Spatial cognition notes needed

Question 1

How did researchers study infants’ understanding of objects? 6

Answer 1

Violation of expectation looking time tasks

Unity

Continuity

Solidity

Contact & Inertia

Gravity/ support

Question 2

What are Violation of expectation looking time tasks?

Answer 2

Habituation or familiarisation followed by two test trials:
Unexpected (an impossible or incongruent scenario)
Expected (a possible or congruent scenario)

Question 3

What is unity?

Answer 3

Infants infer the boundaries of partly hidden objects by analyzing their movements

Question 4

What is continuity?

Answer 4

Infants look longer at the two object than one object test in the continuous movement condition (reversed in discontinuous condition)

Question 5

What is solidity?

Answer 5

Infants think of objects as solid bodies that cannot interpenetrate other objects

Question 6

What is contact & interia?

Answer 6

Contact = objects need to touch other objects to influence their movement
Interia = objects do not move on their own

Question 7

What is Gravity/ support?

Answer 7

Infants display surprise when watching a object float
Infants expect unsupported objects to fall down

Question 8

what is the Core knowledge system of objects?

Answer 8

Guides learning and exploration

Question 9

Describe each system of core knowledge

Answer 9

• operates as a whole, distinct from other systems
• is present throughout lifetime
• Is limited
• Supports further learning

Question 10

What are the Signature limits of core object knowledge?

Answer 10

Infants use limited information to track object over occlusion

They seem to fail to encode object features

Question 11

What are the 2 Frames of reference for representing space?

Answer 11

Egocentric
Allocentric

Question 12

Describe the egocentric view?

Answer 12

viewer dependant, where objects are represented relative to ones body (e.g. in front of me)

Question 13

Describe the Allocentric view?

Answer 13

viewer independent, where objects are represented relative to landmarks (e.g. by the door).

Absolute = where objects are represented relative to landscape (e.g. south of the room)

Question 14

(Kaufman & Needham)
What conclusions did they draw from the observed results

Answer 14

• Infants dishabituated in the conditions where pig moved with respects to the table
• Infants are capable of setting up allocentric spatial recognitions (pig movies, pig and infant moves)

Question 15

Via what mechanism does language affect spatial behaviour in children?

Answer 15

• By helping children understand the relevance of landmarks for encoding locations
• By helping children integrate different forms of spatial information into one representation of space