wk4= how social abilities develop in children + theoretical accounts

Question 1

plan

Answer 1

1. introduction
2. prenatal + early auditory/olfactory social biases
3. perceptual narrowing in infants
   4.brain imaging studies and perceptual narrowing
   5.conclusion

Question 2

1. introduction

Answer 2

Predisposition
innate bias or tendency to attend to particular stimuli without requiring learning
Debate
Infants come into world with biological readniness to engage with social stimuli
Esaay
Whilst evidence that infants are biologically prepared to interact with the social world, experience and exposure play a key role in fine-tuning these responses

Question 3

2a. Prenatal + early auditory/olfactory social biases (DeCasper + Spence 1986, Hepper 1988)

Answer 3

From birth, infants display clear biases toward social stimuli that are thought to support later social development through auditory and olfactory systems
DeCasper and Spence (1986)
Non-nutritive sucking technique= found that newborns who were read cat in the hat story pre-natal, repeatedly during pregnancy sucked more to hear it postnatally, indicating that infants not only detect but retain social information before birth as they recognise and prefer the spectral qualities of their mothers voice in utero . Reinforcement from Hepper (1988) = babies =more soothing responses to the Neighbours theme song if it had been played regularly before birth, demonstrating prenatal memory for socially relevant auditory stimuli
Behavioural measures
Technique which is widely used due to non invasive = simply an output, behaviour could be due to other reasons. Novelty rather than genuine preference? May be that social learning depends on exposure than purely innate

Question 4

2b. prenatal + early auditory/olfactory social biases (Schaal 1998)

Answer 4

Olfactory research
Newborns prefer own mothers pad containing amniotic fluid rather than a strangers.. Shows utero = social sensory environment that babies use. Transnatal chemosensory continuity hypothesis= the chemosensory environment within= learn and guide them towards people in postnatal sensory world
Schaal et al 1998
Extended this to ability to influence food preferences= newborns accepting of anise if mother had eaten during pregnancy. Those that didn’t= bitter face. So chemical envionemnt exposed to = determines how yoi orient towards food too
What it shows
Overall shows that preferences in social world are shaped by repeated prenatal exposure in utero, infants aren’t built in for social recognition. Whilst have bio sensitivity yo cues not equal to formed social competence where we need interactive environments.

Question 5

3a. perceptual narrowing in infants (Eimas 1971, Tess 1984)

Answer 5

Perceptual narrowing, what does it mean
The reduction in sensitivity of task irrelevant domains to develop specialisation
Where can it be seen?
This can be seen in our auditory person perception.Adults=expert at decoding audio indo into linguistic meaning. Seen in children? Infant 1m= phenome discrimination into their smallest units. Found heads to turn when exposed set of speech sounds differ (Eimas et al 1971)
Tess (1984)
6m phoneme discrimination across lang, 12m cannot do this, only in respective language . Shows PN of lang develops over first year of life. Retain if exposed to the environment

Question 6

3b. perceptual narrowing in infants (Pascallis 2002, pascalis 2005)

Answer 6

What about in faces?
Pascalis et al (2002) = PN of face discrimination. Habituated baby to face, then demonstrated novel face at same time. 6m able to discrim between human + monkey face, looking longer at novel faces of both, 10m= just human
Experience dependant
Pascalis et al 2005 extended thus and fund children that were read a monkey pic group= retained ability for discrimination
What does this show about our social understanding?
You start out with a broad range of social, visual discriminative abilities and focus in gradually on those which are relevant to you, because not surrounded by monkeys, we lose ability for discrimination. Empiricist

Question 7

4a. brain imaging studies and perceptual narrowing (De Haan 2022)

Answer 7

Popular choice to trace development of PN. Brain imaging allows us to see what goes on in the early stages of cog processing non invasively , opposing behavioural studies
Face perception in adults
De Haan 2002= adults show specific neural response to upright faces . 6m old brain= presented upright and inverted face of human and monkey, N170 doesn’t mirror adults. Less specialisation with babies differentiating monkey from human face but not inverted from upright
Suggests?
as babies get older, we show increased specialisation in the way we respond t the visual world

Question 8

4b. brain imaging studies and perceptual narrowing (Scherf 2007 + Golarai 2007)

Answer 8

Longitudinal research
FMRI Scherf et al 2007 + Golarai 2007= now show brain areas involved with face processing continues to develop dramatically across childhood and adolescence. Showing the brain is set up to respond to the social world not just into infancy, but into adulthood.
Evaluation
Whilst fmri provides us with high special resolution to allow for the investigation of precise regions BUT Indiv differences in developmental processes of sensory perception= difficult to generalise, .

Overall
Nevertheless Shows how PN and social changes are governed by the environment we insert ourselves into

Question 9

5. CONCLUSION

Answer 9

Olfactory particularly important to give early exposure to our sense channels