Devlpsych Test 2

Front 1

Development of the Brain

Back 1

Grows at an astounding rate early in life, increasing from 25% of its adult weight at birth to 75% by age 2

Front 2

Brain Growth Spurt

Back 2

Last Three prenatal months and first two years after birth. More than half of one's adult brain weight is added at this time.
-synaptogenesis proceeds rapdily during this time

Front 3

Brain Cells

Back 3

Human brain and nervous system consists of more than a trillion highly specialized cells that work together to transmit electrical and chemical signals across many trillions of synapses

Front 4

Synapses

Back 4

connective spaces between one nerve cell and another

Front 5

Neurons

Back 5

basic unit of the brain and nervous system. Cells that receive and transmit neural impulses. Produced in the neural tube of the developing embryo. All the nuerons a person will have are already formed by the end of the second trimester of pregnancy
-assume specialized functions. have the potential to serve any neural function, and the functions each serves depend on where it ends up

Front 6

Glia

Back 6

nourish the neurons and eventually encase them in insulating sheaths of a waxy substance called myelin. Glia are far more numerous than nuerons and they continue to form throughout life

Front 7

Synaptogenesis

Back 7

Formation of synaptic connections among neurons- proceeds rapidly during brain growth spurt. About half the neurons produced early in life also die early in life; surviving neurons form hundreds of synapses, many of which also disappear if then neuron is not properly stimulated.

Front 8

Plasticity

Back 8

The fact that its cells are highly responsive to the effects of experience. The brain has evolved so that it produces an excess of neurons and synapses in preparation for receiving any and all kinds of sensory and motor stimulation that a human being could conceivably experience.

Front 9

Pruning

Back 9

neurons that are stimulated less often lose their synapses and stand in reserve to compensate for brain injuries or to support new skills in plasticity

Front 10

Plasticity in the Brains of Chimps

Back 10

experienced atrophy of the retina and the neurons that make up the optic nerve. Atrophy was reversible if the animal's visual deprivation did not exceed seve months but was irreversible and often led to total blindness if the deprivation lasted longer than a year.

Front 11

Brain Growth

Back 11

At birth the most highly developed areas are the brain stem and the midbrain which control states of consciousness, reflexes, and vital biological functions

Front 12

Cerebrum & Cerebral Cortex

Back 12

surround the midbrain; areas most directly implicated in voluntary bodily movements, perception, and higher intellectual activations

Front 13

Primary Motor Areas

Back 13

control simple motor activities such as waving the arms; first area of the cerebrum to mature; by 6 months of age, the primary motor areas of the cerebral cortex have developed to the point that they now direct most of the infant's movements

Front 14

Primary Sensory Areas

Back 14

control sensory processes such as vision, hearing, smelling, and tasting' first area of the cerebrum to mature

Front 15

Myelin Sheath

Back 15

acts as an insulator to speed the transmission of neural impulses, thus allowing the brain to communicate more efficiently with different parts of the body

Front 16

Myelinization

Back 16

follows a definite chronological sequence that parallels the maturation of the nervous system. As neural pathways between the brain and the skeletal muscles myelinate the child becomes capable of increasingly complex motor activities such as lifting the head and chest. Some ares of the brain are not completely myelinated until the mid to late teens or early adulthood.
-increase attention span

Front 17

Reticular Formation and Frontal Cortex

Back 17

allow us to concentrate on a subject for lengthy periods; are not fully myelinated at puberty

Front 18

Cerebrum

Back 18

highest brain centre. Consists of two halves connected by corpus callosum

Front 19

Corpus Callosum

Back 19

band of fibres which connects two halves of cerebrum together

Front 20

Cerebral Cortex

Back 20

covers each of the hemispheres of the cerebrum. outer layer of grey matter that controls sensory and motor processes, perception, and intellectual functioning

Front 21

Left Cerebral Cortex

Back 21

controls the right side of the body. Controls centres for speech, hearing, verbal memory, decision making, language processing, and expression of positive emotions

Front 22

Sensation

Back 22

process by which sensory receptor neurons detect information and transmit it to the brain

Front 23

Perception

Back 23

interpretation of sensory input: recognizing what you see, understanding what is said to you, or knowing that the odour you've detected is

Front 24

Learning

Back 24

change in behaviour that meets the following three requirements
1. individual now thinks perceives, or reacts to the environment in a new way
2. change is clearly the result of a person's experiences, attributable to repetition, study, practice, or the observations the person has made, rather than to hereditary or maturational processes or to physiological damage resulting from injury
3. change is relatively permanent

Front 25

Empiricist

Back 25

believed that an infant was a tabula rasa (blank slate) who must learn to interpret sensations

Front 26

Nativist

Back 26

took the nature side of the nature/nurture issue, arguing that many basic perceptual abilities are innate

Front 27

Enrichment Theory

Back 27

claims that sensory stimulation is often fragmented or confusing. to interpret such ambiguous input, we must use our available cognitive schemes to add to or enrich it

Front 28

Differentiation Theory

Back 28

argues that sensory stimulation provides all we need to interpret our experiences. Our task as fledgling perceivers is simply to detect the differentiating information

Front 29

Distinctive Features

Back 29

characteristics of a stimulus that remain constant; dimensions on which two or more objects differ and can be discriminated

Front 30

Preference Method

Back 30

Simple procedure in which at least two stimuli are presented simultaneously to see whether infants will attend more to one of them than the others

Front 31

Preference Method Shortcoming

Back 31

If an infant shows no preferences among the target stimuli, it is not clear whether he or she failed to discriminate them or simply found them equally interesting

Front 32

Habituation

Back 32

process whereby a repetitive stimulus becomes so familiar that responses initially associated with it
-dramatically improves throughout the first year, related to the maturation of the sensory areas of the cerebral cortex

Front 33

Dishabituate

Back 33

Increase in responsiveness that occurs when stimulation changes
-change in respiration or heart rate. Should the infant fail to react, it is assumed that the differences between the two stimuli were too subtle for him to her to detect

Front 34

Habituation vs Dishabituation Testing

Back 34

Tests an infant's ability to discriminate two stimuli that differ in some way. Investigator first presents one of the stimuli until the infant stops attending or otherwise responding to it. Second stimulus is presented: if the infant discriminates this second stimulus from the first he or she will dishabituate

Front 35

Evoked Potentials

Back 35

change in patterning of the brain waves that indicates that an individual detects a stimulus
-electrodes are placed on the infant's scalp above those brain centres that process the kind of sensory information that investigator is presenting
-responses to visual stimuli are recorded from occipital lobe whereas sounds are recorded from the temporal lobe

Front 36

High-Amplitude Sucking Method

Back 36

method of assessing infant's perceptual capabilities that capitalizes on the ability of infants to make interesting events last by varying the rate at which they suck on a special pacifier

Front 37

Sucking Method Meanings

Back 37

should the infant detect this stimulation and find it interesting, he or she can make it last by displaying bursts of high-amplitude sucking. Once the infant's interest wanes and her sucking returns to the baseline level, the stimulation ceases. Second stimulus that elicits a dramatic increase in high-amplitude sucking would allow investigators to conclude that the infant has discriminated the second stimulus from the first.

Front 38

Language and Habituation

Back 38

infants who habituate rapidly during the first 6-8 months of life are quicker to understand and use language during the second year

Front 39

Classical Conditioning

Back 39

type of learning in which a neutral stimulus that initially has no effect on the child eventually elicits a response of some sort by virtue of its association with a second stimulus that always elicits the response

Front 40

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)

Back 40

stimulus that elicits a particular response without any prior learning

Front 41

Unconditioned Response (UCR)

Back 41

unlearned response elicited by an unconditioned stimulus

Front 42

Conditioned Response (CR)

Back 42

learned response to a stimulus that was not originally capable of producing the response

Front 43

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

Back 43

Initially neutral stimulus that comes to elicit a particular response after being paired with a UCS that always elicits that response

Front 44

Extinction

Back 44

gradual weakening and disappearance of a learned response that occurs because the CS is no longer paired with the UCS or the response is no longer reinforced

Front 45

Watson and Classical Conditioning

Back 45

Proved that emotional responses can be acquired through classical conditioning procedures

Front 46

Counter conditioning

Back 46

therapeutic intervention based on classical conditioning procedures. Goal s to extinguish an undesirable response and replace it with a new and more adaptive one

Front 47

Limitations of Classical Conditioning

Back 47

In the first few weeks of life, is likely to be successful only for biologically programmed reflexes such as sucking. Neonates process information very slowly and require more time than an older participant to associate

Front 48

Operant Conditioning

Back 48

form of learning in which freely emitted acts become either more or less probable depending on the consequences they produce

Front 49

Positive Reinforcer

Back 49

any stimulus whose presentation, as the consequence of an act, increases the probability that the act will recur

Front 50

Negative Reinforcer

Back 50

any stimulus whose removal or termination, as the consequences of an act, increases the probability that the act will recur

Front 51

Punisher

Back 51

Any consequence of an act that suppresses the response and decreases the probability that it will recur

Front 52

Positive Punishment

Back 52

Punishing consequence that involves the presentation of something unpleasant following a behaviour

Front 53

Negative Punishment

Back 53

punishing consequence that involves the removal of something pleasant following a behaviour

Front 54

Reinforcer

Back 54

any consequence that strengthens a response by making it more likely to occur in the future

Front 55

Operant Conditioning in Infancy

Back 55

even babies born prematurely are susceptible to operant conditioning. Successful conditioning in very young infants is generally limited to the few biologically significant behaviours

Front 56

Can Infants remember what they learned?

Back 56

young infants might be better at behaviours they have performed that have proven to be reinforcing

Front 57

Early memories

Back 57

find it hard unless given explicit reminders.

Front 58

Operant theorists and punishment

Back 58

believe that it merely suppresses an undesirable response without teaching anything new. stress that it may engender anger, hostility, or resentment

Front 59

Interpretation

Back 59

this of this input rather than the sheer amount of anxiety he or she experiences, that determines the effectiveness of punitive controls

Front 60

Observational Learning

Back 60

results from observing the behaviour of other people.

Front 61

Encode

Back 61

process by which external stimulation is converted to a mental representation

Front 62

Imitation

Back 62

babies less than 7 days old were able to do this
-becomes much more obvious and more reliable between 8 and 12 months of age

Front 63

Deferred Imitation

Back 63

ability to reproduce the actions of a model at some point in the future- develops rapidly during the second year

Front 64

Importance of Deferred Imitation

Back 64

indicates that children are not only constructing symbolic representations of their experiences, but can also retrieve this information from memory to guide their reproduction of past events

Front 65

Cerebral Lateralization

Back 65

specialization of brain functions in the left and right cerebral hemispheres
-may originate during the prenatal period and be well under way at birth

Front 66

PET scan

Back 66

works by injecting a radioactive isotope into participant and watching blood flow/glucose levels for certain areas of the brain when presented with a stimulus

Front 67

Subtraction method

Back 67

actual locating principle of PET scan. Involves taking picture of neural activity at rest and when stimulated and comparing to locate stimulus area

Front 68

PET advantages

Back 68

Allows for participant to talk as well as move.

Front 69

PET disadvantages

Back 69

Requires the use of radioactive isotopes and has low temporal and spatial resolution