or the race of their caregiver

Question 12

perceptual constancy

Answer 12

perception of objects being constant size, in spite of different retinal image

Question 13

object segregation

Answer 13

identification of separate objects in a visual array
- importance of individual motion, ex. cup and saucer
- Kellman and Spelke, cube and rod

Question 14

violation of expectancy

Answer 14

procedure used to study infant cognition, infants shown an recent that should evoke surprise of it goes against something already known

Question 15

optical expansion

Answer 15

depth cue, object occludes increasingly more of the background, indicating the object is approaching

Question 16

binocular disparity

Answer 16

difference in retinal image od an object in each eye, slightly different signals sent to brain
- convergence: closer the object, greater the disparity

Question 17

stereopsis

Answer 17

visual cortex combines differing neural signals, results in the perception of depth (emerges around 4 months)

Question 18

monocular depth cues

Answer 18

depth cues perceived by one eye (ex. relative size, interposition)

Question 19

auditory localization

Answer 19

perception of the location in space of a sound source

Question 20

what is the most advanced sense at birth

Answer 20

hearing

Question 21

what sounds do infants prefer?

Answer 21

“baby talk”, high-pitched, consonant

Question 22

perceptual narrowing

Answer 22

developmental changes in which experience fine-tunes the perceptual system (infant becomes less sensitive to certain distinctions)

Question 23

taste/smell

Answer 23

• develop prenatally
• early exposure/timing is key
• smell influences food neophobia, even before tasting

Question 24

touch

Answer 24

• generally oral exploration
• 4 months, develop mental map of body, maybe even mirror neurons

Question 25

intermodal perception

Answer 25

combining of information from two or more sensory systems

Question 26

McGurk effect

Answer 26

visual and auditory interact, ba + ga = da

Question 27

synesthesia

Answer 27

arbitrary association between senses - infant brains may be overly connected (pre-pruning)

Question 28

Arnold Gesell

Answer 28

Maturational Theory - infant skills emerge on the timeline based on maturing nervous system (1925)

Question 29

reflexes

Answer 29

fixed patterns of action that occur in response to a particular stimulation

Question 30

what are some types of reflexes?

Answer 30

rooting, sucking/swallowing, tonic neck, moro/startle, grasping, stepping

Question 31

how does culture influence motor development?

Answer 31

sanitation, available furniture, encouragement ex. baby stretching

Question 32

stepping reflex

Answer 32

infant lifts one leg, then the other in coordinated pattern, like walking, but disappears around 2 months - because of weight gain, not brain maturation!

Question 33

affordances

Answer 33

possibilities for action offered, or afforded, by objects and situations

Question 34

pre-reaching movements

Answer 34

clumsy swiping movements by young infants toward objects they see (successful around 3-4 months)

Question 35

when does smooth reaching emerge?

Answer 35

7 months

Question 36

self-locomotion

Answer 36

the ability to move oneself around in the environment

Question 37

Gibson + Walk

Answer 37

visual cliff experiment! babies must adapt to new stimuli after learning to walk

Question 38

scale errors

Answer 38

attempt by young child to perform an action on a miniature replica that is too small for the action to be possible

Question 39

habituation

Answer 39

decrease in reaction to already experienced stimuli

Question 40

statistical learning

Answer 40

shown a pattern, look longer when it is disrupted, learn to expect patterns in the environment (language, etc.)

Question 41

classical conditioning

Answer 41

association of a stimulus and a behavior

Question 42

unconditioned stimulus

Answer 42

stimulus evokes reflective response (nipple in mouth)

Question 43

unconditioned response

Answer 43

reflexive response elicited by UCS (sucking reflex)

Question 44

conditioned stimulus

Answer 44

neutral stimulus repeatedly paired with UCS (breast/bottle)

Question 45

conditioned response

Answer 45

originally reflexive response that comes to be elicited by CS (anticipatory sucking)

Question 46

instrumental/operant conditioning

Answer 46

learning the relationship between one's behavior and the consequences that result from it

Question 47

positive reinforcement

Answer 47

reward that follows a behavior, increases likelihood that behavior will be repeated

Question 48

Royee-Collier

Answer 48

infant mobile experiment, 4 month olds have memory up to 24 hours later

Question 49

observational learning/imitation

Answer 49

replicate human's intended actions as well as behavior

Question 50

rational learning

Answer 50

using prior experiences to predict what will occur in the future

Question 51

active learning

Answer 51

learning by engaging with the world, rather than passively learning about objects and events