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36 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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neuron |
nerve cell; transmits information |
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axon |
branch that carries messages away from the neuron |
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dendrite |
branch that receives messages from axons of other cells |
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synapses |
gap where axon of one neuron meets dendrite of another; actual physical gaps |
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what accounts for the growth of the brain (in size) over childhood? |
increase in size/complexity of dendrites, increase in number of branches of axons, increase in number of synapses, and increase in myelination |
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what are the two cycles of overproduction in brain development? when does each occur? |
neurogenesis: proliferation of neurons prenatally, followed by neuronal death synaptogenesis: proliferation of cortex begins at birth followed by pruning of synapses which are not used |
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what is the cause of neuronal death? |
neurogenesis |
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what is the cause of synaptic pruning? |
synaptogenesis |
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reflex |
involuntary, inflexible stimulus-specific actions ex: sucking, rooting reflex, palmar grasping reflex, crawling, steeping, moro reflex |
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infants actively contribute to their own brain development |
via neurogenesis and synaptogenesis; the stimulation, perception, languages, etc that they experience pre and post-natally |
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sequence of voluntary action |
0-2 months- very little head and neck control at birth; at 1 month they are able to hold head with neck support and lift chin off crib 2-4 months- can roll over, sit with support in lower back; at end of 2nd month can lift chest off crib 4-6 months- can sit independently 6-10 months- can pull self to stand; ~24 hours later, can hands/knees crawl; begin using thumb in opposition to fingers 10-14 months- can stand independently; walking- can achieve upright balance, shift weight from one leg to other, and "controlled falling" |
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when does the visual acuity of an infant become adult-like? |
at 4 months |
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visual acuity |
commonly referred to as the clarity of vision; finest detail you can see; 12x worse than adults for the first 4 months |
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contrast |
measurement of visual acuity; black and white |
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spatial frequency |
measurement of visual acuity; how well you can determine the distance between lines |
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what are the optimal conditions for the young infant? |
high contrast, low spatial frequency, and roughly 1 foot away |
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habituation? |
measurement of vision; response decrement from repeated exposure to response-eliciting stimulus |
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what is a preferential looking task? |
measurement of vision; measures looking time, stimulus looked at longer inferred more novel and interesting |
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newborn visual preferences |
faces, attractive faces, and mothers faces- researchers argue over whether newborns prefer patterned wholes, or collections of lines, curves, and shadows |
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these preferences are not actually preferences for patterned wholes but for isolated stimulus elements |
there is more evidence that newborns are tuning into the patterned wholes more... but- no preference in 1st two months for mother's face with scarf, no preference in 1st two months for faces (really preferring stimulus with top-down asymmetry) |
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newborn auditory preferences |
speech (vs. non-speech sounds), mother's speech, native language (stress-time vs. syllable-times), and infant directed speech (elevated pitch, increased pitch variation, intonation contour, reduced speech rate, and melodic) |
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infant-directed speech (motherese) |
elevated pitch, increased pitch variation, intonation contour, reduced speech rate, and melodic |
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phone |
speech sounds which form syllables and words in all languages |
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phoneme |
phones that distinguish meaning in particular language (subset) |
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universal phonetic sensitivity |
everyone has the writing in place to prosper in any language setting because during development, organism does not know what setting it will be born in |
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perception |
the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events; happens in the immediacy of "here and now" |
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cognition |
all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating; cognition begins with perception; before we can make comparisons between two objects, categorize items, retrieve a fact, or create an image, we must have the basic data from the external world to work with; extends the "here and now" |
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three fundamental processes of cognition |
1. storing information 2. categorizing stored information 3. creating mental images of objects (re-presentations) |
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how does Piaget think knowledge is constructed? |
1. babies apply schemes to objects in their world (sucking, grasping, rooting) 2. by applying schemes to objects in world, babies gain information about these objects (texture, size, thickness, taste/smell) 3. as babies apply schemes more often and to more objects, their schemes begins to develop 4. as babies' schemes develop, they combine with one another 5. babies begin to give meaning to objects and start categorizing objects (hard/soft, large/small, bright/dark, cold/hot, smooth/rough) 6. as babies apply schemes they are performing physical operations on the world (transforming, combining, observing results of actions) 7. gradually babies begin to be able to perform physical operations mentally (what once had to be done physically can now be done mentally- ex: ability to rotate objects develops out of infants performing physical object rotations) |
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mental operation? |
mental abilities (adding, subtracting, categorizing, mental rotation, separating, organize things mentally, combining, reversing) |
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scheme |
action |
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how do schemes develop? |
by touching/grabbing/seeing/smelling/sucking/hearing objects |
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object concept/object permanence |
the understanding that objects and people exist as separate entities which continue to exist independent of our actions and perceptions |
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stages of the object concept |
First (0-4 months)- absent object concept; more tuned into self (own body) than objects; demonstration- visual tracking Second (4-8 months)- beginnings of object concept; more tuned into object; demonstration- extending search for object along a trajectory, but if object is hidden, infant doesn't know it exists Third (8-12 months)- improvement in object concept; demonstration- searching actively for hidden objects, but A-not-B-error Fourth (12-18 months)- more complete object concept; demonstration- searching where object was last seen (no A-not-B-error), but when journey to hiding place is not visible, infant fails to find object Fifth (18-24 months)- true object concept; objects exist for infants as independent entities; demonstration- exhaustive search; mentally represent objects and their displacement |
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A-not-B-error |
if object is placed under hiding place A, infant can lift hiding place and find object. Can do this multiple times in a row. If object is then placed under hiding place B, infant is no longer able to find the object, even with visible bulge of object in hiding place (like it was for hiding place A) |
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how does an infant demonstrate a True Object Concept? |
exhaustive search; will not stop searching until object is found; can create mental images of the object and its hiding place |
