Life Span Growth & Development Ch. 6 The First Two Years: Cognitive Development

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Sensorimotor Intelligence

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Piaget's term for the way infants think - by using their senses and motor skills during the first period of cognition.

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Primary Circular Reactions

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The first of three types of feedback loops in sensorimotor intelligence, this one involving the infant's own body. The infant senses motion, sucking, noise, and so on, and tries to understand them.

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Secondary Circular Reactions

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The second of three types of feedback loops in sensorimotor intelligence, this one involving people and objects. The infant is responsive to other people and to toys and other objects the infant can touch and move.

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Object Permanence

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The realization that objects (including people) still exist when they cannot be seen, touched, or heard.

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Tertiary Circular Reactions

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The third of three types of feedback loops in sensorimotor intelligence, this one involving active, exploration and experiementation. The infant explores a range of new activities, varying his or her responses as a way to learning about the world.

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"Little Scientist"

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Piaget's term for the stage-five toddler (age 12-18 months) who experiements without anticipating the results.

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Deferred Imitation

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A sequence in which an infant first perceives something that someone else does and then performs the same action a few hours or even days later.

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Habituation

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The process of getting used to an object or event through repeated exposure to it.

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fMRI

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Functional magnetic resonance imaging, a measuring technique in which the brain's electrical excitement indicates activation anywhere in the brain; fMRI helps researchers locate neurological responses to stimuli.

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Information-Processing Theory

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A perspective that compares human thinking processes, by analogy, to computer analysis of data, including sensory input, connections, stored memories, and output.

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Affordance

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An opportunity for perception and interaction that is offered by a person, place, or object in the environment.

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Visual Cliff

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An experimental apparatus that gives an illusion of a sudden drop between one horizontal surface and another.

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Dynamic Perception

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Perception that is primed to focus on movement and change.

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People Preference

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A universal principle of infant perception, consisting of an innate attraction to other humans, which is evident in visual, auditory, tactile, and other preferences.

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Reminder Session

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A perceptual experience that is intended to help a person recollect an idea, a thing, or an experience, without testing whether the person remembers it at the moment.

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Child-Directed Speech

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The high-pitched, simplified, and repetitive way adults speak to infants. Also called baby talk or motherese.

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Babbling

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The extended repetition of certain syllables, such as ba-ba-ba, that begins between 6-9 months.

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Naming Explosion

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A sudden increase in an infant's vocabulary, especially in the number of nouns, that begins at about 18 months of age.

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Holophrase

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A single word that is used to express a complete, meaningful thought.

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Grammar

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All the methods - word order, verb forms, and so on - that language use to communicate meaning apart from the words themselves.

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Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

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Chomsky's term for a hypothesized mental structure that enables humans to learn language, including the basic aspects of grammar, vocabulary, and intonation.

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Describe Piaget's First Stage of Sensorimotor Intelligence

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Birth to 1 month - reflexes of sucking, grasping, staring, & listening

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Describe Piaget's Second Stage of Sensorimotor Intelligence

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1-4 mo. - the first acquired adaptations: accomodation & coordination of reflexes i.e. sucking a pacifier different from a nipple

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Describe Piaget's Third Stage of Sensorimotor Intelligence

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4-8 mo. - An awareness of things: responding to people & objects i.e. clapping hands when mother says "patty cake"

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Describe Piaget's Fourth Stage of Sensorimotor Intelligence

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8-12 mo. - new adaptation & anticipation: becoming more deliberate & purposeful in responding to people & objects. i.e. putting mother's hands together in order to make her start playing patty-cake

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Describe Piaget's Fifth Stage of Sensorimotor Intelligence

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12-18 mo - New means through active experimentation: experimentation & creativity in the actions of the "little scientist". ie. putting a teddy bear in the toilet & flushing it.

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Describe Piaget's Sixth Stage of Sensorimotor Intelligence

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18-24 mo. - New means through mental combinations: considering before doing provides the child with new ways of achieving a goal without resorting to trial-and-error experiements. i.e. before flushing, remembering that the toilet overflowed the last time, and hesitating.

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Describe Piaget's First Stage of Sensorimotor Intelligence

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Birth -1 month. Reflexes: sucking, grasping, staring, listening.

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Describe Piaget's Second Stage of Sensorimotor Intelligence

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1-4 months. The first acquired adaptations: accomodation & coordination of reflexes i.e. sucking a pacifer differenlty from a nipple, grabbing a bottle to suck it.

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Describe Piaget's Third Stage of Sensorimotor Intelligence

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4-8 months. An awareness of things: responding to people and objects i.e. clapping hands when mother says "patty-cake".

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Describe Piaget's Fourth Stage of Sensorimotor Intelligence

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8-12 months. new adaptation & anticipation: becoming more deliberate & purposeful in responding to people & objects i.e putting mother's hands together in order to make her start playing patty-cake.

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Describe Piaget's Fifth Stage of Sensorimotor Intelligence

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12-18 months. New means through active experimentation: experimentation & creativity in the actions of the "little scientist" i.e. putting a teddy bear in the toilet & flushing it.

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Describe Piaget's Sixth Stage of Sensorimotor Intelligence

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New means through mental combinations: considering before doing provides the child with new ways of achieving a goal without resorting to trial-and-error experiments i.e. before flushing, remembering that the toilet overflowed the last, and hesitating.

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How is object permanence tested in infancy?

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Two tests are conducted to determine object permanence: Piaget used an experiment having an adult show an infant an interesting toy, cover it with a lightweight cloth, and then observing the infant's response. Other researchers utilized an experiment in which objects seemed to disappear behind a screen while researchers traced eye movements and brain activity.

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What have object permanence tests revealed?

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Piaget's object permanence tests revealed that infants younger than 8 months do not search for objects hidden under a light clothe, at 8 months infants search immediately after the object is covered but seem to forget about the object if they have to wait a few seconds, and by 2 years children understand object permanence by searching well but not perfectly. Further tests have revealed that object peramence begins to emerge at 4 1/2 months.

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Describe some major advances in the scientific investigation of infant cognition.

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EEG - measures electrical activity in the top layers of the brain where the cortex is.
ERP - notes the amplitude & frequency of electrical activity in specific parts of the cortex in reaction to various stimuli.
fMRI - measures changes in blood flow anywhere in the brain (not just the outer layers).
PET - reveals activity in various parts of the brain, can be pinpointed with precision, but requires injection of radioactive dye to light up the active parts of the brain.

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Explain infant memory.

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Memory depends on both brain maturation & experience. That is why memory is fragile in the first year (being increased by dynamic perception & reminders) and becomes more evident (although many types of memory remain quite fragile)in the second year. Reminder sessions help trigger memories, & young brains learn motor sequences long before they can remember verbally. Memory is mutifaceted, explicit memories are rare in infancy.

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Describe language development in the first 2 years.

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Eager attempts to communicate are apparent in the first year. Infants babble at about 6-9 months, understand words & gestures by 10 months, and speak their first words at about 1 year. Vocabulary begins to build very slowly until the infant knows approximately 50 words. Then the naming explosion occurs. Toward the end of the second year, toddlers begin putting two words together, showing by their word order that they understand rudiments of grammar.

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Describe the theories of language learning.

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Three main theories emphasize different aspects of early language learning: that infants must be taught, that their brains are genetically attuned to language, and that their social impulses foster language learning. A hybrid theory that uses all the insights & research on early language learning is desired.

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What is the universal sequence of language development?

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1) listening & responding
2) babbling
3) first words

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Identify and describe Piaget's six stages of sensorimotor intelligence.

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Stages One and Two: Primary Circular Reactions - these deal with the infant's responses to its own body.
Stages Three and Four: Secondary Circular Reactions - these involve the infant's responses to objects and people.
Stages Four and Fibe: Tertiary Circular Reactions - these are most creative, first with action and then with ideas.

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What view of cognitive development views cognition as similar to computer functioning?

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Information Processing Theory

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What did the Gibson's research focus on?

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Perception and affordances

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What are the 3 theories of language learning?

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1) Infants need to be taught, using reinforcement (Skinner - behaviorism)
2) Infants teach themselves using an inborn language acquisition devise (Chomsky - epigentic)
3) Social impulses foster infant language